Phillylacrosse.com Posted 6/8/24
From Staff Report
Upper Dublin’s Pat Lacon has stepped down as head coach after guiding the Cardinals to three straight Suburban One American Conference championships and a trip to the PIAA 2A state quarterfinals.
Lacon informed his team after Saturday’s heartbreaking 10-8 loss to Mars in the PIAA 2A quarterfinals.
In seven years (one season was lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic), Lacon’s Cardinals went 91-52. UD also shared an American Conference crown in 2019, his first year, with Wissahickon and Springfield-Montco. These last three titles were won outright with undefeated records; the 2024 team also reached state in the 3A tourney.
Lacon cited the need to spend more time with his family – he has three children – as the reason for stepping down. He said, however, that his family and his lacrosse family became one. That started when he was informed that he got the Upper Dublin job in 2018 while on his Honeymoon.
“Ever since then, it’s been a family affair,” Lacon said. “During that time, I’ve had three kids – one was born during lacrosse season, which was always exciting, but I’ve always made a conscious effort to include both families – the lacrosse family and my own personal family.
“I’ve hosted the seniors every year for dinner, so they get to meet my own kids, and my kids get to meet the players that I spend so much time with.
“I’ve got a seven-year-old, a five-year-old, and a two-year-old, and it was getting really hard to balance the amount of time that I wanted to be with them and the amount of time I wanted to be with the team.
“You marry both of them together, and you miss stuff. You either miss your own players’ events, or you miss your kid’s baseball games, soccer games or art shows. I just really had to make that final decision that it’s time to be a dad right now.”
The Cardinals started with a 2-0 lead Saturday, but Mars tallied five in a row, and Upper Dublin never caught up, despite pulling within 9-8 in the fourth period. The Cards finished 14-7 overall and were led Saturday by Matthew Shohen (4G) and Ben Shervin (16 saves).
“We talk a lot about making sure that we continue to grow, and that growth happens when you are challenged,” said Lacon, whose Cards opened their season 1-3 against a strong non-league slate. “At times, you are going through uncomfortable situations, and our season started (by) being thrown into the pressure cooker, and as the season goes on, your identity starts to show itself, and we begin to figure out who we are.
“Our growing pains started to get less and less, and our leaders started to grab the bull by its horns, and after multiple messages to the kids reminding them that our goal is to always to leave the jersey in a better place and our legacy lives on from the guys that played before us and will continue to live on with the guys that play after us – I think that was something special that we all can have.”
Lacon, who was also an assistant at Wissahickon and La Salle, wished to thank his players and assistant coaches:
“I will miss the daily grind of being out on the field with the players, managers, and coaches over my 8 years. This last post-season was a great ride, made even more special by sharing the experience with my assistants: Haldy Gifford, Willy Beury, Corey Kelly, Kurt Dick, and Steve Young.
Lacon said leaving Upper Dublin will be difficult, but that the memories will remain.
“It was very hard, and I got this idea from my experience at La Salle – we have the seniors line up on the sideline, and we have an opportunity for the whole team to say their good-byes. When you are walking through – and the coaches walk through towards the end, you kind of stop and you remind each player how much they’ve left an impact on you as a coach but also within the program.
“There was a major message that I continued to say over and over again – as you are seeing the tears fall from the seniors’ faces – is that they have left such a positive impact on the guys that are playing or will continue to play after them, and if the team continues to grow and show resiliency and get better and makes it further deep into the state playoffs in the future, it’s because of what those guys have laid in that foundation.
“I had certain goals I wanted to achieve. Winning was never one of them. I am a firm believer from my training and my mentors that winning comes from the hard work and the standards and building blocks you set along the way. One of those building blocks is creating lifelong bulletproof relationships, and sometimes things don’t go super smoothly, and others click right away.
“And when you can motivate kids to their limit and beyond their limit sometimes, really good things happen, and they become tighter, they become better people.
“They learn about who they are and what they can do and what they can accomplish, and this season was definitely one of them, where we did hard things together, and it spoke volumes. I know our record isn’t always going to be 21-0 or 22-0, but I think we learned we can overcome any challenge that is faced our way.”
