John Terry Desko is a retired lacrosse head coach. Desko coached the men's lacrosse team at

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...

for 22 seasons from 1999 to 2021. Desko took over as head coach in 1999 from Hall of Fame coach

Roy Simmons Jr. Roy D. Simmons Jr. (born August 6, 1935) is a former American lacrosse coach who was the head coach of the Syracuse Orange men's lacrosse team from 1971 to 1998. Simmons' teams won the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Men's Lacross ...

Early life

The Desko family grew up in Camillus, a suburb of Syracuse. He played high school lacrosse at West Genesee, the 15-time state champions.

College career

Desko started out in the midfield but was switched to defense by assistant coach Jay Gallagher. He earned

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 as he helped Syracuse to a 10–5 record in 1979 and the school's first NCAA playoff berth. His two younger brothers, Dave and Jeff, were also All-American lacrosse players at Syracuse.

As Coach

Simmons offered Desko an assistant job when assistant coach Jay Gallagher decided to leave Syracuse. Desko made only $1,000 a year as a coach, and waited tables in his spare time. He stayed on as an assistant for next 19 years. After taking over the top job from

in 1999, he became the first person outside of the Simmons family to coach Syracuse lacrosse since 1931. Desko won five

NCAA Championships 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 ...

as head coach and six more as an assistant coach. In his first eleven years as head coach, he coached the Syracuse lacrosse team to seven NCAA finals appearances and nine Final Fours. The most recent championship came in May 2009, when Desko led the Orange to their 10th National Championship with a 10–9 overtime comeback victory over

Cornell Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

. Under Desko, Syracuse won 4 straight

Big East The Big East Conference is a collegiate athletic conference that competes in NCAA Division I in ten men's sports and twelve women's sports. Headquartered in New York City, the eleven full-member schools are primarily located in Northeast and ...

championships from 2010 to 2013. After joining the ACC in 2013–14, Syracuse won back-to-back ACC Tournament championships in

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...

and 2016. Syracuse was also the regular season champion in 2018. Desko also coached Team USA to a runner-up finish at the

2006 World Lacrosse Championship 6 (six) is the natural number following 5 and preceding 7. It is a composite number and the smallest perfect number. In mathematics Six is the smallest positive integer which is neither a square number nor a prime number; it is the second small ...

. On June 6, 2021, Syracuse Women's Lacrosse team head coach

Gary Gait Gary Charles Gait (born April 5, 1967) is a Canadian retired Hall of Fame professional lacrosse player and currently the head coach of the men’s lacrosse team at Syracuse University, where he played the sport collegiately. On January 24, 2017, ...

was named as head coach of the Syracuse Men's Lacrosse team, replacing Desko, who retired after 22 seasons as head coach.

Awards

Desko was named USILA Division I Coach of the Year for 2008 after guiding the Orange to a

title A title is one or more words used before or after a person's name, in certain contexts. It may signify either generation, an official position, or a professional or academic qualification. In some languages, titles may be inserted between the f ...

over Johns Hopkins. He was the

ACC ACC most often refers to: * Atlantic Coast Conference, an NCAA Division I collegiate athletic conference located in the US *American College of Cardiology, A US-based nonprofit medical association that bestows credentials upon cardiovascular spec ...

coach of the year for the fourth straight season from 2015 to 2018. Desko was inducted into the Upstate Chapter of the US Lacrosse Hall of Fame as of 1997, Greater Syracuse Sports Hall of Fame in 2008, and the Camillus/West Genesee Hall of Fame in 2011. He was the FieldTurf Coach of the Year in 2013. Desko was elected to the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in May 2020. Desko is the third Syracuse head coach to be inducted into their respective sport's hall of fame after

Jim Boeheim James Arthur Boeheim Jr. ( ; born November 17, 1944) is an American college basketball coach who is the head coach of the Syracuse Orange men's team of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). Boeheim has guided the Orange to ten Big East Conference ...

and

Personal life

Desko resides in Syracuse with his wife, Cindy, and their four children; Tim (Timothy), Nicole, Casey and Ryan. Three of his four children attended Syracuse University (Nicole attended Hobart & William Smith Colleges). Tim played on the lacrosse team for 5 years, the first being a

redshirt Redshirt, Red Shirt, or Redshirts may refer to: Entertainment * ''Red Shirts'' (film), a 1952 film about Anita Garibaldi by Franco Rossi * Redshirt (stock character), originally derived from ''Star Trek'', a stock character who dies soon after b ...

season (winning back-to-back national titles in

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

and

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

), and has been a lacrosse coach at several colleges, including Rollins College.

References

External links

Syracuse profile
Living people Syracuse Orange men's lacrosse coaches Syracuse Orange men's lacrosse players 1957 births {{US-lacrosse-bio-stub