David Higbee is the Executive Director of Bridge Lacrosse in Dallas. The mission of Bridge Lacrosse is "to use lacrosse to broaden the horizons of our community's youth". David has been with Bridge Lacrosse for 11 years. He has some great perspective on the history of the Bridge organization, as well as the role it will play in the future of lacrosse in the Dallas area. There is a lot of great information in this episode that we can all take away and apply to the development of our teams and programs in the greater Houston area.

I believe Carson is one of the most under-rated and under-recognized players to come out the Houston area. Carson started playing lacrosse in third grade with the Cy-Fair Iron Lions. He was one of the first players to play with the Houston Outlaws. Carson was also one of the early players to participate in the initial Stickstar combines in Houston. He played in the off-season with HOULA and Hurricanes when he was younger. He played with Stickstar and 3rd Coast once he got into 8th grade and high school. He graduated from Houston Christian High School in 2016 and he is currently in his senior year at Florida Southern where he has played all four years. This is a great discussion that includes the impact of off-season teams, overcoming injuries and the hard work required to excel at the college level.

Mike Brand grew up near Buffalo New York. Mike played the game growing up, but was not introduced to organized lacrosse until he was a freshman in high school. Following his high school and college playing career he was drawn into the coaching ranks. He spent some time playing the game and preaching the lacrosse gospel in England. After returning from England he began his college coaching career. His coaching experiences have taken him all over. Those of us in Texas are most familiar with his coaching career at Texas State, Reagan High School, Alamo Heights High School and the Tacos. This is a great discussion about his coaching career in general, his work at Texas State and the growth of the game in San Antonio.

This is the second player discussion I have had the luck of doing. This time around I was able to get three -for-one. I was fortunate enough to get three members of the 2019 graduating class from Langham Creek to drop by the house to discuss their experiences in Houston high school lacrosse, off-season lacrosse, recruiting and their first semester off at college. This discussion is so great because I was able to get three recent graduates who are friends to sit down and candidly talk about their lacrosse experiences. It was so much fun to sit and question them... and it was just as fun to see and listen to the three of them talk through their history with the game together. Just for the record... they were all in on the Polka music and my wife made them leave some leftover Halloween candy...

Chris is kind of a big thing... at least in Europe. Chris is one of my favorite lacrosse people. He is always a blast to sit down and talk with. Chris did not come to lacrosse until later in life around the time he was 30. He started playing and coaching in Florida. After 4 years coaching at Jesuit High School in Tampa Florida he made his way to Ireland where he coached and played. He spent time coaching both the Irish and the Austrian National Teams. Chris was also involved with the European Lacrosse Federation in a number of roles including developing coaching training for teams across Europe. After his coaching career in Europe Chris returned to the United States to take on the Head Coach position at Kingwood High School. There is some great history of the Kingwood program and some interesting discussion about high school lacrosse in Florida that provides a thoughtful contrast to the Texas experience.

The corporate logistics team worked double-overtime on this episode. We were lucky enough to track down Brendan Hunt in the wilds of Michigan for this discussion. Brendan came to the game as freshman in high school in Michigan. Following his high school career in Michigan he attended Michigan State University to pursue an education in... education. While he was at Michigan State University he played four seasons for the Michigan State University MCLA team. After college he landed in the greater Houston area for seven-ish years where he coached at the middle school level for three years and at Langham Creek High School for four years. Brendan recently left Texas and returned home to Michigan. This conversation is everything I thought it would be. A frank discussion about the sport of lacrosse in Houston from someone who experienced it first hand, but is now no longer directly involved in the local lacrosse scene.

Nick grew up in Houston and attended Bellaire High School. Nick played lacrosse at Bellaire until he graduated in 1990. He has the distinct honor of having both played and coached against Lamar High School and Coach Dave Vollmer. He played college lacrosse her at home as well at the University of Houston. Nick Started the team at Pershing Middle school... The Fighting Pandas! After his time with Pershing he was lured back to alma mater Bellaire to help coach and rebuild the team there. This season is Nick's third season leading Bellaire. He is doing a lot in the local lacrosse community to promote the team with young players and support growing programs in the city. In the summers he coaches the Houston Cougars. There is some terrific information regarding his relationship with Bellaire High School, outreach in the local inner loop community and the Bellaire social media presence.

Eric did not begin playing Lacrosse until he was introduced to it in the 8th Grade in Friendswood. At Friendswood High School he excelled in football and lacrosse. He had an outstanding career playing close defense for Steve Kirk and subsequently Mike Staub in Friendswood. Once he graduated high school he continued his academic and lacrosse career at Elmhurst. At Elmhurst he continued to excel on the field and in the classroom. Eric recently graduated and he is back in the Houston area kicking off his career and beginning to coach. This season he will be coaching defense at Pearland with Coach Mike Staub. This is the first interview I have done with a local player. There is some terrific perspective from a local Houston-area player who went on to be successful at the next level.

Rich grew up on Long Island and started playing lacrosse when he was in 7th grade. He played his high school lacrosse at St. Mary's and later attended Hobart where he played for three years... you heard me right, three years, and that is just one of the incredible stories in this discussion. After graduating from college he started his career on Wall Street. He was away from the game of lacrosse until he returned to the States after working overseas for 11 years. He started coaching with Highland in 2008-ish as the Head Coach for the 5/6 grade C team. Over the years he has steadily worked his way up through the coaching ranks at Highland Park. He is beginning his third season as the Highland Park DI Head Coach. Anyone who knows the first thing about Texas Lacrosse knows about the long history of success at Highland Park. I set out at the beginning of this episode to answer one question – “What is Highland Park doing differently than the rest of us?”. I think this discussion goes a long way towards answering that question.

David grew up near Baltimore Maryland and played his high school ball at Gillman. After a successful high school career he attended the United States Naval Academy and played lacrosse all four years. After his career at the Naval Academy he served our country in the United States Navy. It is in the Navy where he first coached at the youth level while he was stationed in California. David spent some time as a volunteer coach at NAPS where the coaching bug really caught hold. He subsequently coached at Furman as the program was starting there and later at the United States Air Force Academy. This interview was a blast. Between David, conducting the interview on Caven Field and the soundtrack from the girls field hockey practice it was just all around cool. This is one of those interviews where I felt like I added very little to the content. David is the real deal and we should all take some time to understand how he is growing young men at St. John's and what we can take from him back to our teams.