Standing with her team as the final notes of the national anthem were drowned out by the roar of an overflow crowd of fans eager to see the Gators play the first lacrosse game in school history at shiny new Donald Dizney Stadium, Amanda O’Leary knew the wait had been worth it. More than two years had passed since she gave up her head coaching job at Yale to take on the fledgling Florida program. On this Saturday night when all the hard work and sacrifices were validated, so was her sense of belonging.
“Oh there’s no question we’re Gators now,” said O’Leary after the Florida Gators made their lacrosse debut one to remember with a 16-6 win over Jacksonville University before a crowd so large the gates were closed and at least a thousand fans were turned away. Capacity for the brand new stadium on Museum Road is officially listed at 1,500. Attendance was listed as 2,114. As the Gators and JU faced off to begin, there were fans lined up along the fence outside the stadium to catch a glimpse of Florida athletic history.
Although the majority of the fans had little or no idea about the rules and strategies involved in the game, it really didn’t matter. Every time the Gators scored, they roared and when the marketing branch of the UAA sent its people in the stands to throw out T-shirts every time there was a Gator score, there was agony and ecstasy — ecstasy for the one who outfought and outpositioned the others to grab the shirt; agony for those who either couldn’t make the catch or saw the T-shirt sail over their heads and land a couple of rows over.
The fans were into it and they added a level of electricity to the crisp, cool air.
O’Leary said the crowd, “Far exceeded our wildest imaginations. That type of crowd and the enthusiasm they showed tonight was second to none. For our players to play in front of that kind of home crowd was an amazing experience for all of them.”
With a packed stadium giving them plenty of emotional support, the Gators added to the atmosphere on the field by scoring early enough and often enough that O’Leary was able to play her entire roster of 29 — 24 freshmen, two sophomores, one junior and a senior. They all had a hand in history being made and everyone on the team left feeling like they were a part of something that was more than just a lacrosse game.
Sam Farrell, a freshman from Millersville, Maryland got the first goal in Florida history unassisted just 1:50 into the match. Teammates mobbed her and fans were on their feet roaring. It was an overwhelming moment for Farrell, who had never played before a crowd this large.
“In high schools, there were our parents and a couple of students,” the freshman from Millersville, Maryland said.
Farrell got a second goal later on but she wasn’t the only star. Freshman Ashley Bruns led the way with four goals and four assists and two other freshman, Colby Rhea and Julie Schindel scored three times each. The Gators had an 11-4 lead at halftime and they spent the second half shuffling players in and out of the lineup
The fans ate it up.
“I don’t know how many of them actually knew what was going on but they knew every time the Gators scored and they saw the scoreboard,” O’Leary said afterward. “Our fans are the ones that really made the night special. For them to come out and support us like this in our first game ever, I can’t tell you what that means to me … what it means to our whole team.”
In women’s lacrosse, Amanda O’Leary is about as close to a legend as it gets. A two-time All-American in both field hockey and lacrosse at Temple, she led the Owls to an undefeated season and an NCAA championship in 1988. She was the head coach at Yale for 14 seasons where she won 162 games, which ranks here 11th all-time in coaching victories in NCAA history. She is a member of the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame and was named to the NCAA’s 25th Anniversary Team for women’s lacrosse in 2006.
O’Leary is so well known in women’s lacrosse circles that she could have written her ticket just about anywhere the sport is played on the collegiate level where there was an opening, but instead of staying where she was or moving on to a school with a lacrosse history, she chose Florida, which added the sport back in 2007. So why did a lacrosse legend come to the University of Florida, which didn’t have a program prior to her arrival, and a state where the sport is only just now starting to catch on at the high school level and then go two full years without coaching a game?
Part of the answer is found in the demographics. O’Leary sees the fourth largest state in the union in terms of population which gives her a chance to be a pioneer who advances the sport into the hinterlands of lacrosse.
“The University of Florida is the flagship university of a state with close to 20 million people and lacrosse is the fastest growing sport in the entire country so when you talk about the growth of the sport and potential for its growth in this state, it’s incredible,” she said.
High schools around the state were adding lacrosse at a slow pace prior to athletic director Jeremy Foley announcing O’Leary as the new Florida lacrosse coach back on June 22, 2007. Since then the pace has quickened. High schools that are looking to add another sport for girls see the scholarship opportunities that exist at the University of Florida that gives them incentive to add a lacrosse program.
O’Leary sees her opportunity to not only develop the University of Florida into a lacrosse power but the chance to help turn the state into a lacrosse hotbed. Of the 29 young women on her roster, only four hail from Florida while the majority are from Maryland and New York where the sport has long been established.
“We’re hoping that with us playing lacrosse and Jacksonville playing and Rollins with a program now that it’s going to increase opportunities for girls,” O’Leary said. “The girls that have played have typically had to go out of state but now there is an alternative to that. They can stay in the state and play at the University of Florida and get the great education that you can get here. What an opportunity this is that they didn’t have in the past.”
O’Leary spent the last two years recruiting the team while the new stadium, practice facility, locker rooms and offices were being built. Now that she can finally coach again after two years of waiting for this day to finally arrive, her goal is to put a team on the field that will be positive role models for girls everywhere.
“Our team aspires to be role models in the local community and around the state,” she said. “We want young girls to have role models like the ones they will see at Florida and we want them to think, ‘I want to be like that someday, too.’ We want this to be a sport where parents will come out with their daughters and grandparents will come out with their granddaughters and say, ‘this is a sport you can play … you can grow up and be like these girls.’ That’s the kind of opportunity we see here.”
There will be plenty of opportunities to establish the University of Florida as a lacrosse program that is to be reckoned with and for O’Leary’s teams to develop into the kind of role models who will inspire girls throughout the state of Florida. The job has just begun and it won’t always be smooth sailing nor is it likely the crowds will always line up along the Museum Road fence just to catch a glimpse of the Gators. But O’Leary is here for the long haul and she has a program that she hopes will do its part to maintain the championship legacy of the women’s sports teams at UF. She knows she isn’t here to simply put a team on the field so Florida can be Title IX compliant. At Florida, coaches are hired to win championships and that’s an unwritten part of the job description.
Championships will come in the future, but Saturday night, O’Leary got her first win, ending a two-and-a-half year wait since the last time she coached a game. Getting a win the first time out was certainly special, but nothing could compare to that moment before the game when she stood with her team looking at all those fans packing Donald Dizney Stadium and lining up along the Museum Road fence. At that instant, Amanda O’Leary and her team were really Florida Gators.