The March 2nd ESPN.com feature story on University of Virginia men's lacrosse coach Dom Starsia focuses on Starsia's recent career triumphs in the midst of dealing with tragedies and challenges over the last 18 months, such as the suicide of senior star midfielder Will Barrow, the sudden death of lacrosse media relations director Michael Colley to a heart attack, and his dad's current illness.
Photo: Virginia lacrosse media relations director Michael Colley, right, with 2006 Tewaaraton Trophy winner Matt Ward after the 2006 NCAA championship game. Colley died in July of 2009 at age 46 of a heart attack.
Excerpts from the feature appear below. To read the full article, go to:
Milestones, life lesson move Starsia, by Ana Katherine Clemmons, ESPN.com
"There are invaluable people to these services who aren't in the front of the battle lines and whose faces aren't as recognizable," Starsia said. "Mike [Colley] was one of those guys -- very passionate about lacrosse and there for me at every moment. He'd also become a very good friend." After his passing, the Virginia Athletics Foundation started a fund in Colley's memory. More than $24,300 has been raised so far toward the lacrosse program.
"It's been a year in which you lose Will Barrow, someone in the prime of his life who decides to take his own life, and then you lose Mike Colley, who in the prime of his life gets his life taken away," Starsia said. "I'm going through my father now; it's been kind of extraordinary to have experienced all these different things."On a cold February Saturday in Philadelphia, the University of Virginia men's lacrosse team opened its 2010 season by defeating Drexel University 11-8. A total of 1,472 fans filled the stands, many dressed in Cavalier Orange. They witnessed head coach Dom Starsia's 200th career victory at Virginia.
Virginia lacrosse coach Dom Starsia encourages his players to take nothing for granted.
With the win, the 57-year-old head coach became only the second coach in lacrosse history to win 200-plus games at one school (UVa), having crossed the 100-game milestone at another (Brown University). Starsia also became the first-ever head coach to accomplish such a feat at two Division I schools and has now totaled more than 300 career wins.
The New York City native is the first to say that the milestone was a collective feat, accomplished thanks to hundreds of players, coaches, staff and family throughout his 36 years of coaching. He also points out the poignancy of this record, coming after perhaps his career's most challenging 18 months.
The trio spans three generations and roles in Starsia's life: player, colleague and father. Each is also symbolic of the speech Starsia gives his players when he gathers them for a moment of silence after every practice and game. It's a lesson he says is more important than the milestones. It may ultimately be his legacy: Be grateful for where you are and for what you have. Don't take it for granted. Because you never know when it might be taken away.
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On Nov. 22, 2008, then-junior UVa lacrosse player Max Pomper was taking a nap at his friend Kevin Ogletree's house. Ogletree was a receiver on the football team, which had played in its second-to-last regular-season game that afternoon. Both were close friends of UVa senior Will Barrow, a star midfield defenseman on the lacrosse team. Pomper had fallen asleep when Ogletree burst into the room.
"'Hey man, I heard something crazy about Will,'" Pomper remembered Ogletree saying. "We've got to drive over to his place."
The two sped toward Barrow's house and arrived to find a swarm of police cars. That's when they realized that the horrible rumor -- that their friend was dead after an apparent suicide -- might be true.
University of Virginia lacrosse player Max Pomper relied on coach Dom Starsia to help the team get over the death of teammate and friend Will Barrow in 2008.
Pomper and Barrow grew up in neighboring Long Island towns. Pomper, a year younger, cites Barrow as a major reason he chose to attend UVa. The two started alongside each other for three years. Their fathers, also good friends, often made the seven-hour drive together to Charlottesville to watch their sons play. Barrow served as team captain on the 2007 Final Four squad and was a member of the 2006 championship team. He'd recently signed with MLL's Chicago Machine as the 11th overall draft pick.
The news shocked the team. They gathered often on the offseason days, trying to come to grips with the sudden loss.
"I've never been involved in something in which college males have been so openly emotional," Starsia said. In one of those meetings, then-fifth-year captain Mike Timms, who'd lost both his parents at a young age, addressed his teammates.
"He got up and said, 'In case you're wondering, fellas, there's no answers to this, all we're doing is trying to figure out how to live with the questions,'" Starsia remembered. "I was stunned that a college student had that kind of wisdom."
The players say that much of last spring -- and continuing into this year -- was played in Will's honor.
"A lot of guys on the team before games will write his number underneath their eye-black, and I write his number in Sharpie on my arm," Pomper said. "But to be quite honest, we don't need that to remember Will. He's in our hearts and minds every day."
"A lot of people talked about his death and the way in which his life ended, but Will also lived an incredible life, and I wanted to celebrate that," Pomper said.
The Virginia lacrosse team still keeps alive the memory of teammate, Will Barrow, who died in 2008.
Barrow loved football and had several Division I scholarship offers to play out of high school. So Pomper organized a "Remembering Will Barrow" flag football tournament.
Initially, he thought it'd be a small event. But when word began to spread, the lacrosse community responded and the tournament grew into 28 teams from up and down the East Coast that raised more than $8,000 for HELP, UVa's student-run crisis hotline.
The team also joined with players' parents in sending care packages to former Cavaliers defenseman James King, a Marine Corps lieutenant now serving his second deployment to Afghanistan. Team members have kept in touch with the former player while shipping care packages with everything from socks to hot chocolate to King and the 110 Marines in his command. The team also regularly organizes a Special Olympics 10K run each fall.
"This year was particularly extraordinary in terms of giving back," Starsia said. "I'd like to think that we've always been a program that has some perspective about our place in the world, but we also have had a year that's not an ordinary one by the standards of what we generally do. This required the players to assume a lot of the responsibility and we had kids who really wanted to step up and do things."
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Around the first of January each year,
UVa assistant media relations director Michael Colley sent an e-mail to friends and colleagues proclaiming the exact number of days until the first day of lacrosse season. Colley had joined UVa's sports media relations office in 1991 and worked with the lacrosse team for more than a decade.
And while he was also the contact for football and women's basketball, most people would say that lacrosse was his favorite. The players affectionately referred to the 46-year-old as "Media Mike." He was equally close to the coaches and staff.
Virginia lacrosse media relations director Michael Colley, right, with 2006 Tewaaraton Trophy winner Matt Ward after the 2006 NCAA championship game. Colley died in July of 2009 at age 46 of a heart attack.
They were shocked to learn in July of 2009 that Colley, while vacationing with friends in Virginia Beach, had suffered a heart attack and died.
"There are invaluable people to these services who aren't in the front of the battle lines and whose faces aren't as recognizable," Starsia said. "Mike was one of those guys -- very passionate about lacrosse and there for me at every moment. He'd also become a very good friend."
After his passing, the Virginia Athletics Foundation started a fund in Colley's memory. More than $24,300 has been raised so far toward the lacrosse program.
"It's been a year in which you lose Will Barrow, someone in the prime of his life who decides to take his own life, and then you lose Mike Colley, who in the prime of his life gets his life taken away," Starsia said. "I'm going through my father now; it's been kind of extraordinary to have experienced all these different things."
Starsia's father is currently under hospice care. While Starsia didn't go into detail over his father's illness, it's clearly an emotional issue. Starsia is extremely close to his family: his oldest daughter, Molly, is entering the Peace Corps and his son, Joe, is an assistant lacrosse coach at Dickinson College. Starsia also has two twin daughters, Maggie and Emma, who have minor mental disabilities and live with him and his wife, Krissy.
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Entering his 18th UVa season, Starsia has already led his teams to three NCAA titles and 11 Final Four appearances. In both of the past two seasons, UVa has lost in the semifinal round of the NCAA tournament. Starsia's teams have been recognized, both nationally and within the conference, for their collective sportsmanship, even during losing seasons.
"Dom is the quintessential coach that really puts in perspective what UVa is about," says team statistician Myron Ripley, who's worked with the lacrosse team since the 1980s. "The lacrosse program is trying to get back to some realm of normalcy after such a tough year. It was hard, but also puts into perspective what's important."
Starsia was voted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 2008. His office bookshelves are filled with autobiographies of coaching legends, including Dean Smith and Tony Dungy. When asked one of his proudest moments during his coaching years, he recalled not one of his national championships nor 2006's undefeated season, but the night before his HOF ceremony.
"I had 75-80 Brown guys and 75-80 UVa guys there and that was a blast," Starsia said. "I'm proud of the fact that all these guys were in the same room, enjoying each other's company. If you said that's my legacy first and foremost, I'd be happy with that … the wins and losses are fickle at best. I've always felt like this is so much more about the relationships."