Podcast: Boston Cannons boss Brian Holman on a life in coaching

Boston Cannons head coach and GM Brian Holman is the guest on this week's episode of "Chasing The Goal." (PLL Photos)

On this week’s episode of New England Lacrosse Journal’s “Chasing The Goal” podcast, hosts Kyle Devitte and Jack Piatelli talk with Boston Cannons general manager and head coach Brian Holman.

Holman was a three-time All-American goaltender at Johns Hopkins during his playing days. He was an integral part of the team’s 1980 NCAA champion team and he finished his career there with a 50-7 record.

As a coach, Holman helped lead North Carolina to the NCAA title in 2016. UNC competed in the NCAA tournament every year during his tenure and finished in the top 10 of the national rankings seven times, including a No. 1 rank in 2013.

From there, Holman took his first collegiate head-coaching job with Utah’s club lacrosse team in 2017, guiding that program through its transition to Division 1.

He has been the head coach and general manager of the Boston Cannons since February 2023. That summer he led the team back to prominence with a regular-season record of 7-3 and berth in the PLL semifinals.

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: You see a lot of these young college coaches today (who) play at a college, then they become an assistant coach, and then they continue to coach and they eventually will find they’ve never coached at the youth level (or) the high school level. Personally, I was very fortunate. I coached my daughter, my boys. I started a youth program. I was a high school coach. I was a college coach. I played and coached professionally. But I feel you’re such a better coach when you coach youth. You learn patience. You learn the basic fundamentals of how to teach the game. Right?

Brian Holman: I couldn’t agree with you more. When you get older you start to view things differently. It’s been one of the biggest blessings of my life in coaching. … I coached the freshman/sophomore team at Boys Latin. And if you know anything about Baltimore, it’s a very competitive place. I hate to say it, but they’re kind of the bottom of the barrel. If you’re not making JV or varsity as a freshman or a sophomore in Baltimore, you’re probably not playing lacrosse at a high level, right?

So go coach one of those teams. Go figure out how to motivate or inspire a group of kids that really know that they’re not the best around. Go coach a bunch of 5- and 6-year-olds. What kind of games can you come up with to keep them engaged for an hour and also help them learn along the way?

It’s a tough thing to tell a young hotshot coach in college that if you want to be better or really expand your base, maybe you should go coach a high school JV in an area that’s not very good. And they look at you like, “Really? I don’t need to hear that.”

But I know it’s paid dividends for me and I know the relationships along the way have meant everything, as they do to you. So I’ve been lucky in that realm for sure.

Jack Piatelli: Other than the players being bigger, faster, stronger and smarter, what are your thoughts or what did you have to do as a coach to adjust the rule changes? It’s a very different game with the shorter field, the shot clock; you’ve got a lot of LSMs who have become more offensive threats. Did you watch a lot of film? What changes did you have to make in order for you to have the success you have had so early in the league? 

Brian Holman: I’d like to say I have it all figured out, Jack. Obviously, I don’t. I’m a lucky man. I’ve got great assistant coaches. Jim Mitchell’s a top two or three — maybe one — offensive mind right now and he is going to be a great, great head coach when he gets the opportunity at the right place. Last year I had Mikey Thompson, who’s a phenomenal head coach at Division 3 Christopher Newport. Mikey could run any major Division 1 program.

Kyle Hartzell’s name speaks for itself. He’s, arguably one of the hardest workers, one of the toughest dudes the MLL has ever seen. And with our guys, he has instant respect in our locker room. So those guys make my life easy because of the information that they can feed me on how we want to look and how we want to play, right?

That’s their job. My job is to go find the guys and craft the bigger-picture stuff. The one thing I will say that I’ve learned really quickly is that all the bigger, faster, stronger things stand out to me because of the rule changes and the way the game’s paced … you have to process information so quickly.

I focus on how quickly can they process what’s coming at them. Because you could be the best, strongest player in the league all you want. And all of a sudden, you’ve got Gavin Adler in your gloves. The slides and the rotations are so quick that if you can’t process that information in a microsecond, you’re going to struggle, right? And that’s not an easy thing to do. That’s something that needs to be worked on.

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