Houston Lacrosse Project

Kiernan Limming was nice enough to come by the house and sit outside with me to put a bow on the Houston Lacrosse Project Podcast. This is the final episode... it was a blast to sit down with Kiernan to talk about this podcast and what I have learned from all of the people I have talked to. I am grateful to everyone who was generous enough to spend their time with me during this effort. I am equally grateful for all of the people who listened to the podcast, got something out of it, and were kind enough to reach out to me and tell me so. I had a blast. Thanks.

This is a special Latvian, quarantine edition of the podcast. You end up with a solid three hours of lacrosse discussion when you combine a really interesting local lacrosse coach with a great history of the game and the ongoing quarantine-ish state we are currently in here in the Houston area. If you are interested in Houston Lacrosse and some Long Island Lacrosse history invest the time in this episode. Andris grew up on Long Island. He was introduced to the game in 7th grade by his cousin. Andris played all four years for his high school, then went on to play his freshman year at the University of Vermont. Following an injury he transferred to Hofstra. He finished up his college career at Hofstra. Andris had his first taste of coaching as a Graduate Assistant when he returned to the University of Vermont for graduate school. In 2006 Andris played in the World Games in Canada for the Latvian national team. After a year coaching at the middle school in hi home town he and his wife moved to Houston. After he landed in Houston he got plugged in to the local mens’ lacrosse scene and quickly landed coaching roles at Presbyterian School and the University of Houston. In 2014 Andris and his wife moved up to the Woodlands and he took on his current role as the Varsity Head Coach for the Woodlands D2 team.

Jess grew up in New York. She first got her hands on a lacrosse stick her freshman year at Tappan Zee High School. She played all four years of high school. After graduating she attended the University of New Hampshire where she studied History and played lacrosse her entire college career. After graduation she stayed local and played competitive women's lacrosse for Gotham lacrosse for five years. In 2013 she moved to Texas looking for a change of scenery. Once she landed in Texas she started her coaching career. She has coached girls' lacrosse at all ages since she has been in Texas. She has spent season with Vandergrift, Westlake and Lake Travis. Jess is currently the Varsity Defensive Coordinator for Lake Travis Girls' Lacrosse. Jess is also involved in youth lacrosee in Austin and THSLL. We decided to focus specifcially on girls' lacrosse during this discussion.

Amanda started playing lacrosse as a freshman in High School in New York. She scored the first four goals her high school team ever scored. After her high school career she attended Ithica College where she rowed and played lacrosse her freshman year. Following her freshman year she played club lacrosse at Ithica College. Towards the end of her college career she began coaching middle school girls lacrosse. Following her college career she moved to Connecticut where she coached for six years. Amanda moved to Houston in 2015 and pretty quickly got engaged with the local lacrosse community. She began coaching at St. John's High School in 2016. After a few years as the Head Coach of the JV1 team at St. John's High School this is her first season as the Varsity Head Coach. It is exciting to finally get some representation from the girls game. Amanda is a great representative!

Despite the fact Travis spent some of his early childhood here in the Houston area, he is new to the Houston Lacrosse scene. Travis first picked up a stick in 5th grade while he lived in Baltimore. He played his high school lacrosse career in Virginia and headed off to the Air Force Academy after graduation. Travis played four years for the Air Force Academy lacrosse team. After graduating from the Air Force Academy he had  full career serving our country in the Air Force He and his family have settled back in the Houston area. He recently accepted a faculty position and the head coaching role of the boys lacrosse team at Houston Christian High School. It is great to have a new face on the Houston lacrosse scene. I am excited Travis took the time to speak with me.

At this point I feel like I am in the very beginning stages of an extended anthropological study at St. John's High School. Ronnie began playing lacrosse when he was a sophomore in high school in Westchester NY. Ronnie did not plan on playing lacrosse after his high school career ended. However, when he was a junior at Ithaca College we walked on to the lacrosse team and earned a spot for the next three years. Ronnie picked up the coaching bug when he returned to his hometown after college and began to serve his old community. Ronnie landed in Houston four years ago. He very quickly got hooked up with David Cohn and helped round out the staff at St. John's along with Kyle Dowd. I don't know how you can listen to these St. John's coaches and not get fired up.

Mike is starting his third season with Pearland. This will be his second year at the Head Coach. Mike began playing lacrosse in 7th grade at Holy Trinity Middle School in North Carolina. Mike played his high school career in North Carolina as well. After graduating high school he played two years at Pfeiffer University in North Carolina. After several years of coaching at Hopewell High School he moved to the Houston area in 2012 where he kicked off his local coaching career at Friendswood High School. He has been a big proponent of building lacrosse through playing packed regular season schedules against quality teams. His Pearland schedule last season reflects this and the results speak to the success it generates.

This episode is tremendous. It is worth the investment of your time! Bill grew up in in New Jersey where we started playing lacrosse in high school. He started to catch the coaching bug while he was in college when he coached the middle school team at Princecton Day School. Bill also coached his little brothers high school team. Following his move to Texas after the economic crash in 2008 he started coach again with the Lake Travis youth organization, subsequently the Cedar Ridge High School Team and now Dripping Springs. Bill has done an unbelievable job building the culture at Drip. This discussion drills into a considerable amount of detail around how he has gone about building and tweaking the culture at Drip with undeniable results.

If you really know the local Houston lacrosse scene, you know the name Dave Lintner. Dave grew up in Syracuse New York and attended West Genesee High School. After graduating from West Genesee he attended Cornell with the intention of playing on the Cornell soccer team... he ended up playing for the Cornell lacrosse team instead. Dave moved to Houston in the early 90s and started playing in the local men's club lacrosse circuit. I first bumped into Dave with the Houston Hurricanes club team and the 7sfor7 lacrosse tournament held each year in memory of Drew Webb to bring attention to mental health issues with our youth. There is some really thoughtful discussion regarding the state of the sport in Houston in this episode. I had a great time sitting down with Dave at his office and speaking with him.

This discussion could have gone on for hours... and it still might at some point in the near future. Jordan came to the sport of lacrosse relatively late in his sophomore year of high school in Connecticut. Jordan played his college lacrosse in New England. When he was a sophomore in college in Massachusetts he began his coaching career at a local high school. Due to an injury earlier in his career he used his final year of his athletic eligibility during the first year of graduate school and moved into his first college coaching experience in the second year of graduate school.  He has coached at Bellarmine University and Bowdoin. His “crash course” in coaching at the college level prepared him nicely for the challenges of lacrosse in the Lone Star state. After coaching at Bowie and Westlake high schools here in Texas he is now the Head Coach and Youth Director for Austin High School and Austin Youth Lacrosse. The crazy thing about this discussion is we barley touched on his role at Austin High School. This is a great discussion about his lacrosse history, his coaching philosophy and the work he and others are doing at Austin Youth Lacrosse.