When Skip Harris took over the head coaching reins at Essex (Vt.) in 2022, he wasn’t a stranger to the players in his program. He was an assistant coach at the school, giving him an immediate familiarity.
The 2022 season, however, might have given him a headache. That year, the Essex Hornets won one game, drew one game, and lost 14.
What happened afterward is an overused trope. You only see it in movies, where a coach takes over a losing team, gets his players to buy into a vision of success, improve a little bit over time, have a key unifying moment during the season, then win the championship.
But it happened. Like the story of the field hockey team at Ellicott City Mount Hebron (Md.) last fall, a team looking to emerge after so many years in the wilderness managed a “no doubt about it” performance in winning a state championship.
For his efforts, Skip Harris is the 2024 TopOfTheCircle.com United States Coach of the Year for girls’ scholastic lacrosse.
Like Jeannette Ireland back in 1990, Harris started with a season with just one win. But Essex responded with a bounceback in 2023 in which the Hornets got further into the Vermont Principals Association state tournament than in any other time in program history.
So, when preseason began for Essex this past spring, out came The Whiteboard.
Installed in the coach’s office, it listed a set of goals which the team checked off during what became a remarkable season. Program record for wins? Check. Winning its conference? Check. Winning its way into the semifinal round for a second straight season? Check.
The only left on the whiteboard towards the end of the season had a nickname: “Chizzy.” It was Snoop Dogg-esque slang for “championship.”
“You know what?” Harris said before the state final. “Let’s check that box, too.”
After being downtrodden at the beginning of Harris’ tenure as head coach, the Hornets dominated Hinesburg Champlain Valley Union (Vermont) to win its first state title, winning the game 12-3.
“When you’re on the other end of those games, it just feels so great to know you put in the work to be on the winning side of those games,” Harris told The New England Lacrosse Journal. “The girls, they’ve had their ups and downs over their careers, and just the fact they can come out on top their senior year, it’s like a fairytale.”
And another wonderful story that sport can tell.
Skip Harris joins a group of luminaries who have won this award in the past:
2024: Skip Harris, Essex (Vt.)
2023: Lisa Lindley, Darien (Conn.)
2022: Jill Thomas, Princeton (N.J.) Day School
2021: Rachel Sanford, Aurora Evergreen (Colo.)
2020: No award, COVID-19
2019: Chris Robinson, Orlando Lake Highland Prep (Fla.)
2018: Richard DeSomma, South Riding Freedom (Va.)
2017: Alyssa Frazier, Bridgewater-Raritan (N.J.)
2016: P.J. Kesmodel, Lewes Cape Henlopen (Del.)
