We hope you enjoy this sit down with John Galloway, former Chrome LC/Team USA Goalie & head coach at Jacksonville University.

Entering your sixth year as the JU head coach, what has life been like on the sidelines with a pandemic thrown in the mix?

“Six of my favorite, most challenging years professionally. To take a lot of the values that I learned at West Genesee, then at Syracuse and my year at Duke which was really my coaching tutelage, and then obviously Providence, I’ve been able to create my own style and I really enjoy it.”

What has been the key to building your program through the eye of success?

“Patience…Something I need more of with the current recruiting landscape. It’s been bizarre, it's been a change of pace. Originally, we had to get creative with our recruiting. Thankful to have a great media team here that puts together some great marketing materials for prospective student athletes and obviously for transfers that’s a huge market for us, guys that are looking to find a new home and we’ve had to be creative with how we market ourselves, our program and our university to those kids because it’s certainly an opportunity to get better our roster and become more competitive. We’re gonna try to be more creative in all those ways.”

Since your arrival, you have been putting powerhouses like Duke and Penn State on your schedule - why is that important for the rise of the JU program?

“It was important to do it in year two, I think that was probably more important to show the recruits and the guys that we were talking to that our dreams were going to be able to come to reality with a little bit of belief.”

What lessons did you learn in HS and college that have stuck with you and made you who you are today?

“I think West Genesee me was completely different from Syracuse me. I’d tell myself to take everything a little less seriously and have a little bit of fun. It was all about lacrosse, it was all about West Genesee lacrosse, I just didn’t want to make any mistakes. Probably could have enjoyed it a little bit more.Then at Syracuse, you know, it was trying to live in the moment. Winning two championships my freshman and sophomore year you realize that you don’t think it's fleeting, that it’s going to come to an end. Could we have worked a little bit harder those last two years or done a little bit more to make sure that we were successful. I always think about and probably regret resting on our laurels after those first two championships. You learn all those lessons as you go and man, I wish I knew what I knew now as a college kid but obviously wouldn’t have traded it for the world.”

Your team is constantly progressing season after season, what has been your driving motivator as a head coach?

“The reason why I took this job is because I think you can win the conference championship every year. I think you’re in the running. And to do that, that gives you a chance to play in the NCAA tournament. Anything can happen from there. Our goal is to be consistently getting into the NCAA tournament and being able to put ourselves in a position to be competitive.”