As the son of a high-level NCAA Division I men’s lacrosse coach, it’s not surprising that Matt Danowski gravitated to the sport. Growing up on Long Island while his father, John, was coaching at Hofstra, lacrosse was a regular part of his life. But so were other sports.
“We grew up in a simpler time right where you just kind of played all the sports that were in that season,” Matt Danowski said. “So, it was soccer or football in the fall, it was hoops or wrestling in the winter and it was lacrosse or baseball in the spring. I loved playing high school football. I love playing high school basketball. I was not a very good basketball player, couldn't really shoot, but we used to press and defend and trap. We got to the Nassau championship my last year and that was an unbelievably cool experience.
“If I was two or three inches taller, who knows? But I think in a lot of ways lacrosse chose me versus the other way around.”
He’s made the most in a sport chosen for him with his accomplishments now being recognized by his induction into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame this weekend. Seated-dinner tickets for the event Jan. 10 in Baltimore are sold out, but limited balcony seating tickets remain. The event will also be live streamed on USALacrosse.tv.
This year’s class includes Danowski’s former teammate and brother-in-law Ned Crotty (they will be each other’s presenters), Leif Elsmo, Maggie Faulkner, Tom Flatley (posthumous), Christie Jenkins Kemezis, Crista Samaras and Kristin Sommar Jenney.
After leading Farmingdale (N.Y.) to a state championship game his senior year, Danowski represented the United States in the 2003 U19 world championship. He led the U.S. to a gold medal, scoring a team-best 27 points to earn MVP honors, and the scoring never stopped.
He had mixed feelings about leaving Long Island and the chance to play for his dad at Hofstra, but Kevin Shanley, a dean at Farmingdale High School, put it into perspective for him.
“He said, ‘What are you doing? If you have an opportunity to go to Duke, you’re going to Duke,” Danowski recalled. “I was like, ‘Yeah that sounds alright, let's do it.’ It wasn't some sort of epiphany as much as I needed a kick in the ass.”
He arrived wide-eyed in Durham, N.C., that fall. His summer with the U19 team had been his first extended time away from home, but he was ready when the whistle blew. He earned All-America honors as a freshman in 2004, but the team went just 5-8. Danowski helped lead the transformation of the Duke program the following year, leading the nation in scoring while helping the Blue Devils reach the national championship game for the first time in school history.
And then everything unraveled. Duke’s 2006 season was cut short amid false rape allegations leveled against men’s lacrosse players that drew widespread media coverage the sport had never seen before nor since. Mike Pressler was fired as the school’s lacrosse coach in the turmoil.
Duke needed an experienced coach to hold things together and the administration chose Matt’s father, John.
“He was only guy for the job,” Matt Danowski said. “Other people wanted it and interviewed for it, but he was the only person who understood what was going on at the time and could handle all of the other stuff that came with it.”
John Danowski sought his son’s permission before applying for the job and did his best to let the players lead during incredibly challenging times.
“We were probably really coachable because we just wanted to win,” Matt Danowski said. “We thought everyone was watching us and we thought winning would cure everything and solve all of our problems.”
Duke did win, but did not get the Disney ending. In the Danowskis’ first year together, 2007, the Blue Devils reached the NCAA championship game, but fell to Johns Hopkins for the second time in three seasons with the national title on the line. With the NCAA awarding a bonus year to the Duke players who had their 2006 season cut short, Matt got another shot at the title. Duke won 18 games in 2008, but lost in the NCAA semifinals.
He led the NCAA in scoring in three of his four full seasons and graduated with a then-national record 353 career points.
A stellar pro career followed, along with him joining his dad on the Duke coaching staff. Nearly a decade after his college playing career ended, father and son would be reunited once again in the coach-player dynamic.
Matt Danowski was in the tryout pool for the 2006, 2010 and 2014 U.S. senior teams, but did not make the final roster. Long a dream to play for the U.S. again after his 2003 U19 experience, he was reluctant to try out for the 2018 team, in part because his father was the head coach.
“I actually didn't even really want to try out because I didn’t want it to look like I got picked because my dad was the coach,” Matt Danowski said. U.S. assistant coaches Joe Amplo and Seth Tierney helped talk him into giving it a shot. “I went there to kind of be there to help other guys along and help them understand what he's looking for in the offense after playing and coaching with him for so long.”
The younger Danowski put up four goals and three assists in his dad’s U.S. coaching debut – a 22-6 victory over Denver in January 2016 – and it was clear he belonged both as a player and a leader. Matt Danowski would eventually be named a co-captain for the 2018 U.S. team, alongside John Galloway.
After a silver medal finish in 2014, the U.S. team was hungry and motivated and star players were willing to take on new roles to put the team first. Danowski was one of those players, playing in a midfield role after a career as an attackman.
The 2018 U.S. team was special, and the family dynamics went beyond the Danowskis. Two sets of brothers — Jake and Jesse Bernhardt and John and Will Haus — were on the team. Crotty, Matt Danowski’s teammate at Duke and his brother-in-law (he married Virginia Crotty, herself a gold medalist with the 2007 U.S. U19 team) was on the squad as well.
“The entire group was a family and to see the interaction with those guys was the thrill of a lifetime,” John Danowski said.
A literal last-second victory over Canada in Israel on a goal by Tom Schreiber returned the world championship to the U.S., culminating a magical experience.
“There was big part of me that could have left all my stuff on the field there and never played lacrosse again,” Matt Danowski said. “Even though I went on to finish the season with the Bayhawks and play the first year in the PLL, I don’t think anything could be better than that moment.”
