By Jesse Welte
Women’s lacrosse is a relatively new concept to the University of Louisville, but head coach Kellie Young has been around the sport for years.
On April 21, 2005, U of L announced that it would be adding women’s lacrosse as its 23rd varsity sport. This spring Young will lead the team into its first official season in the Big East.
“When the decision was made to add women’s lacrosse, we wanted to go full speed ahead,” U of L Vice President and Director of Athletics Tom Jurich said. “We began to put the infrastructure in place by building a quality stadium and we wanted to target a fitting head coach with a lot of experience. Kellie is a dynamic person with proven success on the Division I level who I know will do a marvelous job here at U of L. She comes to us highly recommended from individuals across the country and we are thrilled to have her as our first coach in this growing sport.”
Young has enjoyed nothing but success as a Division I head coach in lacrosse. Her first head coaching position came with James Madison University in 2003, in which she led the Dukes to the Colonial Athletic Association championship. In 2004, Young led JMU to a school record 16 wins, including a record-setting 11-game winning streak and a perfect 7-0 league mark, and an appearance in the NCAA quarterfinals.
“I saw the vision of the program. I wanted to develop players who understood academic and athletic success, and would be good representatives of the program. It was tough because at JMU we were on the cusp of winning a national championship,” Young said on her decision to come to U of L. “It was the passion for athletics at this school. I wanted to be associated with that energy.”
Young has great experience in developing outstanding individuals both on the field and in the classroom. Over her four seasons at JMU, Young coached six All-American honorees, three NCAA Player of the Year award winners, two national player of the year finalists and one national defender of the year winner.
Under Young’s guidance, the Dukes also had 37 players honored by the NCAA with the Commissioner’s Academic Award, while 27 players received the JMU Athletic Director’s Scholar Athlete Award and 10 more were named to the Intercollegiate Women’s Lacrosse Coaches Association Academic Honor Roll.
Building a program from the ground up is no easy task, but Young has gotten off to a solid start and has an optimistic plan for the future.
“My first priority was to take care of my staff,” Young said. “Once that was in place, it was about recruiting. I wanted players who love the game and wanted to be part of history. Step two was to teach the players what we’re all about, representing the University of Louisville.”
Young is very familiar with her current coaching staff. Her assistants, Lisa Staedt and Matt Lawicki, have been with her for the past three years, coming over from JMU. They have the utmost confidence that Young will be able to bring great success to this program.
“She accepts nothing but the best from the people surrounding her, including her staff and team. She sets high expectations, but they are achievable ones. It’s definitely a demanding atmosphere,” Staedt said.
Young understands how to relate to collegiate athletes because she was one herself.
She graduated in 1993 from Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass., where she was a two-time all-region and all-conference lacrosse selection in her junior and senior years. She also earned varsity letters in soccer, softball and basketball and received Mount Holyoke’s Athletic Director’s Award for service to Mount Holyoke athletics and the local community.
Young’s history in the sport allows her to have a good relationship with her players.
“She is definitely tough and there’s a lot of patience involved with the players, but she lets Lisa and I dictate certain situations, so it works out. If we kick it up a notch in practice, the players will jump right in because they know that’s what she expects of them,” Lawicki said.
Young will have her hands full as her team opens its first season as a member of the Big East conference in the spring. The Big East is one of the top two conferences in the country in lacrosse.
“I want us to compete in every game and by season’s end have built a strong foundation. What we have as a goal is to be competing in the conference in three years and going to the NCAA tournament and winning a championship in four to six years.”
With Young’s track record, dedicated assistants and players, and an athletic department devoted to providing the best resources possible to its programs, it will come as no surprise if in the near future, the Louisville Cardinals of lacrosse are challenging for the top of the Big East conference.
