Podcast: Lawrence Academy’s Sam Cleveland on ISL fit and culture

Lawrence Academy head coach Sam Cleveland is the guest on the latest episode of the "Chasing the Goal" podcast. (Dave Arnold/NELJ)

On this episode of New England Lacrosse Journal’s “Chasing The Goal” podcast, host Kyle Devitte and Owen Hart talk with Lawrence Academy head coach Sam Cleveland.

Cleveland is a 2015 graduate of The Rivers School and was named the team’s MVP his senior year, in addition to two All-League selections in the Independent School League. After graduation, he went on to play at Colgate, where he amassed 144 points in 56 career games.

After coaching the Fighting Clams club organization coming out of college, Cleveland returned to the ISL in 2021 when he was named the head coach at Lawrence.

The Arlington, Mass., native made a quick impact shortly after his arrival. After a limited season in 2021, Cleveland led the Spartans to an 11-7 record and the first ISL championship tournament in ’22. In the past two seasons, he has led the team to 5-10 and 7-11 records, respectively.

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.

Owen Hart: How do you balance maximizing winning for your team, but also maybe doing what’s best for an individual player? How do you deal with that game to game, week to week, year to year?

Sam Cleveland: So, my philosophy has evolved into understanding the context of the situation that you’re in as a coach. So for me, during the 12 weeks of the season, it’s about the team. There’s ample time to develop as an individual in the 40 weeks that don’t constitute the season. So there’s a lot of individual development that can come from learning team concepts, playing different positions, all of that.

But during the 12 weeks that are the season, I don’t have much concern for developing specific individuals instead of developing the team. I think there’s plenty of individual development that goes on in learning how to do two-man game, uneven odd. A man-up when you’re up a goal or down a goal is situational stuff. That’s all part of individual development, but it all needs to come within the context of the team, and attempting to win or at least achieve as competitive results as possible. Then the time for focusing on individual development can come after the season.

Kyle Devitte: What is Lawrence Academy’s lane in the ISL? 

Sam Cleveland: It’s a good question. I’ve always struggled to find the actually articulate words to say it. I think I’ve said to you in the past that Lawrence is a really “chill” place. And I’ve moved away from using that terminology. I still use a lot of analogies when I coach and talk to people. So I’ll always say that Lawrence is the Vermont of the ISL. It’s a little bit more of a relaxed place.

We’re not wearing coats and ties. All the way down from the minutia of what kids are wearing at the school to something way more quantifiable, like the feeling you get when you walk on campus and the way kids walk around there … in my view, their shoulders are a little bit less tense. They’re sweating a little bit less. They’re smiling a little bit more. They seem to walk 10 percent slower. They aren’t in a huge, massive urban rush to go places to get 99 instead of 98 on tests.

So, for better, for worse, and it’s mostly for better, it’s a really relaxed place with a lot of really nice kind people who also want to work hard and build something special. I think the challenge, as I said, for any given coach is to stay within the lane of the school. But it’s also important for the school to understand its own lane, and try and help coaches understand who they should and shouldn’t be recruiting to the school, who’s going to get in and who’s going to come.

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