Rookie Coach Wojcik Back Where He Belongs

As Chris Wojcik ’96 stands in Harvard Stadium on a chilly winter afternoon, yelling out instructions to his 44-member team during a weekday practice, he can’t help but feel as if he’s been here before.

Fifteen years ago, it was this very stadium that he called home, where he excelled on the field in more ways than one.

After a distinguished athletic career at Harvard in which he earned All-American accolades in lacrosse and All-Ivy distinction in lacrosse and soccer, Wojcik is finally back in the very place he started.

“I have very fond memories of playing soccer and lacrosse at Harvard,” Wojcik said. “It meant a whole lot to me. The wins and dealing with adversity, really just everything that went into the whole journey of a season and the relationships you build.”

As a player, Wojcik enjoyed success almost unparalleled in Crimson lacrosse history. By his senior year in 1996, with Wojcik captaining the squad, Harvard reached the No. 5 national ranking in the country and the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament.

“Our senior class really brought the program forward,” Wojcik said. “We got better and better each year, so it was great to finish our careers on a high note with one of the best seasons Harvard’s ever had.”

From 2002 through 2007, Wojcik—a member of the New Jersey Lacrosse Hall of Fame—returned to Harvard as an assistant under former head coach Scott Anderson, spending three years as a recruiting coordinator and two years as an offensive coordinator. In 2006, the Wojcik-led Crimson offense earned Harvard’s first tournament berth since the coach’s senior season 10 years earlier.

Wojcik then moved on to Bowdoin College, where he served as the Polar Bears’ offensive coordinator in 2008, when the team went to its first-ever NCAA tournament. In 2009, he took a job as the top assistant coach at Penn, where he worked for two years as the Quakers’ recruiting and offensive coordinator.

Then, on July 12 of last year, Wojcik finally had his big break. After John Tillman left for the University of Maryland following three up-and-down seasons at the helm of the Crimson, Wojcik received a call offering him the chance to become the Frisbie Family Head Coach for Harvard men’s lacrosse. He accepted immediately.

“It was a dream job for me to be able to come back to my alma mater and coach,” he said. “From the day I started coaching it was my goal [to return to] Harvard.”

But the man who has been a big part of the Crimson’s last two NCAA tournament appearances has a challenge ahead of him if he is going to make a third.

The 2010 Crimson entered the season ranked No. 12 in the country but did not live up to expectations under Tillman, struggling to a 6-6 record and failing to make the postseason for the fourth straight year.

Despite that disappointment, the new head coach is setting high expectations for his first season at the helm.

“We want to improve as the year goes on,” Wojcik said. “We [then] have lofty goals to win the Ivy League, get to the NCAA tournament, and make a statement in the tournament. Those are kind of the long-term goals. [For now], we take it one day at a time, one practice at a time.”

To achieve success, the former offensive coordinator is bringing with him an attack that his players are already raving about.

“We want to play an up-tempo and a fast, exciting brand of lacrosse,” Wojcik said. “I really believe in running the field and trying to play transition lacrosse. That’s what I’m trying to implement, and the guys have responded well to it thus far.”

Junior Jeff Cohen called the new system “exciting.”

“Everything we’ve done with him is very applicable to in-game playing,” senior co-captain Dean Gibbons added.

It’s his familiarity with upperclassmen like Cohen and Gibbons that Wojcik believes has made his transition to head coach easier.

“As an assistant here, I recruited the seniors and juniors,” he said. “I knew their personnel, their skill sets, I knew what their strengths were.”

His players, in return, have appreciated having a leader that understands them better than the average rookie coach would.

“Coach Wojcik is a great coach,” Gibbons said. “He knows the dynamic of the players, [and] he’s extremely intelligent.”

When the season kicks off tomorrow versus Canisius, the coach will lead those players out of the tunnel that he has run through so many times as an attackman and an assistant.

But now, Chris Wojcik has a team he can finally call his own, and he couldn’t be more grateful.

“It just makes it much more special to come back as head coach,” Wojcik said. “I feel really fortunate to come back. I’m going to make the most of it and give it my best.”

—Staff writer Scott A. Sherman can be reached at ssherman13@college.harvard.edu.