Lars Tiffany (born 1968) 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 current head coach of the
Virginia Cavaliers men's lacrosse
The Virginia Cavaliers men's lacrosse team represents the University of Virginia in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I men's lacrosse. The Cavaliers compete in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) and plays home games at K ...
program 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 ...
. Tiffany has led Virginia to back-to-back national titles (the
2019 NCAA Lacrosse Championship and the
2021 NCAA Lacrosse Championship, after the 2020 tournament was cancelled due to
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...
). He was named 2019 ACC Coach of the Year. As with his predecessor
Dom Starsia
Dom Starsia (born April 21, 1952) is an American lacrosse coach. He is the former head coach of the University of Virginia men's lacrosse program, with whom he won four NCAA national championships, in 1999, 2003, 2006, and 2011. Previously, he ...
, Tiffany came to Virginia after coaching his ''alma mater'' at
Brown
Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing or painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors orange and black. In the RGB color model used ...
. There, he was the 2015 and 2016
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 ...
Coach of the Year. On November 1, 2022, he was named as the head coach for the
Haudenosaunee men's national lacrosse team for the
2023 World Lacrosse Championship
The 2023 World Lacrosse Championship will be the 14th edition of the international men's field lacrosse tournament for national teams organized by World Lacrosse. Initially scheduled for 2022, it was postponed to 2023 due to the COVID-19 pandemic ...
.
Early life
Born in
LaFayette, New York
LaFayette is a town in Onondaga County, New York, United States. Its population was 4,952 at the 2010 census. The town is named after the Marquis de Lafayette, a national hero of both France and the United States. LaFayette is in the southern part ...
, Tiffany attended
LaFayette High School, 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 ...
,
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...
, as well as
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 ...
. At Lafayette he was classmates with members of the
Onondaga nation
The Onondaga people ( Onondaga: , ''Hill Place people'') are one of the original five constituent nations of the Iroquois (''Haudenosaunee'') Confederacy in northeast North America. Their traditional homeland is in and around present-day Onondaga ...
which strengthened his love for lacrosse, a sport that their indigenous ancestors pioneered. In 1986, 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 played lacrosse and served as captain for two years. He played in the NCAA tournament in 1987 and 1990. In 1990, he 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 Armenia
Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr ...
.
Coaching career
Stevenson School
After graduating from Brown with a degree in Biology, Tiffany accepted a teaching and coaching position at the
Stevenson School
Stevenson School (also known as Robert Louis Stevenson School and abbreviated as RLS) is a coeducational, private school for boarding and day students in preschool through twelfth grade. Its high school and Pre-K through eighth-grade campuses are ...
in
Pebble Beach, California
Pebble Beach is an unincorporated community on the Monterey Peninsula in Monterey County, California. The small coastal residential community of mostly single-family homes is also notable as a resort destination, and the home of the golf course ...
.
Lemoyne College
Tiffany's first foray into college coaching was as an assistant coach for the women's team at
LeMoyne College in his hometown of Syracuse NY.
Washington & Lee University
Lars' first men's collegiate coaching position was with the
Washington and Lee Generals
The Washington and Lee Generals are the athletic teams that represent Washington and Lee University, located in Lexington, Virginia, in NCAA Division III intercollegiate sports. The Generals compete as members of the Old Dominion Athletic Conferen ...
in the 1997 and 1998 seasons where he was an assistant for
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 ...
champion and current head coach of the
Whipsnakes Lacrosse Club
The Whipsnakes Lacrosse Club is a professional men's field lacrosse team in Premier Lacrosse League (PLL). The Whipsnakes are one of the six founding members of the PLL and the winner of its first two championships; the 2019 season and the 2020 C ...
, Jim Stagnitta.
Dartmouth College
Lars returned to Division 1 lacrosse and the Ivy League when he became an assistant coach for the men's lacrosse program at
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...
for the 1999 and 2000 seasons.
Penn State
Lars spent four years at
Penn State #Redirect Pennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campu ...
(2000-2004) as the top assistant under head coach Glenn Thiel.
Stony Brook
Tiffany had his first position as a head coach for the
Stony Brook Seawolves men's lacrosse program in 2005 and 2006. In 2005 he was named the
America East Conference
The America East Conference is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with NCAA Division I founded in 1979, whose members are located in the Northeastern United States.
The conference has nine core members including eight public research u ...
coach of the year.
Brown University
Tiffany was the head lacrosse coach from 2007-2016 at his alma mater. During this time he amassed a 95-56 record, won the Ivy League Championship four times (2008, 2010, 2015, and 2016), and made the NCAA tournament three times, going as far as the Final Four in 2016, his final season.
University of Virginia
Tiffany became the 17th head coach of the Virginia men’s lacrosse program on June 21, 2016.
During Tiffany’s first season at UVA, his Cavalier offense finished No. 1 in the ACC and No. 3 in the nation in three offensive categories: goals per game (14.40), assists per game (9.13) and points per game (23.53). Aitken shattered UVA’s freshmen midfielder record of 29 goals and 40 points. Aitken broke the goals record in eight games. Attackman Kraus was named ACC Freshman of the Year and was the only rookie on the All-ACC team after leading UVA with 34 goals and 56 points.
In 2018, Tiffany’s Cavalier team ranked No. 1 nationally in ground balls (38.0). Defensively in 2017, Virginia led the nation with 43.33 ground balls per game, averaging nearly seven more ground balls per game then No. 2 Brown (36.56), Tiffany’s previous program. Prior to Tiffany coming to UVA, his Brown squad in 2016 led the nation in ground balls as Tiffany’s staff three years in a row has led the nation’s best team on the ground.
In 2018, Tiffany’s Cavaliers were No. 5 nationally in assists (7.72), No. 7 in points per game (20.33) and No. 7 in scoring offense (12.61). Michael Kraus became the third Cavalier in program history to reach 80 points in a season, finishing with 83, ranking No. 8 nationally. First-team All-American midfielder Dox Aitken set a midfielder program record with 51 points in 2018. In 2018, the Cavaliers were runners-up in the ACC tournament.
In 2019, the Cavaliers won both the ACC tournament as well as the NCAA Tournament. This marked the sixth NCAA tournament championship for the University of Virginia, and Tiffany's first as a head coach.
In 2021, Tiffany led the Cavaliers back to the national championship game defeating top-seeded North Carolina in the national semifinals. In the final, Virginia defeated the previously undefeated (and
historic rivals) Maryland Terrapins 17–16 to earn Tiffany back-to-back NCAA Championships and the ninth national title overall for Virginia men's lacrosse.
Personal life
Tiffany resides in
Charlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after Queen Ch ...
with his wife and their child. He has been a
vegetarian
Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter.
Vegetarianism m ...
for over thirty years.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tiffany, Lars
Living people
American lacrosse players
Brown Bears men's lacrosse coaches
Virginia Cavaliers men's lacrosse coaches
Brown Bears men's lacrosse players
1968 births