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little over a year ago, Andy Towers, Nat St. Laurent and Jim Stagnitta sat shoulder-to-shoulder around a glass table at NBC Sports Studios in Stamford, Conn., during the inaugural Premier Lacrosse League College Draft. 

This year, St. Laurent will make the Redwoods selections more than 500 miles away from his coaching peers. Instead of a high-tech TV studio, the coaches will all draft from the safety of their homes. St. Laurent set up in his office — his “man cave” — in Ada, Ohio. 

"I’d like to pull a Bill Belichick and have a puppy sit in my chair while I'll make my picks from somewhere else," he joked last week. "But that should be more of a Waterdogs thing."  

Paul Burmeister can relate to St. Laurent’s Belichick reference better than most. He came to NBC Sports Group in 2011 after a decade at NFL Network. While his work for NBC has taken him to locales like Rio de Janeiro, Pyeongchang and Düsseldorf, this spring he’s voiced most of his NFL commentary, draft coverage and podcasts in front of the stone fireplace in the basement of his home in Westport, Conn. — about a 20-minute drive from Stamford. 

Burmeister wanted more of a lacrosse feel for the PLL draft, though, so he swapped out the curated book collection on the mantle behind him that featured titles like Bruce Springsteen’s memoir “Born To Run.” 

The background now includes a picture of Burmeister and his two sons on the field during Week 8 at Avaya Stadium in San Jose, an official PLL ball he pocketed one weekend last summer while working the sidelines as a reporter, two lacrosse heads and a framed image with four panoramic shots from some of the PLL’s 2019 venues that Paul and Mike Rabil gave him as a gift. There’s also an Emmy. 

“In addition to being host, I have kind of been like a stage manager here along with my wife,” Burmeister said. 

The fact that Burmeister, analyst Ryan Boyle and each of the seven PLL head coaches will communicate during the draft via the video technology platform CloudCast underscores the new reality of running a sports league amidst stay-at-home orders brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“It certainly doesn't change the preparation,” Waterdogs head coach Andy Copelan said. “But you're talking about some coaches that are not all that tech savvy, so it's just a matter of making sure there are no snags at that end.”

Last week, the league made waves when it announced the PLL Championship Series — a fully quarantined and fanless two-week tournament in lieu of its regular touring model. The college draft, which will be broadcast Wednesday at 7 p.m. EST on NBC Sports Network, represents the next step toward realizing that vision and bringing lacrosse back.

Apart from its remote nature and the reduced number of rounds (two instead of four, like last year) the most distinguishing feature of this year’s draft is uncertainty.

“It's a complex animal this year,” Burmeister said. “Any draft is, but this one has some real hurdles with how the last two months have played out.” 

The NCAA’s ruling to provide eligibility relief for spring sport student-athletes whose seasons were cut short also altered many prospects’ timelines to the pro ranks.  

Michael Sowers held the No. 1 spot on ESPN analyst Paul Carcaterra’s big board back in January, and he seemed like a perfect fit to complement the Archers’ attack with world class shooters like Marcus Holman and Will Manny on the wings. But at least for this summer, Archers head coach Chris Bates will not have the opportunity to reunite with the player he recruited to Princeton out of Upper Dublin (Pa.) High School. 

“As a college athlete, that's something you want to be a part of and you're excited about,” Sowers said of the PLL four days before the start of the Tigers’ 2020 season. 

Sowers’ postgraduate plans for next spring will reportedly see him in a slightly different palette of blue and white when he plays for Duke. The MLL’s Boston Cannons still took a flyer and used a fifth round pick on Sowers in their draft on May 4, which was held over social media. 

Carcaterra’s revised big board, published last week, illustrates the disruption. The list of 10 names includes only three from his original, chief among them Penn State attackman Grant Ament, who is now the favorite for the Archers to take with the No. 1 pick. 

Ament’s placement seems like the only consensus that’s emerged. In the last week alone, TD Ierlan made it known that he’d received approval to return to Yale. Villanova’s Connor Kirst, the 2019 Big East Midfielder of the Year, announced he was coming back to the Main Line for the 2021 season. Notre Dame’s Bryan Costabile declared for the PLL draft instead of exploring a fifth year of eligibility. There are too many other status changes to mention. 

“It’s a really fluid list,” Chaos head coach Andy Towers said.

Pro Lacrosse Talk writer Dan Arestia expressed the feeling of most lacrosse fans trying to comprehend this year’s draft class when he described his PLL mock draft as “basically a two thousand word shrug emoji.”

The PLL coaches, who also act as their teams’ general managers, have leveraged their networks in the college ranks to sift through a dizzying array of variables and help distinguish between fact and fiction. 

“We’ve all done our homework,” Whipsnakes head coach Jim Stagnitta said. 

The shortened 2020 season also limits the sample size of recent tape they can assess. 

“If you’re the coaches and you have less film to evaluate and you have some real unknowns if a kid is coming out or going back, that's the story of the draft to me,” Burmeister said. 

Burmeister even considered talking with each of the coaches at the start of the broadcast about what made this year’s evaluation particularly challenging, since that element is pivotal to understanding the process. He and PLL coordinating producer Michael Siegel have scrapped those plans, however, because they worried the conversation would take up too much time before the selections. 

“It's been a lot of time on the phone with coaches and colleagues that we know, trying to see what these young men are doing while not trying to contact them too much because you don't want them to have any added pressure on them,” St. Laurent said of the last couple weeks. “While doing that, you still have to do your due diligence to find the right pieces for our organization and leave no stone unturned.”

St. Laurent snagged the biggest steal of the 2019 college draft when he selected goalie Tim Troutner out of High Point with the 20th overall pick. Troutner turned into the rookie of the year and remained a steadying presence during the Redwoods’ run to the championship game. 

Ryder Garnsey, who St. Laurent acquired through the waiver wire in the PLL player pool after he went undrafted, tallied the most points of all rookies despite not starting until Week 3. PLL Stats Analyst Jake Watts wrote Monday that with the benefit of hindsight, the Archers should have selected Garnsey with the No. 1 pick as opposed to Pat Spencer, who — as you might have heard — elected to use a fifth year of eligibility to play basketball at Northwestern. Troutner and Redwoods attackman Clarke Petterson also cracked the top five on Watts’ “Re-Draft” list. 

While the talent pool and marquee names for this year’s class took a hit, thus positioning 2021 with a glut of potential franchise players, St. Laurent countered the notion that there are a dearth of key contributors available. 

“There are some really good programs out there and some players that are coming out that people just aren't talking about,” he said. 

Last week, the PLL sent Ring Lights to all the head coaches to illuminate their “war rooms.” Despite stressful hours on the phone and countless texts to finalize strategies and confirm prospects’ intentions, St. Laurent is not too worried about his close up.

“I've got a pretty face,” he said. “So I don't need any hair and makeup.”