Despite a sore beating in the final game of 2023, Brown State is back in Lake Placid this summer and will be inducted into the tournament’s Legends Society. In the event’s 35th year, Brown’s alumni team will be honored for its continued commitment to the game.

The Brown State team has been competing in the tournament since the early 2000s after Starsia shared his love for playing at Lake Placid with his players and inspired them to head north to play each summer. The team is mostly made up of Brown alumni with a sprinkling of players from other related programs such as Virginia and Penn. 

"Brown State" has been a moniker used by the Brown men’s lacrosse program for roughly 55 years. It’s meant as a rallying cry to signify that the Brown program is made up of gritty, blue-collar guys who don’t subscribe to their Ivy League billing.

When Tommy Dwyer – a former Brown player and one of Tiffany’s college teammates – founded the Lake Placid team, using Brown State as the team name was a no-brainer. Over the past 20-plus years, Brown State has been a staple team at the renowned summer tourney. 

For Tiffany, the Brown State squad and the 200-plus teams of players competing into their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and (for a few) even into their 80s, the Lake Placid Summit Classic provides the opportunity to keep playing.

“It literally is a time machine,” Tiffany said. “It’s like, ‘Wow, my mission for the next 75 minutes is to be a long-stick middie, to pick up balls.’ It’s not to recruit or call plays or decipher the opponent’s offensive schemes. It’s to play this game. It’s to go out and be who I once was and let someone else worry about the officiating and the substitutions. It’s a time machine.”

Tiffany acknowledges that continuing to play with his college buddies into their 50s is a bit “laughable.” But to stop playing would be to betray the game that has been so central to their lives.

“I can’t imagine hanging up the stick,” he said. “To say I’ll never play the game of lacrosse again? For me, we’re telling Father Time ‘Not quite yet, buddy. I know you’re going to win, I know you’re undefeated, but not yet. This game is too important to us.’”

The UVA head coach has found that continuing to suit up each August gives him perspective when he’s on the sideline each spring. An LSM through and through, Tiffany’s relationships with some of the great players he’s coached at the position, including Jared Conners, Larken Kemp and Ben Wayer, are supplemented by the time he spends between the lines. 

“I’m coaching these guys, and I’ll have my own 'aha' moments,” he said. “Like, ‘Lars, are you going to do that yourself? Are you going to get in a bent knee and cross-check somebody as opposed to waving, chasing a stick like you just reprimanded Ben Wayer for doing?’”

Coaching those players has also given him some insight into how he can be better in Lake Placid each summer. He specifically pointed to Conners, the California Redwoods’ All-Star LSM, as an example of a fundamentally sound defender who squares up and doesn’t hunt caused turnovers – the opposite of Tiffany’s aggressive, fishing-for-turnovers style.

“He definitely influenced me in that way,” he admitted laughingly. 

For Tiffany, Lake Placid represents a different way to stay in touch with the game. So has been watching his former Virginia and Brown players on television each weekend in the PLL. 

“It’s amazing to see them continue to be able to play the game,” he said. “To see them out there, it feels like a guilty pleasure sitting down and watching a PLL lacrosse game. … In my own little way, I get to be Kirby Smart watching my guys on Sundays!” 

Tiffany marveled at the relevancy of the professional game with the arrival of the PLL. Compared to the limited coverage of professional lacrosse when members of his Brown coaching staff – Kip Turner and Steven Brooks – played back in the day, he’s awestruck by the stardom his former players are reaching today. 

“People are like ‘Did you coach Matt Moore?’” he recalled. “Yeah! I coached Matt Moore. I saw every one of his goals. His five years were played while I was the head coach. And now he’s playing on Saturdays and I get to sit back and enjoy. … I’m still a little starstruck.” 

Tiffany’s love for seeing his former players continue to play on the big screen goes hand-in-hand with his dedication to keep playing. From his perspective, continuing to play lacrosse in whatever way possible is immensely important. 

“Whether it’s with your Lake Placid old man team, your 35-and-over team or your PLL team, you get to play this game,” he said. “The truest and most original form of North American sport. It binds us together, it binds us to Earth. It binds us to nature.”