How 2010 Set the Stage for Ned Crotty's Hall of Fame Career

THE UNITED STATES NEEDED AN ANSWER. A four-goal halftime advantage had vanished, and Canada led 10-9 in the fourth quarter. It felt like 2006 all over again, the Canadians operating at peak efficiency as the Americans squeezed out empty possessions.

Offensive coordinator Joe Alberici turned to head coach Mike Pressler and suggested they invert with Ned Crotty, the youngest player on the team and the Tewaaraton Award winner that year.

“Needles!” Pressler yelled as players swarmed the sideline.

Surprised to hear the nickname Pressler gave him his freshman year at Duke, the 23-year-old attackman — who for most of the 2010 world championship in Manchester, England, played second fiddle on a veteran team — scurried from the end of the bench to the substitution area.

Streaking out of the box, Crotty saw Paul Rabil swing the ball behind to Mike Leveille. A lean lefty, he put his stick in his right hand, offered a target, caught the pass and shot a low-to-high sidearm riser that beat Canada goalie Chris Sanderson and tie the game at 10.

“I wasn’t going back to the bench after that one,” Crotty said. “I stayed up front.”

Minutes later, the U.S. again called Crotty’s number. He got a short-stick matchup behind the goal with Kevin Crowley, who denied him his left hand. Crotty went right, slipped as he approached goal line extended and spiked the ball off the wet, sand-filled turf at Armitage Sports Centre. It hit the underside of the crossbar and bounced over the goal line.

The United States went on to win 12-10, reclaiming the gold medal and offering a redemptive moment for Crotty and Pressler, whose time together in Durham was cut short by the infamous Duke lacrosse case.

“Scoring the fourth-quarter game-tying and winning goals is something that will go down in national team history as one of the most clutch performances of all time,” Alberici said at the time.

Fifteen years later, that statement has aged quite well. Crotty, who turned 39 in September and last month married former Boston College women’s lacrosse player Kate Weeks, learned during their honeymoon in Bali that he had been chosen for induction into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame.

The Class of 2025 also includes Matt Danowski, Crotty’s brother-in-law and former Duke and USA teammate. They’ll serve as presenters for each other Jan. 10 at USA Lacrosse’s Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony at M&T Bank Exchange in Baltimore.

“It’s validating,” Crotty said. “Not that I was looking for that. But look at who’s been inducted already. They’re guys I grew up watching in final fours. The last time I had that feeling was the first time I was on Team USA in 2010.”

Crotty’s 2010 star turn served as a springboard for one of the brilliant playing careers of the 21st century. He graduated from Duke as a three-time All-American — earning the distinction as both a midfielder and an attackman — and national champion after the Blue Devils’ 6-5 overtime triumph against Notre Dame in the NCAA championship game that year. Crotty broke Danowski’s single-season school record with 63 assists, won the Tewaaraton, went No. 1 overall in the 2010 Major League Lacrosse draft and was named the MLL Rookie of the Year.

A seven-time all-star, Crotty played professionally for 12 years before retiring after the 2021 Premier Lacrosse League season. He’s also one of just 16 players in history to make the U.S. Men’s National Team for three different world championships, following his 2010 debut with appearances in 2014 (Denver) and 2018 (Netanya, Israel).

“I don’t know if I’ll ever see a player like him. I’ll never meet a personality like him,” said former USA goalie John Galloway, Crotty’s teammate with MLL’s Rochester/Dallas Rattlers, the PLL’s Chrome Lacrosse Club and the 2018 U.S. team. “He really did change my perspective on what a superstar looks like.”

Crotty won championships at every level, starting with state titles in lacrosse and hockey at Delbarton School (N.J.). He was the 2005 New Jersey Player of the Year in both sports. Then came the NCAA championship at Duke in 2010, two gold medals with the U.S. team and the 2015 MLL title as part of a two-year stint with the New York Lizards.

“Instant offense — that’s who he is,” Pressler said of Crotty, whose 180 career assists rank 10th in pro field lacrosse history. “In all the years I’ve coached, I can’t remember another player who had such uncanny ability to break down and run by his matchup. There’s not a slicker player. He can feed it. He can beat you off the dribble. He’s not the biggest guy, Needles, but he can turn sideways and slither through double teams. He just has this uncanny ability to escape.”

Winning it all as a fifth-year senior with the Blue Devils was especially satisfying for Crotty considering the controversy that engulfed his freshman year at Duke, when Pressler was fired, the school canceled the season and three players were indicted amid rape allegations that ultimately were proven false and led to the disbarment of disgraced prosecutor Mike Nifong.

“You hear a lot in sports where it’s us against the world. But it was a very real thing,” Crotty said of the media firestorm and reactions on campus. “It was us against the world.”

“We were dead to rites in most people’s eyes. They 100-percent believed we were awful human beings who did this terrible thing,” he added. “They fired our coach, canceled our program, kicked us out of school. And everybody was wrong. I’m a very firm believer because of my experience that everyone is innocent until proven guilty.”

Crotty never considered leaving Duke, where four of his five siblings (he’s the second youngest) matriculated. The university hired John Danowski to stabilize the team in July 2006. Crotty considers the 2010 title a testament to all the players and recruits who stuck with the Blue Devils despite the uncertainty surrounding the program at the time.

“To have those bookends of the worst time in program history and the best time in program history — at that point — was unbelievable,” Crotty said. “For the guys that stuck with the program, it was just so special for so many reasons.”

A reunion with both Danowskis came in 2018, when John Danowski was the head coach and Matt Danowski a co-captain of the gold medal-winning U.S. team that lost to Canada four years earlier. (Crotty is quick to point out that for every championship he has won, he has also experienced defeat, including the 2007 NCAA final, the 2014 world championship final and the 2018 MLL final.)

While most of the lacrosse world remembers Tom Schreiber’s last-second goal to beat Canada 9-8, the real ones recall Danowski’s gritty ground ball to retain possession and Crotty’s crease pick on Ryland Rees to spring Schreiber for the winner.

“Poetic that Schreibs scores on a Canadian twister to win the gold medal,” Crotty said.

It will be similarly poetic to see Crotty and Danowski share the stage once more as Hall of Fame inductees. The Class of 2025 also includes Leif Elsmo, Maggie Faulkner, Tom Flatley (posthumous), Christie Jenkins Kemezis, Crista Samaras and Kristin Sommar Jenney.

Tickets for the Jan. 10 event are now on sale.