From the podcast: Coach Rob Randall on the evolution of recruiting

Rob Randall is entering his 24th season as the head coach at Nazareth University.

On this week’s episode of New England Lacrosse Journal’s “Chasing The Goal” podcast, hosts Kyle Devitte and Jack Piatelli talk with Nazareth University head coach Rob Randall.

A Nazareth alum and a Rochester, N.Y., native, Rob Randall has been at the helm of Nazareth since the 2001 season, making him one of the longest-tenured coaches across all three divisions of college lacrosse.

Randall was responsible for building the program at Sacred Heart into a Division 2 power in the 1990s.

Last season, Nazareth finished with a 10-9 record with wins over Springfield, Western New England, SUNY Brockport and SUNY Cortland. The Golden Flyers fell in the Empire 8 championship game to nearby rival St. John Fisher, 19-7.

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Here are some excerpts from the pod.

Jack Piatelli: You talk about the recruiting process and how it is very difficult these days. What has changed since you started recruiting as a college coach? 

Rob Randall: The technology piece, I think, is the one piece. I can remember when I first started here and earlier in my career, even before I was here as a head coach or an assistant coach, sending out letters, snail mail. There was just a longer process. So just trying to stay up with the technology piece, that was the biggest challenge that I had, because I am certainly not a technologically advanced individual or coach.

But the kids are the kids that I don’t think that’s changed too much. Once you get them on campus and you show them around, that’s a lot of the same stuff. But there’s there’s so many schools, so many really quality schools out there nowadays, and there are a lot of young and aggressive coaches. We’ve seen at the Division 3 level a lot of schools that have not only one full-time assistant but a couple of full-time assistants. So that’s made it more challenging when you’ve seen so many schools get better at lacrosse because of that. 

Kyle Devitte: St. John Fisher — when did that rivalry develop? Because I have friends from Rochester, and one of them went to Naz and one of them went to St. John Fisher, and they don’t talk about it. So it’s got to be pretty intense if they’re not going to even talk about it, right?

Rob Randall: There is a rivalry between the schools. We’re only a mile apart. So the rivalry has always been there. From a lacrosse standpoint, it hasn’t always been there. I would say within the last 10 years it’s it’s picked it up quite a bit. And they’ve done a really nice job over there. Right now, they’re the team to beat in the conference. And that’s our challenge every day. So we just try to keep doing what we’re doing. We know that at the end of the day, they’re going to be one of the schools that we’re going to have to play in the playoffs, that we’re going to be challenged with, for sure.

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