If you follow lacrosse, you’ve probably come across writer Kyle Devitte’s work. He’s currently the managing editor of New England Lacrosse Journal, and he’s also the host of their fun podcast, Chasing The Goal, which is a must listen if you want to get inside the heads of high school and college coaches. While it’s informative, Kyle also makes it fun with his wonderful, often self-deprecating, sense of humor. Kyle also writes a newsletter called LacroCity, and he recently launched a recruiting and development consultation firm, Framework Lacrosse. If that weren’t enough, he’s the assistant varsity coach and head JV coach at Hopkinton High School in New Hampshire. Kyle took a few minutes away from his many duties to answer a few questions.
STADIUM JOURNEY:
How'd you get into covering lacrosse? What was your career path? Who gave you a break?
KYLE DEVITTE:
I went to a liberal arts school, and I loved to write. However, I wasn't the biggest fan of constantly writing about Victorian era novels and semiotics. I loved lacrosse, so I tried my hand at writing about the sport for a local publication in Worcester called The Pulse. They sort of let me go nuts with all sorts of subjects, but I remember writing this piece on another college team in the region that was struggling for numbers that struck a chord with me. After that, I started writing for a few now-defunct sites like LaxNation and AllLacrosseAmerica before I got the courage to ask to cover the 2006 MLL versus Team USA All Star game for Inside Lacrosse. They said, "sure, why not," and I managed to parlay that into being employed by the MLL while I was coaching lacrosse at Emerson College. Eventually, IL asked me to be full time a few years after that and now I'm very happy at New England Lacrosse Journal (NELJ).
STADIUM JOURNEY:
What's the best career or life advice you got along the way?
KYLE DEVITTE:
Great is the enemy of good. I was obsessed with crafting long and meandering epics when I started, then I moved into more of a let's-entertain-the-reader style before settling in on a more concise style that I have now. Along the way, I could be stubborn about what I wanted each piece to be. But at NELJ, I didn't have time to be stubborn, there's too much churn, so I had to shift my focus to telling other people's stories their way instead of my own. That was a very powerful lesson. Writers wear the mask of arrogance to conceal our abject dread of being told we suck. The best way to combat that, for me, was to focus less on what I could do to put my spin on something - usually in the form of some sort of pithy quip or absurdist imagery - and look for a positive through line.
STADIUM JOURNEY:
So you interview a lot of high school coaches, public and private. How much do high school coaches recruit? Are the private schools offering scholarships or defacto scholarships and just referring to it as financial aid? What's the deal?
KYLE DEVITTE:
Public school coaches can only recruit in their own school, so you're just trying to get kids from the baseball team to stop being bored. There is some financial incentive to go to a private school, but it's very, very rarely a full-ride situation, especially in lacrosse.
STADIUM JOURNEY:
So how is a New England lacrosse player different from one in say Long Island, upstate New York or the Maryland area?
KYLE DEVITTE:
I talked about this on a recent podcast. New England players do not have the heritage, or even lineage, yet to get to the levels those other hotbeds are at. There are a lot of coaches in New England who are fundamentally awesome and qualified, but they're first or second-generation lacrosse players. Those other areas have guys who are third and maybe even fourth-generation players and coaches who fundamentally understand and teach the game on a different level. I do think New England is in the conversation as the next area that will adopt that sort of history and ability, but we are still a generation or two away from it.
STADIUM JOURNEY:
You're a born and bred New Hampshire guy. How is the lacrosse scene there? What are the positives? Roadblocks?
KYLE DEVITTE:
Technically, I was born in Bloomington, Indiana, but I was raised in New Hampshire. This is my home. The funny thing is that I used to hate it here and did everything I could to leave when I was a teenager. But I've since come to appreciate the beauty, kindness and spaciousness of this state. The lacrosse scene is still very much developing. We are ahead of Vermont and Maine. Maybe even Rhode Island. But we are way behind Connecticut and Massachusetts. There just aren't enough quality coaches here. And I mean, across the board. We need kids who grew up playing here to come back and work with this next generation of kids so badly. It's really the only thing holding us back. Now that the NHIAA (New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association) recognizes us as a sport and way more kids are playing it, the last obstacle is coach volume. And maybe some more turf fields and/or fieldhouses that don't cost thousands of dollars to rent for town programs.
STADIUM JOURNEY: The University of Maine, UNH, URI and UConn do not field D-1 lacrosse teams. Why is this? Is this going to change any time soon? I know that UNH used to have a team.
KYLE DEVITTE:
UNH cut lacrosse my senior year of high school to throw all their money into football. As a result, I legitimately hate UNH athletics. They didn't just cut lacrosse, they cut baseball and a bunch of other sports just to invest in hockey and football for the last 30 years. I have zero respect for that kind of thinking, and I don't blame title IX, either. I think those other schools either don't have the facilities, the budget, or the vision to have a competitive D-1 lacrosse program. UNH has no excuse, they have the America East right there, and they have a women's program as well. To say that it's a budget thing is a copout. Public universities have plenty of money, they just choose to invest it in other arenas. The one domino everyone has been expecting to fall is Boston College bringing back their men's program to D-1, but I'll believe it when I see it.
STADIUM JOURNEY:
Since we're on the subject of New Hampshire, what are some places to hit, lacrosse-related or not? And something you've touched on in the podcast, how is New Hampshire different from Vermont?
KYLE DEVITTE:
Well, I think everyone would say that you have to visit the Tuscan Village in Salem. It's a new development with all sorts of shops and restaurants. A lot of it is outdoors and you can spend a whole day there at a firepit or an outdoor bar talking with friends, even when it's freezing outside. But, southern New Hampshire gets too much burn and it is currently infested with Massachusetts transplants, so I would also recommend a visit to Main Street in Concord. It's one of those rebuilt project main street small towns with restaurants, coffee shops, and little nick nack stores. Standouts for me are Hermanos, Revelstok Coffee, Brothers Cortado, and the Concord Co-op. I actually like Vermont. My first college was St. Michael's, and I really think that area of the state is special. Burlington is criminally underrated and worth a visit for anyone passing through to Canada or upstate New York. There's a lot to do downtown, but wear good sneakers. The cobblestones will break your ankles and then your face.
STADIUM JOURNEY:
What's a must-visit lacrosse venue in New England? Why?
KYLE DEVITTE:
Okay, to be charitable, I'm going to split this up to places that I have actually been to. Public: My team won a state championship at Exeter in 2023, but we also lost a state championship in 2022. But I also enjoyed watching the MIAA (Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association) state championship at St. John's Prep, who play in the MIAA, a public classification - don't ask - in Danvers, Mass.
Prep: Brewster's field literally overlooks Lake Winnipesaukee. Can't beat that.
D-1 College: Dartmouth is my favorite place to watch a game. I don't care that it's cold, I don't care that it's out of the way. I care that I don't have to deal with the hell that is Boston traffic to get there. And it's a very relaxing jaunt up I-89.
D-2 College: It used to be Merrimack just because you could see a fight in the parking lot after a game, but now they're D-1 and have a much nicer set up. So I have to go with the only D-2 school with a big stadium set up with concessions - Southern New Hampshire University. It also happens to be an 8-minute drive from where I live, so that's an added value.
D-3 College: I have to say that it's Wesleyan for me. Watching a game in the "birdcage" as they call it is surreal. There is one big stand on one side of the field, and that is surrounded by a series of class buildings that look like concrete blocks that a giant placed there by hand. There is one entrance and one exit on the stadium side corner where both teams come in. It's really a lot of fun to see a rivalry game there.
STADIUM JOURNEY:
Why is Clark University is so close to your heart?
KYLE DEVITTE:
Playing lacrosse at Clark taught me how to be a leader. Clark's classrooms taught me how to work. Let me tell you this: English Majors across the world are a much-maligned group. We did/do more work than you. Maybe the Bio and Chemistry people have 3 and 4 hour labs, but we have stacks and stacks of books that we have to read, retain and interpret into 20 page-plus papers every week. We can't fake our way through it. All of those books have to be read. They have to be understood. Then we have to try and spin our thoughts into a trivially different skew just to get a decent grade. Clark taught me that shortcuts - unless you make them yourself - will get you got. My professors never expected me to make a career in this space. I didn't take any journalism classes. But what I did was learn how to do written work with speed, efficiency and bite. I am forever in Clark University's debt. Literally and figuratively.
STADIUM JOURNEY: What's your book about and when can we expect it?
KYLE DEVITTE: The book has gone through many iterations. Right now it's a treatise on the value and experience of D-3 lacrosse. I have a treatment, but I need to dedicate a lot of time to interviewing all the people who want their stories told, good and bad. I know that's vague, but it is intentionally so. I'll probably just drop it on Amazon one day without any warning. Related: I am bad at making money.
Jon Hart is @manversusball
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