Podcast: Coach Drew Bourdeau on what awaits him at St. Anselm

Former Bedford (N.H.) High School coach and current St. Anselm coach Drew Bourdeau joined 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 new St. Anselm head coach Drew Bourdeau.

Before taking over at St. Anselm this summer, Bourdeau (Newburyport, Mass.) most recently served as the head coach at Bedford (N.H.) High School for two seasons, where he was named the 2024 Division 1 and USA Lacrosse New Hampshire Coach of the Year.

His team finished as the D-1 runner-up, boasting the highest-scoring offense in the NHIAA.

Bourdeau has also served as a head coach with the NH Tomahawks since 2021, running all aspects of the state’s premier club program. He also spent time as an assistant coach at Marblehead (Mass.) High School and North Andover (Mass.) High School before taking over the Bedford program in 2023.

Bourdeau played at St. Anselm from 2015-18 and started all but one game in his career as a defenseman. He was named to the All-Northeast 10 team twice and finished his career with 129 groundballs and 62 caused turnovers. He was also selected by the MLL’s Boston Cannons out of the league’s player pool, attending the team’s training camp in 2019.

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.

Kyle Devitte: How did this move to St. A’s happen? Because you were coaching Bedford last year and led Bedford to one of their best seasons ever. A couple of goals shy of the championship and you smashed a bunch of teams on the way. You really had everything rolling. How did the college opportunity happen?

Drew Bourdeau: Yeah, great question. So I was planning on being at Bedford for the next 35 years. I was planning on retiring there as a teacher and and coaching there. We had an unbelievable run. On the last day of school, I’m packing my room up and I get a call from (former St. Anselm coach Mike) Sciamanna and he was like, “Hey, I’m leaving. I’m going to Merrimack. What do you think about taking over?”

And I kind of laughed at it. I was like, “Yeah, that’d be awesome. But a lot of things have to happen for that to happen.” Then from there, it was just a matter of jumping through all the hoops and applying and proving to the committee that I can coach at the college level; that’s really the biggest thing. And here we are. 

Jack Piatelli: Coach Sciamanna leaves for Merrimack and you’d expect a number of players to jump into the (transfer) portal. We live by the portal today. It’s a crazy time in lacrosse. I think that’s a testament to you and what you said before. You were around. You understand what the whole culture is. The players that are still there believe in you — not knowing you that well, but knowing that you were part of when that culture started.

Drew Bourdeau: That was my message to the guys. The first meeting that I had with them I told them that I’m a big fan of college football. I love watching on Saturdays and just about any sport — college basketball, college lacrosse. But you look at coaching changes and the biggest thing that happens is, if it’s a team that’s dominant and then all of a sudden starts to not become a national powerhouse … then a new coach comes in and their staff, and they try to reinvent the wheel.

And for a number of years, you start to battle against the current guys that are there. And so my message to them was if you looked at Bedford High School, if you looked at our program, it was a direct mirror to what you guys do here every day — how we stretch, how we practice, the offense that we run, the defense that we run, the way we clear the ball.

I’ve been in this culture. I know exactly where you guys are. I’ve been through a coaching change myself. I know how scary that can be. But I believe that in this culture, the only things that we’re going to change are that we win that final four game and win that national championship game.

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