Brian Kelly has a great life. He’s a physical education teacher and boys’ lacrosse coach at St. St. Margaret’s Episcopal School in San Juan Capistrano, California. When someone asks, “How are you doing?” and you respond with, “Livin’ the dream,” it’s usually sarcastic.
But for Kelly, that response is genuine.
Earlier this week, Kelly’s alma mater, Whitter College, announced that it would no longer sponsor men’s lacrosse as an NCAA sport after the upcoming spring season. This announcement came in tandem with the dissolution of the school’s football and men’s and women’s golf teams as well. But something the men’s lacrosse team has that those teams do not is an appearance in the NCAA semifinals.
The 2002 Poets squad might go down as one of the most underrated teams in the history of Division III lacrosse. Of course, that’s mostly because no one really knew who — or even where — they were back in the early aughts.
There have been plenty of teams that have run through a gauntlet of an out-of-conference and out-of-region schedule. But none of them have the success that Whittier found so quickly. How did that happen? Well, the nation to our north had a good deal to do with it, as did a dash of happenstance.
The Poets might have played in the Golden State, but that ‘02 team was made up of players from the east coast and a richly mined vein of skilled Canadians. How skilled? Eight players from the squad would go on to play pro lacrosse in the NLL — one of whom was Kelly himself. Ironically, the Canadian windfall came courtesy of another program, Gannon University, folding its program. In fact, Loyola legend Gavin Prout was set to join the Poets before ultimately continuing his career with the Greyhounds.
Kelly was a mainstay on the team as a marauding offensive minded LSM. Long before the days of Scott Ratliff and even before Brodie Merrill would rise to prominence, Kelly was blasting through the half line and uncorking long pole rips that had goalies fumbling for their mental set of keys.
“I wasn’t skilled enough to be a pure offensive player at that point,” Kelly said, “so they put a pole in my hand, but I kind of took that up and down the field mentality. And I think I sort of played LSM like a basketball player.”
If you take a closer look at that 2002 season, you would be hard-pressed to believe the resume was submitted by a California applicant. The team went 10-1 in the regular season with its lone loss coming against a natioanlly-ranked Ithaca team. The score? 15-14.
After that loss, the Poets ripped through the rest of their schedule, beating teams like Stevens, Connecticut College and Eastern Connecticut. However, they didn’t get any respect on a national level until they went to Division III power Ohio Wesleyan and almost laid a 30-spot at the feet of the top-10 ranked Battling Bishops.
“That game was wild,” Kelly said. “There were three minutes left in the first quarter, and it was 10-0. It was the most absurd start to a game that I think I’ve ever been a part of. Coming into that game, we knew we were good, but at that moment, we knew we could be this team that can just steamroll people. Looking back, it was one of the most unique things you could be a part of in lacrosse history up to that point.”