Dom Starsia (born April 21, 1952) is an American
lacrosse
Lacrosse is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game was extensiv ...
coach. He is the former head coach of the
University of Virginia men's lacrosse program, with whom he won four
NCAA
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...
national championships
A national championship(s) is the top achievement for any sport or contest within a league of a particular nation or nation state. The title is usually awarded by contests, ranking systems, stature, ability, etc. This determines the best team, indi ...
, in
1999,
2003,
2006
File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...
, and
2011
File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...
. Previously, he served as the head coach of the
Brown University lacrosse team where he was twice awarded the
F. Morris Touchstone Award as the
NCAA Division I
NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of College athletics, intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major ...
lacrosse coach of the year. Starsia was inducted into the
National Lacrosse Hall of Fame
The National Lacrosse Hall of Fame and Museum, is located in Sparks, Maryland at the USA Lacrosse headquarters. Prior to moving to its present location in 2016, the hall of fame and museum was located in Baltimore, Maryland, on the Homewood camp ...
in 2008. He is currently the head coach for the boys lacrosse team at
Blue Ridge School
Blue Ridge School is a private, all-male boarding school for students grades 9-12 located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Saint George, Virginia, near Charlottesville and the University of Virginia. The school was originally ...
in St. George, Virginia and color commentator for
University of Richmond lacrosse games.
Early life
Born in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
in 1952, Starsia attended
Valley Stream Central High School
Valley Stream Central High School is a public senior high school (grades 10–12) in the village of Valley Stream, New York on the South Shore of Nassau County. It is part of the Valley Stream Central High School District. Dr. Joseph Pompillo ha ...
, where he played
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
at the
wide receiver position. In 1970, he enrolled at
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
, where he again played wide receiver for the varsity football team. Prior to enrolling at Brown, Starsia had never played or seen a lacrosse game. However, he took to the sport naturally and developed into an outstanding defenseman, earning Third Team
All America
The All-America designation is an annual honor bestowed upon an amateur sports person from the United States who is considered to be one of the best amateurs in their sport. Individuals receiving this distinction are typically added to an All-Am ...
honors in 1973 and 1974 as well as First Team All-Ivy and All-New England honors both years.
In 1974, he was captain of the Brown lacrosse team that reached the NCAA playoffs and was selected to play in the annual
North-South Senior All-Star Game
''North-South'' ( hy, Հյուսիս-Հարավ) or ''Four Buddies and the Bride'' is an Armenian comedy directed by Davit Babakhanyan and Vazgen Muradyan, starring Diana Malenko, Sona Shahgeldyan and David Tovmasyan. The film was produced by ...
.
Following college, Starsia was a standout club lacrosse player and was named a club All-American in 1977, 1979, and 1980. He was selected as the Club Defenseman of the Year in 1979. He also played for the U.S. National Team in the 1978
World Lacrosse Championship
The World Lacrosse Championship (WLC) is the international men's field lacrosse championship organized by World Lacrosse that occurs every four years.
The WLC began before any international lacrosse organization had been formed. It started as ...
.
In 1981, Starsia was inducted into the Brown University Athletic Hall of Fame. In 1996, he was inducted into the New England Lacrosse Hall of Fame in Newton, Massachusetts. In 2000, he was named to the
Brown Bears men's lacrosse
The Brown Bears men's lacrosse team represents Brown University in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I men's lacrosse. Brown competes in the Ivy League and plays its home games at Meister-Kavan Field and Stevenson-Pinc ...
"Team of the Millennium" and was chosen one of Brown's "Top 100 Athletes of the Twentieth Century."
Coaching career
Brown University
After graduating from Brown in 1974 with a degree in American Civilization, Starsia joined the
Brown athletic department. Between 1974 and 1982, he served in a number of different roles at Brown, including head coach of the women's
soccer
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...
team. In 1982, he became head coach of men's lacrosse and eventually led his
alma mater to two
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight schools ...
championships, in 1985 and 1991. In both of these seasons, he was recognized nationally with the
F. Morris Touchstone Award as the NCAA Division I lacrosse coach of the year.
[
]
University of Virginia
After spending ten years at Brown, Starsia became the head coach of the Virginia Cavaliers in 1993. There, he coached the Cavaliers to national championships in 1999, 2003, 2006
File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...
, and 2011
File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...
. His 2006 team finished with a perfect 17-0 record, a first in NCAA history. During Starsia's tenure at Virginia, the Cavaliers won Atlantic Coast Conference
The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) is a collegiate athletic conference located in the eastern United States. Headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina, the ACC's fifteen member universities compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Associa ...
championships in 1997, 1999, 2000, 2003, 2006, and 2010; produced 117 All-Americans including 28 First Team All-Americans; 68 All-ACC selections; eight ACC Rookies of the Year; six ACC Players of the Year; five NCAA Championship MVPs; and 36 All-NCAA Tournament selections. Through 2011, Starsia had compiled a career record of 329 wins and 118 losses in 29 seasons (228-72 at Virginia and 101-46 at Brown), making him the winningest coach in Division I history. Starsia coached all-time greats including Darren Lowe, Doug Knight
Doug Knight is an American lacrosse player who had a standout collegiate career at the University of Virginia, where he set numerous scoring records. He was inducted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 2017.
High school and collegiate ca ...
, Michael Watson
Michael Watson (born 15 March 1965) is a British former professional boxer who competed from 1984 to 1991. He held the Commonwealth middleweight title from 1989 to 1991, and challenged three times for a world title between 1990 and 1991. Wats ...
, Conor Gill
Conor Gill (born February 6, 1980) is a professional lacrosse player who had an exceptional collegiate career at the University of Virginia before going on to the professional ranks.
High school and collegiate career
Conor Gill was a standout att ...
, Jay Jalbert
Jay Jalbert (born October 6, 1977) is an American Hall of Fame lacrosse player who had a standout collegiate career at the University of Virginia and then went on to play professional lacrosse in Major League Lacrosse and the National Lacrosse L ...
, Tillman Johnson, Matt Ward, and Ben Rubeor
Ben Rubeor is a former professional lacrosse player and coach. He was the head coach for Atlas Lacrosse Club of the Premier Lacrosse League from 2020-2022. Rubeor previously played for the Chesapeake Bayhawks & Long Island Lizards in Major League ...
.
In 2006, Starsia received the Howdy Myers Man of the Year Award at the annual USILA The United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association is an association of member institutions and organizations with college lacrosse programs at all levels of competition, including the three NCAA divisions and non-NCAA schools, at both the vars ...
convention. Two years later, in 2008, he was inducted into the Lacrosse National Hall of Fame by US Lacrosse
USA Lacrosse is the national governing body of men and women's lacrosse in the United States. It provides a leadership role in virtually every aspect of the game and has more than 450,000 members throughout the United States, and offers programs ...
. Following Virginia's 2011 national championship season, Starsia was also nominated for an ESPY Award
An ESPY Award (short for Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Award) is an accolade currently presented by the American broadcast television network ABC, and previously ESPN (as of the 2017 ESPY Awards the latter still airs them in the for ...
for Best Coach/Manager.
Starsia left the Virginia program at the conclusion of the 2016 season after a poor run of four seasons that included two losing records – only the program's third and fourth since the NCAA championship era began in 1971 – and a 1–15 mark in ACC play. At the time, media outlets reported Starsia had been fired. In a 2018 interview with ''The Daily Progress
''The Daily Progress'' is the sole daily newspaper in the vicinity of Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It has been published daily, since September 14, 1892. The paper was founded by James Hubert Lindsay and his brother Frank Lindsay. T ...
'', Starsia recounted that then-athletic director Craig Littlepage
Craig Littlepage (born August 5, 1951) is an American college athletics administrator and former basketball player and coach. He is the former athletic director at the University of Virginia. He was named to that position in 2001 and has been wit ...
indeed told him the day after the 2016 season concluded that the university was not extending his contract, which expired at the end of the calendar year, and gave him an opportunity to resign. Starsia countered that he retained the confidence of players and alumni and asked for a five-month extension to coach the 2017 season, after which he would resign if Littlepage remained unsatisfied with the team's results. According to Starsia, Littlepage agreed to this weeks later after heavy pressure from alumni and boosters, at which point Starsia declined it and resigned due to the perceived lack of respect.
Chrome Lacrosse Club
In February 2019, Starsia was introduced as the head coach for the Chrome Lacrosse Club
The Chrome Lacrosse Club is a professional men's field lacrosse team in Premier Lacrosse League (PLL). The Chrome are one of the six founding members of the PLL for the 2019 Premier Lacrosse League season, 2019 season.
Roster
*Indicates unavail ...
of the Premier Lacrosse League
Premier Lacrosse League (PLL) is an American professional field lacrosse league, composed of 8 teams. The league's inaugural season debuted on June 1, 2019, and included a 14-week tour-based schedule taking place in 12 major-market cities. The le ...
.
Blue Ridge School
On November 12, 2020, Starsia was announced as the new head coach of the boys lacrosse team at the Blue Ridge School
Blue Ridge School is a private, all-male boarding school for students grades 9-12 located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Saint George, Virginia, near Charlottesville and the University of Virginia. The school was originally ...
in St. George, Virginia.
Personal life
Married with four children, Starsia has three daughters and one son.[ His son Joe is a former assistant lacrosse coach at the ]University of Virginia
The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...
.
See also
* List of college men's lacrosse coaches with 250 wins
This is a list of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) men's lacrosse head coaches by number of career wins. Head coaches with a combined career record of at least 250 wins at the Division I, Division II, Division III
In sport, ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Starsia, Dom
1952 births
Living people
American lacrosse players
American football wide receivers
Brown Bears men's lacrosse coaches
Brown Bears football players
Virginia Cavaliers men's lacrosse coaches
Brown Bears men's lacrosse players
College women's soccer coaches in the United States
Valley Stream Central High School alumni
Sportspeople from New York City
Players of American football from New York (state)
American soccer coaches