Dom Starsia's last experience with professional lacrosse in Boston surely was quite a bit different than what the next one will be like with the Boston Cannons as their associate head coach this summer. It was the summer of 1975 when Starsia was a member of the Boston Bolts of the short-lived National Lacrosse League. The team played its one — and only — season at the old Boston Garden. There was no air conditioning in the building, and both cigarette and cigar smoke still hung in the rafters as leftover reminders from the Bruins and Celtics seasons just concluded.
"That was a different time back then," Starsia recalled. "I was still single back then, living my first summer out of college in Boston. I had a blast."
Starsia’s path in the sport has taken unparalleled turns since that singular ’70s summer near the North End. He coached at Brown University, where the schedule’s road took him annually to Harvard Stadium. Then, in 1993, he moved on to the University of Virginia, where he won four national championships and became the winningest Division 1 coach of all-time before his retirement in 2016.
Yet, while he walked away from the college game at that time, he said he never felt he was quite finished with the sport.
