Beginnings

The Loyola Greyhounds men's lacrosse team was founded in 1938 and coached by Jack Kelly.^[8] Kelly coached five seasons before leaving after 1942, with an overall winning record consisting of 21 wins and 14 losses. The Greyhounds struggled after Kelly left, going through two coaches in two seasons, both of which did not break .250. In 1947 began the reign of the program's longest active coach until that time, Bishop Baker. Baker coached for six consecutive seasons, almost breaking even with wins and losses. He was followed by John Mohler, who only coached for one year.^[8]

Charles Wenzel

For 17 seasons, from 1954 to 1970, the Greyhounds were coached by Charles Wenzel. Under Wenzel, the Greyhounds went .379.^[8]

Dave Cottle

From 1983 to 2001, for almost two decades under Head Coach Dave Cottle, Loyola saw growth in to their lacrosse program. In 1982, Loyola moved up from NCAA Division II lacrosse.^[4] Starting in 1983, Cottle brought the Greyhounds national attention. The Greyhounds advanced to the 1990 NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse Championship game where they were defeated by the Syracuse Orangemen.^[9] The 1990 championship, however, was revoked from Syracuse when investigations deemed the activity between coach Roy Simmons, Jr.'s wife Nancy and star player Paul Gait illegal. She signed the lease of his car earlier that season. Though the NCAA has yet to remove Syracuse from the record book, Loyola was the runner up and technically is the next in line for the trophy.^[10]

In 1999, the Greyhounds went undefeated in the regular season before losing in the quarterfinals of the 1999 NCAA tournament.^[11] His run lasted 19 seasons, beginning in 1983 through 2001, Cottle coached his teams to a winning record of 181 wins and 70 losses, including a run of 14 straight seasons where Loyola received an NCAA tournament bid.^[8]

Charley Toomey

Following Cottle's long coaching tenure, Loyola hired Bill Dirrigl as their head coach. After four seasons Dirrigl was fired and Loyola graduate Charley Toomey took over as head coach in 2006. In both 2007 and 2008, Toomey led the Greyhounds to the NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship tournament.^[12][13] The 2010 and 2011 NCAA lacrosse championships were held at M&T Bank Stadium. Loyola, worked in conjunction with Johns Hopkins, Towson, and UMBC to run these events.^[14] The Hounds failed to advance to the 2009 NCAA lacrosse playoffs despite having the ninth place RPI, the third highest strength of schedule, and a 9-5 record. Instead Brown gained the slot because of their wins over Cornell and University of Massachusetts. Brown had an RPI of twelve, their schedule ranked a low of thirty six, and were ranked third in the Ivy League.^[15] Coach Toomey compared the 2009 Greyhound's dilemma to that of the 2006 Harvard squad saying, "I can remember in 2006, Harvard gets in at 6-6, losing their last three games, and they said, ‘It's not a numbers thing, it's a strength-of-schedule thing.’ ... So what is it going to be? Is it going to be big wins or numbers? If it's numbers, we look doggone good. If it's about big wins, then we might be on the outside looking in."^[16] Harvard made the tournament over Toomey's squad that season, the reason being that their 'big wins' were not as competitive as Harvard's record, RPI and SOS. RPI vs. Big wins has been a very large argument in the NCAA tournament selection process the past few years.^[17]

The Greyhounds captured the first national championship in Loyola's Division I history in a 9–3 victory over Maryland at Gillette Stadium on May 28, 2012. They finished at 18–1, establishing a new program record for most wins in a campaign.^[3] Its only loss was a regular-season-ending 10–9 overtime defeat at home to Johns Hopkins on April 28.^[18] The team was led by attackers Eric Lusby and Mike Sawyer. Lusby was named the Championship's Most Outstanding Player after scoring four times in the Final and whose 17 goals were the most in a single NCAA tournament. He also set the school record for most goals in a single season with 54. Sawyer, who had previously set the school's new single-season scoring mark earlier in the season, was Loyola's first-ever Tewaaraton Trophy finalist.^[3][19]

Alumni in the MLL

The following Loyola lacrosse players are currently or have played Major League Lacrosse.