Jonathan A. "Jon" Hess is a retired

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 extensively ...

attackman who played professional

box lacrosse Box lacrosse, also known as boxla, box, or indoor lacrosse, is an indoor version of lacrosse played mostly in North America. The game originated in Canada in the 1930s, where it is more popular than field lacrosse. Lacrosse is Canada's official ...

in the

National Lacrosse League The National Lacrosse League (NLL) is a men's professional box lacrosse league in North America. The league is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The NLL currently has fifteen teams: ten in the United Stat ...

(NLL), and professional

field lacrosse Field lacrosse is a full contact sport, full contact outdoor men's sport played with ten players on each team. The sport originated among indigenous peoples of the Americas, Native Americans, and the modern rules of field lacrosse were initiall ...

Major League Lacrosse Major League Lacrosse (MLL) was a men's field lacrosse league in the United States. The league's inaugural season was in 2001. Teams played anywhere from ten to 16 games in a summertime regular season. This was followed by a four-team playoff f ...

(MLL). He starred as a member of the

Princeton Tigers men's lacrosse The Princeton Tigers men's lacrosse team represents Princeton University in NCAA Division I men's lacrosse play. Princeton currently competes as a member of the Ivy League and plays its home games at the Class of 1952 Stadium in Princeton, New J ...

team from 1995 through 1998, where he earned

National Collegiate Athletic Association 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 ...

(NCAA) lacrosse attackman of the year award, three

United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association 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 varsi ...

(USILA) All-American recognitions, four

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, three national championships, an Ivy League Player of the Year award, and an NCAA tournament most outstanding player award. Hess holds Princeton lacrosse scoring records for both points and assists, and won an NCAA individual national statistical championship for assists. As a professional, he is a former sportsman of the year and MLL assists leader.

Early and personal life

Hess, who is from Nyack, New York, established the

Rockland County Rockland County is the southernmost county on the west side of the Hudson River in the U.S. state of New York. It is part of the New York metropolitan area. It is about from the Bronx at their closest points. The county's population, as of th ...

scoring record (314 points). He attended

Nyack High School Nyack High School is a secondary school serving parts of the Town of Orangetown and Town of Clarkstown, New York, United States. The original Nyack High School building is now part of BOCES. Since 1990, Nyack High School has been located less t ...

, where he earned All-county recognition three times, but was unable to lead them past perennial league champion Yorktown High School. Hess was an

Empire State Games The Empire State Games are a set of annual Olympic-style competitions for amateur athletes from the state of New York, encompassing several divisions and allowing athletes of all ages to compete. It was a member of the National Congress of State ...

gold medalist in 1992 and bronze medalist in 1993. He is married to three-time soccer All-American and

2000 Olympic Games The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 (Dharug: ''Gadigal 2000''), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport event held from 1 ...

silver medalist, and former

New York Power The New York Power was an American professional soccer team that played in the Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA), the first professional soccer league for women in the United States. The team played at Mitchel Athletic Complex in Uniondal ...

player,

Sara Whalen Sara Eve Hess (; born April 28, 1976) is a retired American professional Olympic medalist soccer player. Whalen played for the United States Women's National Soccer Team from 1997 to 2000, won an Olympic silver medal with the team, and was a foun ...

Hess.

College career

Hess was part of a trio of noted attackmen who were Princeton classmates along with

Jesse Hubbard Jesse Hubbard (born September 18, 1975) is a former professional lacrosse player who played professional box lacrosse in the National Lacrosse League (NLL) and professional field lacrosse in the Major League Lacrosse (MLL). Background Hubbard st ...

and

Chris Massey Christopher Todd Massey (born November 21, 1979) is a former American football long snapper. He was drafted by the St. Louis Rams in the seventh round of the 2002 NFL Draft. He played college football at Marshall University. He has also played ...

. As starters, the trio of All-Americans, who retired second (Hess), third (Hubbard) and fourth (Massey) in career points at Princeton, had a 43–2 record and combined for 618 points. Hess was awarded the 1997

Jack Turnbull Award The "Lt. Col. J. I. Turnbull Award"''Go to' (box title is "2009 USILA Coaches of the Year Announced") ''and then scroll down'' to the lower box, entitled "2009 USILA Special Awards". The fourth regular award listed is: "Lt. Col. J. I. Turnbull Award ...

as the best NCAA

attackman. He was a first team

USILA All-American Team The USILA All-American Team is an honor given annually to the best American men's college lacrosse players at their respective positions by the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association. The first USILA All-Americans were named in 1922, a ...

selection in 1997 and 1998 and second team selection in 1996. He was also first team All-Ivy League in 1996 and 1997 and a second team selection in 1998. The 1995 team, which earned the school's sixth consecutive NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championship invitation, was Ivy League co-champion, while the 1996–1998 teams were 6–0 undefeated outright conference champions. These undefeated league champions won the

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

and

1998 NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse Championship The 1998 NCAA Division I lacrosse tournament was the 28th annual tournament hosted by the National Collegiate Athletic Association to determine the team champion of men's college lacrosse among its Division I programs, held at the end of the 199 ...

s, becoming the first team to win three consecutive championships since

Syracuse Syracuse may refer to: Places Italy *Syracuse, Sicily, or spelled as ''Siracusa'' *Province of Syracuse United States *Syracuse, New York **East Syracuse, New York **North Syracuse, New York *Syracuse, Indiana * Syracuse, Kansas *Syracuse, Miss ...

from 1988–90 and the first to be recognized to have done so without an NCAA scandal since

Johns Hopkins Johns Hopkins (May 19, 1795 – December 24, 1873) was an American merchant, investor, and philanthropist. Born on a plantation, he left his home to start a career at the age of 17, and settled in Baltimore, Maryland where he remained for most ...

from 1978–80. Hess earned the 1997 Men's Ivy League Player of the Year and the 1997 NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse Championship tournament Most Outstanding Player. His most outstanding player performance included five goals and eleven assists in the tournament and three goals and five assists in the championship game against

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

. The 1997 team is regarded as the best in school history with a record number of wins during its 15–0 season. He served as co-

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

of the 1998 team, and he scored two second half goals and had an assist as Princeton pushed its lead to 7–3 during the 1998 Championship game. For the day, he ended up with four goals as part of the 15–5 victory over Maryland. Hess holds the Princeton University single-season points (74, 1997) and single-season assists records (48, 1997). He was the 1998 NCAA statistical champion in assists per game (2.60), even though he was slowed down that season by a

hamstring In human anatomy, a hamstring () is any one of the three posterior thigh muscles in between the hip and the knee (from medial to lateral: semimembranosus, semitendinosus and biceps femoris). The hamstrings are susceptible to injury. In quadrupeds, ...

injury.

Princeton University

Professional career

Hess played for the

New York Saints The New York Saints are a former member of the National Lacrosse League. They played at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York, from 1989 to 2003. They became an inactive team after the 2002–03 season and were officially defunct in 2006. T ...

during the

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...

and

2000 NLL season The 2000 National Lacrosse League season is the 14th season in the NLL that began on January 7, 2000 and concluded with the championship game on May 6, 2000. The Toronto Rock defeated the Rochester Knighthawks 14-13. Kaleb Toth scored the winning ...

s. Hess also played three seasons in MLL with the

New Jersey Pride The New Jersey Pride were a men's professional field lacrosse team in the Major League Lacrosse formerly based in Piscataway, New Jersey, United States from 2001-2008. Franchise history In 2001, the first year of the league’s existence, the Pr ...

from

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

before retiring to work for

Merrill Lynch Merrill (officially Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated), previously branded Merrill Lynch, is an American investment management and wealth management division of Bank of America. Along with BofA Securities, the investment bank ...

in New York City. Hess works as a

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

stock trader A stock trader or equity trader or share trader, also called a stock investor, is a person or company involved in trading equity securities and attempting to profit from the purchase and sale of those securities. Stock traders may be an invest ...

. With the Pride, he won the

Major League Lacrosse Iron Lizard of the Year Award Major League Lacrosse (MLL) was a professional men's field lacrosse league consisting of nine teams in the United States. Since the league's first season in 2001, the MLL gave several annual awards to players and coaches. Most Valuable Player ...

during the

2003 MLL season The 2003 Major League Lacrosse season was the third season of the league. The season began on May 31 and concluded with the championship game on August 24, 2003. General information Schedule was reduced from 14 to 12 games. Baltimore moved thei ...

. That year, he was reunited with Princeton teammate Hubbard. In each of his three seasons in the MLL, he finished first (2001) or second (2002 & 2003) in the league in assists.

References

External links

Hess
at the

Hess archive
at ''

Baltimore Sun ''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries. Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by Tr ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Hess, Jon Living people American lacrosse players Lacrosse forwards Major League Lacrosse players National Lacrosse League players New York Saints players New Jersey Pride players Princeton Tigers men's lacrosse players Year of birth missing (living people) Nyack High School alumni