ANNAPOLIS, Md. — About a month after taking the men’s lacrosse job at Navy, Joe Amplo had a recruit on campus — or “on the yard,” in academy parlance, as he’s quickly discovered — and was asked about the best path for a midshipman to become a lawyer.

As with so much else since his arrival from Marquette, it was a question he couldn’t immediately answer. But he promised he’d figure it out.

“That’s on the list of a million things I have to learn,” Amplo said in his office on a recent morning. “It’ll take time. [Longtime operations director] Mark Goers told me, ‘You’re a plebe this year. Just like the plebes are going through their mental anguish currently, you’re going to go through that. This place won’t become easier, but more manageable as time goes on.’”

Amplo, of course, isn’t in Annapolis just to manage one of the storied programs in the sport’s history. He’s there to elevate it back into a consistent Patriot League contender, a team capable of earning NCAA tournament berths on a regular basis.

He vividly remembers the 2004 national title game, when Navy dropped a riveting 14-13 contest to Syracuse in Baltimore, as his favorite memory as a spectator. Yet he was also comfortably ensconced at Marquette, where he led the Eagles to a pair of NCAA tournament appearances as the first coach in the program’s history.

So why leave?

“To have an opportunity to help educate, in some small way, the next crop of great leaders for our country, just that alone could be enough for me to take this job,” Amplo said. “That’s a big part of it, but it’s not the only part of it. I do believe coaching at the Naval Academy and getting to a place in the sport that’s close to the top, that would be a great feeling as a coach.”

There is work required to get back to that point. The 2004 team was the highlight of a six-year run which included five Patriot League titles and three trips to the NCAA quarterfinals.

But the last decade, for a variety of reasons, was less successful, and it cost Richie Meade and then Rick Sowell the head coaching job. The Mids went 65-73 in the 2010s, reaching one NCAA tournament. They haven’t won a Patriot League tournament game since 2010.

Yet there were also glimmers of hope in recent years. The lone NCAA tournament appearance in 2016 included a first-round triumph at Yale and near-upset of Brown in the quarterfinals. Navy also went 7-1 in Patriot play in both 2016 and 2018.

The Midshipmen are coming off a 6-7 season and lost two starters — Ryan Wade (20 goals, 28 assists) and Greyson Torain (24 goals, 13 assists) — to graduation. Whatever path Amplo takes to revitalizing things, it’s already clear there’s one person who will have a profound impact even though he’s not with the program.

Amplo played for and coached under John Danowski at Hofstra. Defensive coordinator John Orsen, plucked off Denver’s staff, played for Danowski at Hofstra.

Offensive coordinator Brad Ross, who will be given wide latitude after arriving from Ohio State — “The one thing I told him, you can run whatever you want offensively, but our players have to get better,” Amplo said. “They have to get better over the course of a season and over the course of four years and that’s all I care about.” — was a member of Danowski’s first Duke teams.

Little wonder Amplo mentioned fundamentals, development and teaching — all things closely associated with Danowski’s teams — as priorities.

“I do believe that he’s got this refreshing sense of reality on what this business is about,” Amplo said. “He doesn’t let the spotlight or the pressure of wins and losses get in the way of that. That’s a hard thing to do, especially in this day and age and in the spot in the sport that he’s at. I think his influence, it’s on a minute-to-minute basis. Not a daily basis, but a minute-to-minute basis on how I’m going to manage this program.”

And here’s another Danowski touch: Amplo has tasked Orsen with keeping a journal from the very start of the staff’s tenure, jotting down a few thoughts or experiences each day as a way to recall the journey. It’s advice Amplo received from his old boss when he took over at Marquette, and he rued not following it when he got started in Milwaukee.

In that case, everything about the program was new. Here, there’s a well-established structure in which to work, which means there’s plenty for the new Navy staff to learn with far more immediacy than determining how to keep pace with Loyola in the Patriot League or finding a path to beating rival Army each April.

“We can’t be afraid to ask dumb questions,” Amplo said. “We can’t be afraid to admit our ignorance. In some ways, it’s refreshing for folks, and we have to do more listening than talking as we start this thing here.”

The midsummer scrambling —of hiring a staff, of relocating his family, of touching base with returning players and getting to know them better once classes begin next month — is the start of what Amplo hopes is a lasting story for his program.

“God willing, this is a 25-year life investment for me and my family, and I want to remember these days and moments, when we don’t know what to say to recruits, when we don’t know which direction to walk in on a tour,” Amplo said. “That’s the fun part. Trying to figure it out together and relying on people who really care about this place and will do anything to help us succeed. …

“Why would I ever want to leave here? This is a destination job for me. It really is. I want to be known as the Navy coach.”