Podcast: Bill Ball of Loomis Chaffee on mentors and the right players

Loomis Chaffee head coach Bill Ball is the guest on this week's episode of the "Chasing The Goal" podcast.

On this week’s episode of New England Lacrosse Journal’s “Chasing The Goal” podcast, hosts Kyle Devitte and Jack Piatelli talk with Loomis Chaffee head coach Bill Ball.

Ball joined the Founders League program in 2021 after a successful run at the Friends School in Baltimore. Since that point, he has been building the Pelicans into a force in the New England West region of the prep school world.

In that time, Loomis’ record has gone from 2-6 to 8-10 to 13-5 last year. This season, the Pelicans are on their hottest streak yet, with 12 wins and just one loss — and that one loss came at the hands of the best prep team in the region, Brunswick.

With the remaining regular-season games against Phillips Andover, Williston-Northampton, Taft and rival Choate, this could end up being one of the most successful seasons in the history of the Loomis Chaffee program.

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 pod.

Jack Piatelli: I played for Pete Lasagna when I played for the Boston Blazers and he’s one of my favorite people, a great coach and a great guy. Obviously he’s retired and doing some great things with the club lacrosse in Maine.

And then there’s, Jim Wilson. who started the program at Loomis 49 years ago. I had the opportunity to play against him when I was at Kent and we became friendly after I left Kent. So you’ve got a great guy in Pete Lasagna involved in your life and a gentleman, and talk about an ambassador of the game in Jim Wilson. It doesn’t get any bigger than that.

Bill Ball: Yeah. Certainly I’ve been lucky to have some good coaching role models. Taking over at at Loomis and connecting with ‘Grim’ (Jim Wilson) has been great, he still keeps in touch. He actually came down to a game last year. He’s up in Vermont, and he’ll always come and give our team some tidbits; some of the stuff that he said to us last year, we kind of live by it, and I think it helped us in the stretch run, for sure.

And Coach Lasagna was a huge role model in my life. What I loved about him is that lacrosse was important, but the other things in life were much more important. And I think that was really helpful for me.

Kyle Devitte: A lot of parents listening to this are probably like, well, what’s the difference (in prep programs), right? If I’m trying to get my kid into a prep school, what’s the difference between a Loomis or a Choate or a Deerfield or a Brunswick? And how do I make that decision? How do I get my kid on their radar? What’s your advice for a parent who’s trying to find that for their kid?

Bill Ball: Yeah, good question. All kinds of ways, but I think reaching out to the coach at that school, certainly at Loomis, and expressing your interest, giving them information about you, getting to know them (is important). For me, it’s really important to get to know the families that are coming, that are interested seeing how they would fit in with our program.

The major (things) are mainly your ability to play lacrosse, your ability to do the work in the classroom, and your ability to be a good community member. As a lacrosse coach, I’m obviously evaluating that lacrosse ability as well.

(You should be) going into it with a sense of who your child is and where they’re going to be successful? What are the environments? Is it going to be a co-ed thing? In terms of academic rigor, you need to have an understanding of what your student can do in the classroom.

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