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This podcast is being brought to you by WXAV88.3FM and WXAV.com. WXAV bringing the best podcast to you. Hi, this is Peter Creighton at WXAV88.3FM Chicago. I'm very happy to have Tom Hagerty with me, the brand new lacrosse coach here at St.
Xavier University. We're here, we're at the Shannon Center Coach. Thank you so much for joining us. My pleasure.
Now, Coach, can you tell me a little bit about this brand new lacrosse club that we have here at St. Xavier? We have established a club here in October of 2017, and we have been recruiting players both on campus and high school seniors right now to join us next year. We are practicing two to three days a week at the Shannon Center.
The incoming seniors from high school will join us in the fall. We will play a full fall ball schedule. We'll play probably six games in the fall. And then in 2019, it will actually be our inaugural year of playing probably anywhere from 12 to 16 games at the collegiate level.
Can you tell me a little bit about how this program began to like grow and develop your under your leadership? It was very basic, to be honest with you. I've been a high school coach for the last seven years, I'm sorry eight years. And what happened this year at the high school level is we became sanctioned by IHSA, which is the governing body for all sports.
So in the past lacrosse at the high schools have been a club sport, and now they're an actual sanctioned sport by the state. When that happened, the teachers had first right of refusal on all contract issues. So I actually lost my high school job because there was a teacher who applied. And being a union guy, I understand that and I accept it.
But what do they say? When a window closes, God opens the garage door. So what happened was Dr. Campbell contacted me and said that they wanted to start a program here.
He heard through the athletic director at Lockport High School that I was available. He contacted me, I did an interview. When I found out three weeks later that I was not going to be the high school coach at Samberg Andrew Co-op, I called Dr. Campbell and came in on Monday and we drew up a contract by Friday I signed.
That's fantastic. And that's definitely our game here because the passion you have for lacrosse is contagious and everything. Can you talk a little bit about, for those who may be listening, that may be interested in trying out for lacrosse, what's going to be the process like for them? How should they get it in contact with you?
Okay, it's really simple. You can go to my email here at school, which is HagerD, H-A-G-G-E-R-T-Y, at S-X-U dot E-D-U. And it's two G's, the way the real Irish spell it, throw two G's in there please. Or you can contact me at 708-227-8065.
Since I work in special education during the day, I would prefer a text. But if you're interested, what I'm looking for is number one, good students. Number two, I'm looking for students who are looking for an outlet for physical activity and are coachable. So if you're a student and maybe you played soccer, you played basketball or you played football in high school and there was no outlet for you here at the collegiate level, I want to see you.
I want you to come out. What I'm really looking for is people with a strong work ethic. As far as equipment, I have ten players right now. I have seven boys and three girls.
Yes, I will train girls. And I have supplied them with about $500 worth of lacrosse equipment, everything sticks, clubs, elbow pads, shoulder pads, helmet, and penny. The fact that I ran my own youth program for 13 years in Orland Park, I have 70 full sets of equipment that I can actually gear college kids up. Even if you just want to come out and try the sport one night and meet us in the Shannon Center, it would be more than happy to pull you up to the side and show you the fundamentals.
But the name of the game really is it's grass hockey. So if you think instead of shooting a puck with a stick, you're catching a ball with a net on the end and you're shooting at a goal. And if you have any soccer skills or if you have any track skills or if you've got great hand-eye coordination, if you're good at golf, this would be a great sport for you. And I don't say no to anyone.
Excellent. I'm here with coach Tom Haggard, the brand new lacrosse coach here at St. Xavier University. Now over the last 15, 20 years lacrosse history has really begun to explode here in the United States.
What do you think is kind of behind that explosion? I think that when it started, I'll take you back about 12 years ago when I started coaching. There was no youth programs or high school teams south of Naperville. Within that time period, youth lacrosse exploded.
High school is starting getting involved at the club level. So now when we became sanctioned in the Chicagoland area alone, there are 95 teams that play freshman JV and varsity lacrosse. All of the capex schools in the area played and have played for a long time. I think the original attraction to the game was it was kind of edgy.
It was X-game type stuff because it was like people would come up and they're like, what are you doing with that stick? And then you have parents who would say, you know, I taught my son when he was really little, not to hit a kid with a stick. And now you're telling him to hit a kid with a stick. It's been a sport that honestly sells itself.
I have players who will come in and after 20 minutes, they're either in love with it or after 20 minutes, they're not interested. But I never have to say, oh come on, stay. It's always your choice, your work ethic. And if I have athletes, I can teach them the game.
I've been teaching this game for 13 years now. And I've done MCLA college coaches convention in Baltimore for the last seven years. I do the Notre Dame clinic in February and I'm with the Notre Dame team, which is top five in the nation every year. Most of my defensive sets are from Coach Jerry Byrne at Notre Dame.
Everything that I teach is college level lacrosse. It's not beginner lacrosse or high school lacrosse. And I think our athletes can understand that and wrap their head around it. And one of the wonderful things is right now, I have the entire spring to teach.
I don't have to play games. I can teach players the game. And I don't have to unteach bad skills, which is really part of that high school experience. We have a kid who can shoot, but he shoots sidearm, he doesn't bring it over the top, and he picks up a ground ball one handed.
I don't have to unteach that. It's almost like you get to mold them your way then. Yes, exactly. Can you talk a little bit about just how you literally fell in love with lacrosse?
Well, I grew up in Philadelphia. And it's a long time ago when we only had three stations on TV and there was one UHF station and they had the Philadelphia Wings, which was an indoor box lacrosse league. Box lacrosse is very different when I first saw it. Box lacrosse is basically guys who got thrown out of the NHL for fighting too much, because fighting is actually legal in box lacrosse.
And it is the national sport of Canada. Hockey is not the national sport. I didn't know that. It is lacrosse.
It's box lacrosse. And what they decided was all those outdoor rings that they have in Canada, well in May, when all the snow melts, they go inside those arenas and they play, they use the boards, the hockey boards, and they play box. So I grew up watching the Philadelphia Wings play and moved to Chicago, started a family. And we were at one of the indoor facilities in Homer Glen, and my fifth grader was out there playing roller hockey, and he was a bigger kid.
And on the other side of the facility was a turf field. And he saw these eight or ten kids playing lacrosse. And the guy who really started the lacrosse in Orland was Dr. George Miller.
He's an emergency room physician at South Suburman Hospital. East Coast guy brought it here. My son said, that looks cool. I want to try it.
So he said, sign a waiver. Give me five bucks. We'll put him in gear. And we'll, next week we practice, bring him out and we'll see if he likes it.
And that's always been my blueprint, has been how he showed me how to bring people in that way. My son ended up coming the next week after half an hour. He was in love with it. We didn't have a youth team at the time.
So as a fifth grader, he played with eighth graders, played tournaments. And if I can brag for a second, my son ended up being a Illinois All-American. His senior year ended up playing at Indiana University for four years. His senior year, he was first team all-conference.
And even better, he was first team academic All-American. That's impressive. Congratulations. And he's going to graduate with his master's of molecular and cell biology in May.
And then move on to the PhD. But I've learned through this whole process that you need to go to college, to go to college, to have the passion for what you want to do in your life. And your sport should really be an outlet for your mental health and should be an outlet for you to relieve stress. And I think the biggest stress we put on kids is winning.
I want kids to come out and play because they love the game. And he loved the game the entire time that he played all those years. And I've instilled that, I think, in high school kids. I think I've instilled that and the kids are already coming in.
Again, the kids who come in, I have no problem teaching a kid right from square one. And right now we have 10 players. I would like to get that up to 20. And then in the fall, I'm recruiting 15.
So we would have a great big team of experienced kids who we can all grow together and lay the foundation for success. That's a great philosophy. I love it. I'm right here with Coach Haggerty.
I got one final question, Coach Foria. And that is from Philadelphia, how sweet is it that the e-code sign? No idea. You have no idea.
I'm beaming right now. I am 64 years old. And I feel like I'm 45 years young. But I still remember watching on my black and white TV the 1960 Eagles game against the Packers.
And that's the last time they won anything. And to go 57 years waiting for that Eagles victory. And you can ask my wife, I have 18 Eagles hats. I've got a bunch of jerseys.
I have jackets. I have an old buddy system when Buddy Ryan was the coach there. I have starter stuff and that company's out of business. So I never thought they would win any of those three games.
And I was just amazed. And I sat there and watched the parade. And when they came down the Rocky Steps, man, I was in tears. And you cut me, I bleached he's fake.
So I grew up there. I love my Philly team. I'm a Bears fan. We have season tickets for Bears.
But it's like when the Blackhawks played the Flyers. That had been trouble for them. No, it was great because I didn't care who won. It won either way.
And it was like, wow, the home team is in, my team is in. And whoever wins, that's great. And that's the way I felt about the Eagles too. It was like they didn't have to beat the pads.
The fact that they got there was vindication enough for that team. But it sure is nice to win. Absolutely. Coach Hagerty, thank you so much for joining me today.
It's just been my pleasure. And again, anyone who's interested, please, Hagerty at sxu.edu or 708-227-8065. I'd be more than happy to have you come out, try the sport, just contact me. You'll start seeing us around campus with our Sandings Aviure Lacrosse T-shirts.
And we're starting to market some of our gears. So please, contact me if you are interested. Thank you very much for listening to this WXAV 88.3 FM podcast. Be sure to visit our website, wxav.com, for more information on your escape from ordinary radio.