Podcast: Andover (Mass.) coach Bryan Brazill on intensity, team building

Coach Bryan Brazill of Andover (Mass.) and HGR Lacrosse joins the "Chasing The Goal" podcast this week.

On this week’s episode of New England Lacrosse Journal’s “Chasing The Goal” podcast, hosts Kyle Devitte and Owen Hart talk with Andover (Mass.) High School head coach Bryan Brazill.

A Merrimack College alum, Brazill led the Warriors in scoring in his final two seasons and ranked in the top 10 nationally in 2004 and ’05. Brazill was also the head coach at Haverhill High School after graduating from Merrimack, leading the program for four years. He currently runs the Homegrown Lacrosse Club.

Andover recently completed its regular season with an emphatic 14-5 win over Winchester. At 9-5 this season, the Warriors are seeded No. 3 in the MIAA Division 1 tournament and are set to host No. 30 Waltham in the round of 32.

Watch the full podcast below on YouTube. It’s also available on all major podcast platforms. If you enjoy it, please leave a rating and a review. Watch more episodes on the Chasing the Goal podcast channel.

Here are some excerpts from the pod.

Owen Hart: I’m jealous of you. Kyle’s jealous of you because you got to experience something that a lot of coaches don’t get to. You got a kid back from prep a couple of years ago in JP Guinee. When I found that out, I was like, “That lucky (guy).” A lot of coaches will envy you for getting to experience that kind of return. Some coaches get it, but not a lot do. You’re one of the few. What was that like? 

Bryan Brazill: I mean, JP’s such a cool kid. I still talk to him and see him fairly regularly. He’s at Army Prep. But he sent me a handwritten letter this winter. I thought that was the coolest thing ever. (His younger brother) James was at the school, actually, when JP came back. JP came to a practice — and I lost it so bad on the team that day because we were just underperforming.

Did the guys get dumped by their girlfriends? Was there a party? I didn’t know what was going on that night that was distracting them. I don’t even remember. But I remember just being like, “Well, JP’s not coming here.” There’s no way he just watched me interact with my team and would want to be a part of this.

And it actually had an opposite effect on him, because he’s such a driven kid that I think he saw someone who would push him to a level that would make him uncomfortable. I often did push him to a level that made him uncomfortable, but he and all the Guinees that I’ve had the privilege of coaching will rise to a challenge like few high school athletes will. I think that’s the difference between good high school programs, great high school programs, good club teams and great club teams. It’s that balance.

Kyle Devitte: I wanted to talk to you about coaching high school and coaching club because you do both. How does your process switch when you go from being the public school coach of Andover to the club coach of HGR?

Bryan Brazill: So you said something earlier, which I think is at the heart of it. You basically said, “If I’m gonna be writing, I have to be writing authentically as myself.” And I think authenticity is extremely important in a lot of traits, in writers for sure. For coaches, I think to be anything but yourself all the time, it’d be really disingenuous, and kids see through that so quickly.

Kids are special, and the younger they are, the more perceptive they are to it. So, I don’t change at all whether I’m coaching my daughter’s third- and fourth-grade team, which I do, or the Andover guys, or the 2030 team that I’m gonna coach this summer for Homegrown. It’s just making sure the messaging is age-appropriate.

But the energy and the passion and the buy-in from me are the exact same. The standards are age-appropriate, but not meeting them is the exact same, and it’s like, “Listen, we’re either showing up to do this the right way or we’re wasting our time.” Within that, I want to have as much fun as possible, but we’re not having a lot of fun at Andover this year because we’re not meeting the standard.

 I’m always gonna be really passionate and really bought in, and I’m always going to have a standard of expectation. And if the standard of expectation is met, we’re probably having more fun than anybody on the planet. If it’s not, we’re probably having no fun.

@TheKyleDevitte
kyle.devitte@laxjournal.com

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