MAAC Coaching Spotlight – Marist’s Keegan Wilkinson
Edison, N.J. (April 7, 2020) – Marist College men’s lacrosse head coach Keegan Wilkinson sits down with the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) to give insights on his life, the 2020 canceled season, and the Marist program. Wilkinson and the Red Foxes are the defending MAAC men’s lacrosse champions.
Q: What is it like to be a head coach at Marist?
A: It's been awesome. I've been very fortunate to be at Marist for nine years now as a head coach after serving as an assistant, so I definitely feel very fortunate to be here for that time and to have that stability in building the program – which is something that has been really important to us. It's been a privilege and an honor to go over to campus every day and work with an awesome group of guys and dedicated group of alumni and people within our athletic department.
Q: What is your favorite thing about Marist?
A: My favorite thing about Marist is definitely the atmosphere that's created around the school, just the whole vibe of the campus is so student-oriented. Being a smaller campus, you know, there's so much foot traffic with people walking around on a daily basis and there's just a ton of interaction on campus. I think that just creates an awesome atmosphere and makes it a place that students and those who are working there really enjoy.
Q: What is your favorite coaching memory?
A: Ooof, my favorite coaching memory would definitely have to be winning the MAAC Championship in 2015. It was just the culmination of a ton of hard work that our former players and assistant coaches put into building the program and putting us in a new position to win and to get over that hurdle against a really good and talented and well-coached Quinnipiac team. It was huge for us as a program, but then for us to be able to do in front of our home crowd just made it that much sweeter. When we look back at the clips and the highlights of that game, it's something that I know all of us in the Marist lacrosse family take great pride in. It was a benchmark for us to help keep the program moving forward and continue to achieve that success where we are competing for a championship each year against some great teams in our conference.
Q: What is it like to be crowned a MAAC champion?
A: It feels really good, you know, to be crowned a MAAC Champion. Obviously, some of our favorite memories are after those wins in 2015 and again last year in 2019, but the moments you share after that win with the players and the staff and the parents and those guys that have won, it doesn't get any better than that. Whether it was to see Karl Kreshpane going to get the trophy in 2015 or last year when we got to see Thomas Rago pick up the trophy after dealing with a ton of adversity in his life over the course of the last year, losing his mother, that was something that meant a lot to us. Seeing those pictures is something that motivates the current players to keep striving for that excellence.
Q: What is it like to be crowned a MAAC champion on your home field?
A: It's great to win a MAAC championship in your home stadium. I think that the conference has done a really great job of promoting the sport in recent years and having a huge event for the conference championship, whether it's been at Marist or when we played for the championship at Quinnipiac in 2016. It's just been an awesome atmosphere. To win at home in front of your fans and other students on campus that have been supporting you, there's nothing better. I know that it’s something that our team takes a tremendous amount of pride in and we're fortunate to have been able to host a number of times in the past six years.
Q: You were voted the preseason favorites, what were your expectations for this year?
A: Our expectations remain pretty steady each year, which is to put ourselves in a position to compete for a championship. Having that recognition by the coaches in the conference to be pre-season No. 1 is something we were happy about and it meant a lot to us, but it was an expectation from other people, not necessarily our own. Our guys know that at Marist College and in our lacrosse program, our expectations are to compete for a championship and put ourselves in a position to do that by playing a tough out-of-conference schedule and putting in a ton of work. Whether it's in the fall or in the spring, whether it's on the field or in the weight room, the guys are really dedicated to that. Our expectations remain pretty steady and it's not something we do a ton of talking about or anything like that. The guys are very well aware of what our expectations are, so I'm proud of them for going to work every day with that kind of mindset.
Q: What was your immediate reaction to the 2020 season being cancelled?
A: Our immediate reaction as a program was that we felt really, really, horrible for current seniors. To have that opportunity stripped away from them, to finish out their careers together as a group, is something that we all felt really horrible about. It was a great group of guys that had dedicated themselves at Marist and put in a ton of work. As a group, and myself included, we just felt a lot of pain and disappointment that those guys won’t have that opportunity to finish out something that they started. I think that sentiment was shared across the 50 seats in our locker room, between all of our players and our coaches.
Q: Are you keeping in touch with the student-athletes?
A: Yeah, we talk pretty regularly. After we got the news, things moved pretty quickly with the guys finishing up their classes before returning home to be with their families and moving to an online course format. There were a lot of different moving parts, so we gave the guys some space to be honest, and we haven't been too overbearing with them. There's a lot going on and a lot of things that they need to grapple with academically, socially, and most importantly with the health of their families. We've been in contact, but it's been pretty limited. We want to make sure that they know we're here to support them, but also give them some space to figure these things out before we really engage in a lot of communication. Whether it be about what we're doing moving forward, what the NCAA is doing moving forward, that's something we're all thinking about. We have great confidence that our guys are taking care of their business.
Q: What kind of questions have student-athletes been asking you?
A: I think the biggest thing, the biggest question that athletes have had has been with all of their courses being moved to an online format. That's the biggest questions that they've had, how it works and how they operate that from being at home. With a lot of different things going on across the country, there's a lot of distractions, so I think their main focus is how they're going to control their academics. Our academic support team with Alyssa Gates and Ali Kenney have done an awesome job of keeping them informed. We're just coming off of spring break, so they’re now just starting to get into a rhythm academically. The only other question is what remains to be seen with the NCAA and the conference and the school's handling of eligibility, and how that's going to look moving forward.
Q: Is there any way for you to “coach” during the pandemic?
A: Yeah, I think there are certainly ways to coach, but you have to believe that the coaching you've done for the first 110 days you've been on campus with these guys will transfer to them being at home by themselves. You know you're not going to really be able to do a ton of different things from a skill standpoint or a workout standpoint because people are quarantined to their house and there's not a ton of resources there. So, you just have to have a lot of confidence and trust that guys will remain active and do the things they need to do to stay in physical shape. I'm sure once this all settles down our staff will work as hard as we can to figure out the ways we are going to continue to improve and come back when this is all said and done, ready to move forward and hit the ground running.
Q: What have you personally been doing since the pandemic began?
A: Personally, after meeting with the team and everything started moving pretty rapidly, I've honestly been spending a lot of time at home with my wife and my dog. We’re trying our best to stay safe and haven't had a ton of interaction over the last two weeks with many people, which is really sad, especially when you go from working every day with such a tight knit community at Marist College and with the players, just having so much communication with so many different people on campus. It's been a pretty slow couple of weeks over here. My wife and I are just trying our best to stay safe and make sure we're keeping other people safe and really taking a lot of time to spend talking and communicating with our families. Actually, getting ready for a baby to arrive in August, so we're just trying our best to stay safe right now.
Q: How does this affect your recruiting?
A: The main thing that affects recruiting is that there's not a lot of games that will be played this spring, which we feel horrible about for our recruited athletes and our guys that are committed to come play at Marist. It's something that we love to do as a staff, getting out and traveling in the spring and spending time watching our guys that committed and signed to join us next year, because we know their senior years are something that are very important to them. We just feel terrible, honestly, that they're not going to have that opportunity to compete this year. But from a recruiting standpoint, we're staying in contact with our guys that are committed to us and, unfortunately, waiting to see how this pans out and how it affects the remainder of the spring schedule and the summer schedule moving forward. But we're just doing our best to keep in contact with them and let them know we're thinking of them and that we feel horrible that their seasons have ultimately been cancelled.
Q: When you do recruit, what do you look for in a student-athlete?
A: I think the main things we look for as a staff when recruiting is that we want people that are hard-working and committed, because we are going to demand a lot out of the guys both athletically, academically, and socially. It's going to be high demand program, so we're looking for guys who are committed to that and guys that love playing the game and have a ton of passion for it. Finally, one thing we look for is people who are loyal. We want people in our program who are going to have that hard-working mindset and a ton of ability, but we want people who are going to come in here and remain loyal to this program and give it everything they have. That has put us in a position to compete at a really high level - having some really great people come to this program that are just totally committed and have bought into Marist College and our lacrosse program.
Q: Is there a message you gave your upperclassmen when this happened, and is there a message you’d like to send now?
A: Immediately, the message we had was our sympathy for them, the fact they weren't going to be able to finish this season out, and that we love them a lot and we appreciated everything that they had given to the program. But we treated it pretty business as usual. We didn't talk about it a ton leading up to the decision to cancel the season, we just wanted to create an environment for the guys where they could show up to practice like it was a normal day. So, leading up to that final day, we tried to just get out there and compete and prepare. We were coming up on our first game in conference play with Quinnipiac. The guys were really focused leading into that and ultimately, the decision was made. We had a meeting to let the guys know that we felt for them and that we were there for them and that we would, like anything within our program, keep them as updated and be as transparent as possible as news broke forward, whether it was from Marist or the NCAA. That's the one thing we tried to do. As different details emerged, we tried to keep them in close contact and as informed with stuff as humanly possible. As soon as we learned of different details, the first people we've talked to were the guys in our program. We've done that as a group, you know, from freshman to senior, just trying to keep these guys informed with everything that's going on and help them make informed decisions moving forward.
Q: Once this pandemic is all over with, what is the first thing you want to do?
A: Oh man. I cannot wait to get over to campus and just walk on the field. It was crazy to drive past it the other day, the gates to the stadium locked up until further notice, that was pretty tough to see. In the middle of March, a place that we hold so sacred in Tenney Stadium, just completely empty and campus empty. I'm just so excited and hopeful for when this blows over and we come out of it safe and healthy not only as a program, but as a conference and a nation, I can't wait to drive over to campus and see the stadium and activities starting to resurface again, and start preparing for the 2021 season.
About the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference:
With 11 institutions strongly bound by the sound principles of quality and integrity in academics and excellence in athletics, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) is in its 39
th year of competition during the 2019-20 academic year. Current conference members include: Canisius College, Fairfield University, Iona College, Manhattan College, Marist College, Monmouth University, Niagara University, Quinnipiac University, Rider University, Saint Peter’s University, and Siena College.