Culver Helps Class of 2028 Star PJ Kennedy Find Voice as Leader

PJ Kennedy enjoyed his first year at Culver Military Academy, and he’s looking forward to an extra special start to this year after a busy summer with Mad Dog Lacrosse.

Culver’s unique scheduling has half-days on Wednesdays, and that setup means the junior attackman has a few more hours than some in the 2028 class to return phone messages to college coaches on Sept. 9, the first day that men’s lacrosse coaches are allowed to have contact with high school juniors. 

It’s a new date, a change from the former Sept. 1 at midnight to now 7 a.m. on the first Wednesday after Labor Day, beginning this year.

“I've dreamed of this day for so long, and it honestly doesn't feel real,” Kennedy said. “I've looked up to all these guys that have gone through the recruiting summer, and being at Culver, all the guys that have been years above me that I've talked to about their process and recruiting and getting those calls in September, so it's just unreal and it hasn't even happened yet. Leading up to it, there’s just a whole lot of emotions.”

Kennedy is expected to be one of the most highly sought after players in the class. He’s 6-3 and 190 pounds and has proven he can play with and without the ball while demonstrating a high lacrosse IQ that can help any offense run more efficiently. Kennedy tried to just play his game, but he couldn’t help feel more weight with dozens of college coaches watching every move.

“I feel like it means more this summer than any other summer because all eyes are on you, and it's setting up probably the biggest decision of your life, playing for all those guys,” he said. “So, I feel like definitely there was a lot of pressure.”

Yet he remained a cool and collected architect for Mad Dog, showing he could do the little things like riding and moving off-ball to go with the flashier playmaking. A native of Gallatin, Tenn., he has blossomed out of a non-traditional area by honing his craft on his own and also finding some of the best lacrosse competition by moving to Culver.

“Coming here, the culture, the academics, it's really the best of both worlds,” Kennedy said. “It's just guys that have the same goals as you that also come from non-hotbed areas. It's guys coming together, wanting to prove themselves coming from places where lacrosse isn’t as popular.”

He played two years in the USA Lacrosse National Team Development Program (U16 in 2024 and U17 in 2025), has been a part of a Mad Dog team featuring players from non-traditional areas, and then transferred last year from Tennessee’s Pope Saint John Paul II Preparatory School to another collection of nationwide players at Culver. 

His father, who played on Syracuse’s 2000 NCAA championship team, was his high school coach in Tennessee after formerly serving as an assistant coach at Culver.

“I don't think I'd be the player I was today if it wasn't for Culver and the resources I have around me,” Kennedy said. “Even with taking the lacrosse aspect out of it, just the school with the guys and the people I have around me, besides lacrosse, I wouldn't be the person or player I am today without them. It's definitely one of the best decisions I ever made.”

National Team Development Program coaches identified him early as a player with enormous potential. He was the youngest player on the U16 team, and even with his Tennessee background, he already showed a high lacrosse IQ and ability to play within any type of system. He continues to project that value as college coaches line up to talk to him.

“He is that glue guy that you have to have,” one college coach said. “He’s the piece that you have to have in your offense that is going to make everything work in a 6-on-6 offense.”

He challenged himself within the U.S. program, and he’s been a mainstay on the summer circuit. This year, he looked even sharper according to coaches from all levels after a spring at Culver being challenged in practice by Division I defensemen and playing one of the toughest schedules in the country.

“Not that he lacked confidence,” Mad Dog coach Aedan Herman said, “but I think going through the year and then into the summer where he's taken on every No. 1 matchup at the most prestigious lacrosse schools in America at the prep level, he just kind of rolled into the summer with a savviness about him. I think he's grown a lot as a kid.”

His spring came with challenges. He was the new guy coming in as a sophomore, and he wasn’t a starter for Culver until the third game of the season. It wasn’t that Culver didn’t think he was good enough.

“It was really more about him earning it and putting to bed any questions about he just came in and got inserted right away,” Culver coach Keith Euker said. “Everyone could see PJ definitely earned that spot and everybody was on board with it. It wasn't anything like I didn't think he was good enough.”

The dynamics forced him to take on an even bigger role when 2027 standout Riley Woods, a Princeton commit, was injured. Kennedy was named the school’s male student-athlete of the month in April as he helped Culver off to a fast start in a 14-1 season.

“It's very easy to notice his skill, that’s the first thing,” Euker said. “He's right-handed, he's left-handed, he can dodge, he can shoot, he can feed, he's really good off-ball. But what stood out to me was PJ's mindset. And watching him in practice every day, I mean, practice is brutal. The kids beat each other up, and he just never let it faze him."

Kennedy ended up leading Culver with 77 points. They came in an almost perfectly dispersed 38 goals and 39 assists as he showed his ability to both quarterback an offense and be its finisher.

“Not having Riley definitely hurt, but that improved my game as a ball carrier, and I developed more into a leader without having his voice on the field,” Kennedy said. “That's hard as a sophomore, as a new guy. And I feel like I developed that as a leader over the season.”

Matched over the summer against players from his class, Kennedy has continued to excel. He felt the game slowed down for him after such a gauntlet of competition in the spring. He enjoyed playing with a largely familiar group of 2028s over the summer, though they come from a wide variety of backgrounds.

“Mad Dog does a great job of getting guys that are so selfless,” Kennedy said. “And that's why we have so much success — guys are willing to change the role from what it was in the spring, change it from spring to summer based on the team we have. From all aspects, from offense to defense to faceoffs, guys embrace their role on the team.”

It enabled Kennedy to demonstrate his versatility furthermore, showing more of his abilities off the ball and opportunities to blend in another style of offense. Kennedy doesn’t see himself as a finished product. He’s focused on developing a sharper outside shot, and he’s trying to improve athletically by lifting to get stronger and faster. He’s even hard on himself in critiquing his elite quarterbacking.

“I had a few moments last year where I messed up on that a few times, which were learning moments, and I improved from that,” he said.

Kennedy has tried to grow from each of his experiences. He is part of a Mad Dog collection of players from such states like California, Colorado, Florida and Texas. Their model has been to develop players from non-traditional areas to continue on to high-level lacrosse colleges.

“We pull from very athletic states,” Herman said. “Forecasting forward, our ‘30 group is probably going to be the best group we ever had and our best three players are from Indiana. So it’s interesting, but we're finding all these kids in these non-traditional areas.”

Kennedy is among the best of them. He can make an offense and a team better. He’s done so while in Tennessee, with the U.S., at Culver and for Mad Dog. It’s why when Sept. 9 hits, he will have plenty of college possibilities.

“He's going to really help a college program,” Euker said. “He will learn his role, whatever that role is, and he will execute that role. He will not go outside of the guardrail to get in the way of somebody else's role, so to speak. He has a really good understanding for how the whole system works and what he needs to do individually for his portion of that system, and just doing it really, really well.”