Podcast: Trinity-Pawling’s Andrew Kirkaldy on life in the Founders League

Trinity-Pawling coach Andrew Kirkaldy joined hosts Jack Piatelli and Kyle Devitte on the "Chasing The Goal" podcast this week.

On this week’s episode of New England Lacrosse Journal’s “Chasing The Goal” podcast, hosts Kyle Devitte and Jack Piatelli talk with Trinity-Pawling coach Andrew Kirkaldy.

A native of Red Deer, Alberta, Kirkaldy was drafted by the Calgary Roughnecks professional box lacrosse team in 2005. He played his collegiate field lacrosse for Gordon College from 2006-10, earning Rookie of the Year honors in the Commonwealth Coast Conference in 2006.

A prolific goal scorer as a player, he was the leading scorer for the Fighting Scots for two seasons.

He began coaching in 2012 at Haverhill (Mass.) High School where, in his first year, he was selected Head Coach of the Year in the Merrimack Valley Conference. In 2013, as the assistant coach at Fairfield Prep (Conn.), he helped that team win a CIAC Class L championship.

After coaching with 3D Lacrosse in New England, he started the 3D Tri-State office with Dave Dobbins, a former associate head coach at Ohio State. Currently, Kirkaldy is the head coach and assistant director of admissions at Trinity-Pawling School.

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.

Jack Piatelli: You’ve had some losses this year, but you’ve had some close games in those losses, and as we talked earlier before the podcast, you’ve had some injuries too, right?

Andrew Kirkaldy: Yeah. I mean we’re down and I think you feel bad for these kids, right? I’ve got three senior defensemen (and) one had to get surgery on his shoulder, which is brutal and you feel awful for him. But I always tell these kids, “We never want to see the best of you here. We want to see the best for you at the next level.” Then I’ve got another kid who had a freak accident. He’s got a spiral fracture in his hand and then a high-ankle sprain. So almost all of my poles are out, which is just crazy. But it’s the next-man-up mentality, and the guys that have been stepping up have been doing really well.

And the Loomis  Chaffee) game … Loomis is a great school and a great team. We were down 8-1 after the first quarter (and it was) 8-7 at halftime; then they came out on top 13 9. Against Taft we were up 9-8 and didn’t finish it out, lost 11-9. So, we’ve been in it; we just have to prevent those five-minute lulls that we’re experiencing right now.

Kyle Devitte: Getting guys to buy into their role year after year — I’m sure the progression is a little different from me coaching at a small public school in New Hampshire. You’re developing players, but you’re also bringing in players that maybe aren’t going to be there for four years or have already played two years somewhere else, and they have expectations. Is that one of the tougher parts of your job?

Andrew Kirkaldy: I have some young ninth-graders that I think are going to be super talented, but they’re just not ready to compete in this league. But let’s start on the easy part: All my defensive middies actually like playing defensive midfield. One’s going to go to Bentley to play. He loves it. He’s super-excited to go there. Awesome kid, just a grinder. He’s worked his butt off to get on the field. He’s a senior now and he’s earned every amount of time that he’s getting.

The other one’s a PG going to Towson. And if we know anything about Towson, it’s that there is pride with their D-middies. I can’t share film with them because they’re in class right now, but they want to watch film. It’s like, “Guys, you’re in school, you have to be learning, you can’t be watching film in class.”

Sometimes you’ve got to be the heartbreaker: “Hey, I know you want to be a goal scorer, but your stick skills aren’t there yet. We’re going to try to get them there, but this is where I think you could help us.” And these are conversations that we have with them at the beginning of the year, after we’ve gone through all of our winter training meetings, like our workouts and the small-group training that we can do as coaches. Sometimes it takes a little bit of on-field convincing versus us convincing, right?

@TheKyleDevitte
[email protected]

More Episodes