Blood doesn’t show on a crimson jersey. Pop the hood, and Bill Tierney recognizes the DU lacrosse chassis he built, all scars and sweat, with his bare hands all those years ago.
But the engine, the wheels, the steering, the brakes, even the head gaskets? Matt Brown’s fingerprints. Everywhere.
“I think when you leave a job and leave it in good hands, you don’t have to worry,” the iconic former Pioneers lacrosse coach told me in advance of DU’s Final Four showdown with No. 1 Notre Dame on Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. “I don’t worry when I see some changes in the program. And he doesn’t worry about doing things that are the same that were successful in the program.”
They play music at practice now, Coach T, who retired last year after an iconic 14-year run as Pios lacrosse coach, lamented with a twinge of get-off-my-lawn in his voice. His successor Brown, a good Canuck, has even allowed DU players to grow “playoff beards,” Stanley-Cup style.
“He’s a young old-school coach,” Tierney said. “And, at the end, I tried to be an old, younger-school coach. I wasn’t as good at that as he was at being a young old-school (type).
“And he is a perfectionist when it comes to — not being a micro-manager, but making sure the ‘micro’ part of it is taken care of. I’ve always believed the best coaches are teachers. And he’s a great teacher.”
For a retired guy, Tierney’s got a pretty full planner these days. He called DU games as an analyst this season. He’s heading not to Philly this weekend, but to Albany, N.Y., as part of his inaugural training camp as coach and GM of the Premier Lacrosse League’s Philadelphia Waterdogs. Somewhere in there, he’s found time to write a book.
“The good news is, I’m 170 pages in,” he cracked. “And the bad news is, I’m only up to 1988.”
These Pios (13-3) have made for a pretty sweet chapter in the narrative, all things considered.
“We have such a phenomenal relationship,” Brown said of Tierney, his boss from 2009-23. “Best friend-slash-father figure.”
That son’s part of the future now. Brown turned up at DU in 2002 as a cherubic scoring threat from British Columbia who posted 113 goals and 137 points in crimson and gold. He came back to his alma mater in 2007 and never looked back. Neither did the Pios.
“My son (Trevor) mentioned to me, and very quickly said, ‘Dad, neither one of us knows a thing about offense in lacrosse. So we’ve got to hire Matt Brown,’” the elder Tierney recalled. “(Brown) was only 27 years old, and he did some great stuff. They were running around Wash Park with these giant rocks — each guy had to carry it for a while, then pass it to the next guy, and pass it to the next guy. He’d established himself, even as a young man, as a guy who was destined to be a great head coach.”
And hello, destiny. Brown was an assistant under Tierney in 2015, when DU won the first national title ever snagged by a lacrosse program west of the Alleghenies. Roll the clock forward a decade, and Brown’s only one of four Division I lacrosse coaches since 1986 to lead their team to a national semifinal during their first year at the helm.
In hindsight, DU’s Dream Team started to find its feet down by the Dream Stream. Cabin retreat. Two nights in January. Capture the flag, played out over hundreds of acres. With a time limit.
“No more than 45 minutes,” Brown said. “Everybody had to be back in the cabin by then, otherwise we’d be out in the cold too long.”
Brown takes the bonding stuff seriously. The Pios’ autumn regimen includes relay races up at Red Rocks. With a twist. The losing team has to perform on stage for the winners and coaches, and have a song or presentation ready.
“So they rehearse it the night before,” the coach explained, “hoping that they’re not going to do it, but just in case they have to.”
Brown even assigned them reading over the holiday break, in advance of their January retreat: “Not Fade Away,” a book by Laurence Shames and Peter Barton, whose name adorns their home field.
“I thought it was important for our players to know who (Barton) was as a man, and his story,” Brown explained, “because they play in this beautiful stadium.”
And play like ninjas. DU’s ranked 13th nationally going into the weekend in scoring margin (3.00) and second in scoring defense (9.19 goals allowed per game). Sixteen Pios are either seniors or grad students.
So the beard part, as you’d imagine, comes easy. It’s also not new, Brown says. It’s always been sitting in the glove compartment, just waiting for the right moment.
“Coach T probably forgets that we let them do it one or two years before,” Brown chuckled. “But I did have to twist (Bill’s) arm.”
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