Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 12/21/17
From Press Release
As the Lehigh men’s lacrosse team has been preparing for the 2018 season, the Mountain Hawks have focused on improving not only their play on the field, but also many intangibles off it. One way Lehigh focused on leadership and team development was through The Program LLC and its military style leadership training.
As a fifth-year senior, Strain has been through many years of The Program, but each time, it’s a different experience.
“After five years, I have yet to do the same set of activities twice so going into it, you have no idea what to expect,” he said. “It’s nerve-wracking, but it helps teach the team to adapt to new situations as they come. Though it can be painful, the lessons The Program tries to teach are beneficial over multiple years.”
Personally, Strain has several takeaways from The Program. Last year, he was told he needed to work on delegating and when similar situations arose, he was able to fall back on past experiences.
In the end, The Program is meant to help teams take the next step in the area of leadership, teamwork and camaraderie.
“I have seen improvements amongst the team, we never see a massive change in character,” said Strain. “The Program stresses that they want us to be ‘just that much better.’ People don’t change completely, but you definitely see guys on the team trying to take one or two of the lessons that were communicated to them and apply them in real-world scenarios.”
Experiences like The Program help develop student-athletes for success not only in their time at Lehigh, but also post-graduation. It forces people to develop individual and collective (team) skills in order to perform and master tasks.
“Whether it’s being in a pool for five hours or driving to a lake at 4 a.m., you never know what you’re going to get with The Program,” said Strain. “Before they come, rumors are swirling, and guys are trying to guess what we’ll have to do.
“One of the hardest aspects of The Program is that sense of the unknown. Most aspects of our lives as student-athletes are scheduled, so going in blind is always a tough situation.”
In many ways, going into situations blind mimics a game situation. Teams try to map game plans as much as possible, but a lot of sports is reacting to situations on the fly. That’s exactly what was demanded of the Lehigh men’s lacrosse program this fall.
“This is year number eight for us working with The Program and it’s been a first-class experience for players and coaches for each of those eight years,” said Lehigh head coach Kevin Cassese. “This year, the focus for the team was developing a ‘combat mindset.’ The instructors challenged the team to be mentally tough when they were physically exhausted and to perform with attention to detail in the face of adversity and distractions. I thought the team did very well overall, but I’m most excited about the leadership and resilience lessons they learned along the way.”
“The shared adversity that the guys go through together has a lasting effect,” said Strain. “We still talk about The Program months, and years after it happens. In the moment, it’s tough for sure, but conversations with teammates after is when I think its benefits are the strongest.”
“I think working with The Program has helped us develop our program identity,” said Cassese. “Our lacrosse team vows to be passionate, selfless, discipline and tough. The instructors we interact with are some of the most impressive living and breathing examples of those character traits. They are former special force marines, navy seals, green berets, etc. If our players and coaches can pick up 10 percent of the knowledge that gets fed to them over the 48-hour period, they will become better athletes, better teammates, better leaders and better men.”
The 2018 season opener is set for Saturday, Feb. 3 vs. NJIT. Lehigh is set to return four of its top five point-getters along with six of the top seven finishers in groundballs. All three All-Patriot League honorees return in Craig Chick, Eddie Bouhall and Andrew Pettit, as does Tristan Rai and his 87 career points through two seasons and Conor Gaffney, who finished eighth nationally in faceoff percentage as a freshman (61.0 percent).