Skip to main content

Yale coach Andy Shay is the guest on Episode 7 of Overtime with Paul Carcaterra, which dropped Tuesday. Listen with the links below.

Apple

Spotify

Andy Shay was summoned to his boss’ office at Delaware’s High Performance Figure Skating Center. He had a good idea as to how the conversation would go.

Earlier that morning, Shay was in charge of running the Zamboni and treating the ice for Ukranian Olympic gold medalist Oksana Baiul. He backed the Zamboni onto the ice to “cut” it, not knowing that Baiul was still skating, past her practice time.

Safe to say she wasn't happy to see Shay and his Zamboni. Neither was his boss.

“He said something like ‘She’s way more important than you, so you’re done. I was like ‘Ok,’” Shay recalls.

Gone was another one of Shay’s odd jobs — he also worked until 3 a.m. stacking shipments for UPS and served as a bartender. He used those jobs as another source of income while he served as an assistant coach Delaware men’s lacrosse under the legendary Bob Shillinglaw.

Almost two decades later, there’s no need for a second job. Shay is fresh off winning the 2018 NCAA men’s lacrosse national championship with Yale — the Ivy League’s first title since 2001.

His coaching style was shaped under Shillinglaw and UMass coach Greg Cannella through the early 2000s. He took over at Yale in 2010 and got busy building a perennial national title contender in New Haven.

This year, Shay’s had to work even harder to make sure the Bulldogs follow up the historic 2018 season with another strong campaign. Without Tewaaraton winner Ben Reeves, this Yale team has had to adopt a different identity.

“I personally did not anticipate the pressure,” he said. “I don’t feel it. I did not identify with what our team would be going through. When I watch us play right now, I don’t think we're playing as loose as we can. The expectation is that Yale is preseason No.1. ‘You’re going to win it again, right?’”

But Shay hasn’t changed his methods. He’s still working on building this crop of Yale players to another title. As the son of a coach with a marine background, Shay always wanted to emulate his father’s coaching style.

“He was just such a presence as a coach,” he said. “He was a former Marine and when he coached, it was like a drill sergeant. I would hope that he’s very proud [of me]. When I first started doing this, my goal was to impersonate him.”

Through his 10 seasons at Yale — one of the most prestigious institutions in the world — he’s developed a culture of success around his program. He’s come a long way from his spat with Oksana Baiul.