From the podcast: St. John’s Prep’s John Pynchon on team culture

St. John's Prep coach John Pynchon is the guest on the latest episode of the podcast. (Dave Arnold/NELJ)

On this week’s episode of New England Lacrosse Journal’s “Chasing The Goal” podcast, hosts Kyle Devitte and Jack Piatelli talk with St. John’s Prep head coach John Pynchon.

Pynchon took over the St. John’s prep boys lacrosse program in 2016. An alum of the school, Pynchon played college lacrosse at Providence, where he served as captain for two seasons.

Pynchon became the head coach of Beverly High School in 2008. During Pynchon’s nine years there, the Panthers qualified for postseason play nine times and won the Northeast Conference Championships seven times (2010-2016). Pynchon was named Boston Globe Div. 2 Coach of the Year in 2015, Salem News Coach of the Year in 2013, and NEC Coach of the Year in 2011 and 2014.

Pynchon is just the third head coach in the history of St. John’s Prep, and the program has been around since 1981. In his eight years with SJP, Pynchon has won awards, coached multiple All-Americans and won championships. This year the Eagles won their fourth straight MIAA Divison 1 title with a 17-13 decision over Needham.

Watch the full podcast below on YouTube. It’s also available on all major podcast platforms. If you enjoy it, please leave a rating and a review. Watch more episodes on the Chasing the Goal podcast channel.

Here are some excerpts from the podcast.

Devitte: Let’s talk a little bit about your background – how you got this job; how you’ve built this, this program. 

Pynchon: I grew up playing lacrosse in Mass. and I played at St. John’s for John Roy. And then went and played at Providence and coached down there for two years.

I was coaching in Beverly. I got an opportunity to coach there, take over from Peter John Alfie, and loved my time at Beverly. It was absolutely one of those things where I didn’t think I’d ever leave. But then the job at St. John’s opened up and being an alum and just kind of knowing what the school is about.

And I guess being attracted to come back to that was a great opportunity. So went over there and we’ve had a lot of success over the last couple of years. I work at the school, so being there full-time is really helpful. I think for me, coaching-wise, it it provided some opportunities to do some stuff that we’ve been talking about doing at Beverly or trying to do at Beverly, but we just didn’t necessarily have all the pieces in place, like, numbers-wise and stuff like that.

Super challenging and competitive and fun. And I think the success we’ve had over the last couple of years is a testament to the work that the kids have put in. We give out the homework and give out the assignments and the kids put all the work in and get it done.

So we’ve been blessed with some amazing kids.

Piatelli: You’re building a culture, you’re not building a team [at St. John’s Prep] and that’s why you’ve had success. It’s building the culture and the culture is what drives your success and understanding what the ultimate goal is. Because you can’t win as individuals. 

Pynchon: I think it’s so true. In my journey as a coach, the more that I learned and read and studied other successful coaches and programs. The more it doesn’t matter what the sport is, but the more you see that it’s really hard and it’s intentional and it’s like a year-round commitment to it, but it provides an opportunity to you.

Have a big group of guys succeed, have a big group of guys. I always take pride in when we have a local paper in our area, it lists the area’s leading scorers. We never have kids in there, but when you look at kids who scored varsity goals for us, it’s 30 deep, right? We (have) almost 15 guys scoring more than 10 goals in a season. It’s something that’s super special for me.

Yeah. I just take pride in stuff like that. And that, I think that’s the culture. That’s where we see it. And then the wins take care of themselves or they come secondhand. Maybe it’ll be interesting when we, if we, don’t win – which will happen at some point. That will be a real true testament to the culture.

If guys are still willing to buy in when we aren’t having the success, that’s something I think about. It’s a lot now, so it keeps me up at night, but it’s a good challenge. 

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