Amplo raises the bar for MU lacrosse
Figuring out how to build on success is a problem any coach would gladly take.
Marquette men’s lacrosse coach Joe Amplo didn’t think he’d be in that position so soon.
Amplo helped start the program from scratch in 2011 and just seven years later the Golden Eagles are the two-time defending Big East tournament champions.
Now the scrappy upstarts are trying to become one of nation’s elite teams.
The Golden Eagles (5-5) lost a heartbreaker to No. 14 Notre Dame, 7-6, on Wednesday but look to regroup against Providence on Saturday in their final regular-season home game this season at Valley Fields.
How does the team deal with the head-spinning transformation?
“One is expectation. Managing that for 18 to 22-year-olds, and even the coaching staff, is a challenge,” Amplo said. “So how do we manage those expectations and go through a similar process of growth but now do it with expectation where people on the outside, the periphery, who may not know lacrosse or our program that much, but know it enough to know that ‘alright they’ve had some success’ so they expect success?
“So how do you take it to the next level? One is understanding that you’re playing with a bit more pressure now. So that’s been a challenge.”
The 51-player roster draws from 15 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces.
That’s a far cry from the first few years when Amplo slapped together teams made up of overlooked players from top programs on the East Coast, guys who Amplo said “understood a championship culture, understood what
was like to win but, more importantly, what it was like to work to win.”
That underdog, chip-on-the shoulder ethos became MU’s identity.
That's also an extension of the Golden Eagles' 40-year-old coach, a Long Island, N.Y., native who went from walkon to all-conference lacrosse player at Hofstra.
“Truthfully, it’s about sustaining a higher standard,” Amplo said. “How can we get better in everything we do, just by a little bit? How can we go after a better kid, talent-wise, in recruiting, but not compromise them as a person? So we’ve been really hell-bent on not compromising who we are as human beings for talent.”
Senior midfielder Colin Riehl is a good example of a typical MU player.
Hailing from Fairfax, Va., he fell in love with the game at seven years old and eventually became a formidable faceoff specialist at Gonzaga College, one of the nation’s top prep teams.
Riehl, who said his teammates would say he plays “with a screw loose,” saw what Amplo was building at MU and wanted to be part of it.
“A complete evolution of culture,” Riehl said of his time at MU. “When I was here originally, they had two seasons behind them and hadn’t had a winning record yet, though.
"They were still trying to figure out who they were. The guys that built the program were still there. So we knew what they were about, we just saw how well they played and how hard they played and you kind of mimic that.”
He's optimistic the trajectory can continue.
“I only see us going up, honestly,” he said. “I can’t look into a magic ball but I see this program going to the absolute elite level of our sport. Just because of what it’s built on is really love. If I wanted to narrow it down to one word is ‘love.’ It kind of pushes us in every way – love for our team, love for our family, love for the process as we always say. Through that constant development, the sky is the limit for this program.”
The team is starting to reap some of the benefits of success. Last season the Golden Eagles started using a dome at Valley Fields to deal with the sometimes uncompromising spring weather.
The school also has broken ground on its on-campus Athletic and Human Performance Research Center, which will give the men’s and women’s lacrosse teams locker rooms for the first time.
“To be honest, I thought I was being spoiled last year with the bubble,” Riehl said. “I’ve gotten kind of used to not having a locker room.”
They also will have their own weight room, so they don’t have to carve out time with MU’s other teams at the Al McGuire Center.
“The challenge is we’ve been successful with nothing like that,” Amplo said. “And keeping our kids with that edge. Because it’s not the things that have made us successful.”
MU athletic director Bill Scholl looks at it as a smart investment in a growing sport.
“What it has reinforced, I think, is the power of sports when you can play it on a national level,” Scholl said. “I have been shocked by how often I go to alumni events, anywhere in the country, and they’re all aware of (lacrosse). When you end up on national TV playing games, it’s just how amazing how impactful that is . ...
“You got to do things right and you have to be successful. But I think that opportunity is there. I think it also showed us that it doesn’t just have to be basketball. That that branding can occur around other programs. Lacrosse has grown so quickly, including in the Midwest now, and for us to kind of jump on that wave and ride it, is exciting."
Amplo had a big hand in growing lacrosse in the state, proselytizing for the game with frequent camps and clinics.
“From the youth standpoint, it’s growing exponentially,” Amplo said. “Each year, the talent gets better and better. Because now, you’re starting to see kids who in that high school, recruit-able age that have played it from an early age."
As MU and Amplo’s profile have grown, other schools have tried to woo Amplo. In recent years, he has rebuffed offers from Princeton and Michigan.
“I think anytime you have somebody you think is a really great coach, it’s in your best interest to keep him or her,” Scholl said. “The stability that offers is really significant.
"In this particular case, the message it sent to the lacrosse world was that Marquette is really serious about this and not only did it show Joe was serious about Marquette, but it showed that we were very serious about the sport." Amplo will keep pushing.
“I wouldn’t be sitting here, and I don’t think the institution would be supporting us the way they are supporting us if all of us didn’t think that at some point, somewhere, sometime, we can compete at the top of the sport,” he said.
“We have everything we need and now it’s a matter of us just executing. So there’s no timetable for that, that’s the beautiful thing about it.”