The Hard Hat: 21 Ways to Be a Great Teammate

Chapter 2We Know Who Our People Are

I found Jeff Tambroni, the Cornell men's lacrosse coach, standing on the sidewalk by the lacrosse office as I walked up the hill from the Statler Hotel. I had played against Jeff in college when he was an All-American attackman at Hobart College and I was a face-off man and defensive midfielder for Cornell. I could still picture the way he looked back then and remembered his incredible quickness and uncanny ability to create scoring opportunities for his team. Unfortunately, it had happened against Cornell and me far too many times.

My time at Cornell is regrettably called the beginning of the dark years. Before I had joined the team, Cornell had made it to the national championships two years in a row. My sophomore year, we were ranked ninth in the country but, during my senior year, we had the first losing season in the history of legendary Richie Moran's coaching career. The program experienced a number of challenging times and losing seasons in the years following my graduation, but Jeff Tambroni, first as an assistant and then as head coach, had restored Cornell to a lacrosse powerhouse program once again.

When I asked Jeff how he got Cornell back to its winning ways, he said, “We know and embrace who our people are. In years past we would recruit lacrosse players en masse, but now we are looking to recruit a specific ten who most appropriately ...