SPARKS, Md. — Two of the best coaches in the history of lacrosse, Jenny Levy and Bill Tierney, will be honored at the 2nd annual USA Lacrosse Foundation Gala on June 7 at Gotham Hall in New York City. Members of the 2023 U.S. men’s national team will also be celebrated as they get ready to compete for the world championship this summer in San Diego.
The USA Lacrosse Foundation Gala debuted last year, honoring former U.S. team players Kyle Harrison, Paul Rabil and Crista Samaras, and helped raise over $650,000 to help USA Lacrosse grow and develop the sport.
The U.S. stars at the event are the inspiration for the generation of new players, many of whom will first touch a stick due to the support of USA Lacrosse. A fun-filled, energetic evening will be hosted by Lindsay Shookus, an Emmy-award winning producer who worked for NBC’s Saturday Night Live for 20 years.
This year honorees, Levy and Tierney, are both passionate supporters of the growth of the sport, and have similar track records of success — each wining multiple NCAA championships and a gold medal as head coach of the U.S. national team along with induction into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame.
“I was really surprised when I got the phone call — in my spirit I think I’m still a young coach and clearly I’m not,” Levy said with a laugh. “I live to be in the moment and help problem solve things in front of me. To think about what a body of work is, is interesting. It’s not how I operate.”
“What these things do, if you have a heart anyway, they really make you quickly think about everybody else who has done everything, starting with my wife and my family,” Tierney said. “I think of it for all the people who have given something in their lives. That’s what I think about with all these honors. I’ve been so lucky. Great friendships. It’s just, I don’t look at it as ‘Aw shucks, why me?’ I look at it as ‘Thank you God for giving me this opportunity to have other people bless me with what they’ve had.’”
Levy, the head women’s lacrosse coach at the University of North Carolina, led the U.S. to the gold medal last summer at the World Lacrosse Women’s Championship in Towson, Md., coming on the heels of her third national championship at UNC.
Many are familiar with her powerhouse teams, but not as many realize that she built the program from scratch at a time when there was almost no Division I women’s lacrosse in the South. Carolina quickly ascended under her leadership, and she has now topped 400 career victories in 27 seasons to rank third all-time in victories among NCAA Division I women’s lacrosse coaches. She led UNC to NCAA championships in 2013, 2016 and 2022. Her team was a perfect 22-0 last year to set a school record for wins and she was named the national coach of the year for the third time in her career.
Levy was also a standout player at the University of Virginia. She was a two-time first team All-American, was named the NCAA tournament’s outstanding attacker after helping lead the Cavaliers to the national championship in 1991 and went on to play on the U.S. team.
Tierney, the head men’s lacrosse coach at Denver, has won more NCAA Division I men’s lacrosse championships — seven — than any other head coach in history. After helping Johns Hopkins to a pair of NCAA titles as an assistant coach, Tierney took the head coaching job at Princeton, a program that hadn’t won a single Ivy League championship in the 20 years prior to his arrival for the 1988 season. He transformed the program into the sport’s best, winning six national championships between 1992 and 2001.
In 2010, Tierney took on a new challenge as the head coach at the University of Denver. He led the Pioneers to the NCAA tournament in his first season and in 2015, Denver became the first men’s school away from the Eastern seaboard to win the NCAA championship. Inducted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 2002, Tierney ranks second all-time among NCAA Division I men’s lacrosse coaches with over 400 career victories. This year marks the 25th anniversary of Tierney coaching the 1998 U.S. men’s team to the gold medal in a dramatic overtime game against Canada in Baltimore.
For more information or to purchase tickets for the 2023 USA Lacrosse Foundation Gala, please visit: www.usalacrosse.com/gala
About USA Lacrosse Foundation
The USA Lacrosse Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that serves as the philanthropic arm of USA Lacrosse. The Foundation helps drive the three main pillars of the USA Lacrosse mission: 1) Fuel the growth; 2) Enrich the experience; 3) Field the best national teams. Supporting the foundation provides thousands of children across the country the opportunity to experience the gift of lacrosse. To learn more about the USA Lacrosse Foundation, please visit www.usalacrosse.com/foundation
