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It’s an offseason of changes in Milwaukee as Marquette men’s lacrosse head coach Joe Amplo continues to update his coaching staff. On Friday, Marquette announced that Amplo has hired former Golden Eagle B.J. Grill as Director of Lacrosse Operations, as well as adding Ryan Brown to the staff as the volunteer assistant coach.
Grill finished his four years of eligibility with Marquette this past spring and is one of the cornerstone recruits for Amplo. He was team captain each of the past two seasons and was named to the All-Big East First Team each year. Grill wrapped up his college tenure by being named the USILA All-American Third Team as well as winning a Big East tournament championship. That was MU’s first ever conference title in men’s lacrosse, and it led to MU’s first ever NCAA tournament appearance.
Brown is somehow actually a more high profile addition to the staff, although he's not as familiar to Marquette fans as Grill is. Brown wrapped up his collegiate career this past spring at Johns Hopkins, finishing with the second most goals in JHU history. His 209 points are the seventh most in the history of the incredibly successful Blue Jays program, so it’s safe to say he knows a thing or two about scoring goals. Brown was named Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year following the 2015 season, and he was a USILA Second Team All-American each of the past two seasons.
As a side note here: Ryan McNamara already has the Marquette records for career goals, single season points, and single season goals, and he's 24 points away from the career points record. If you thought he was good before he had Hopkins' second best goal scorer giving him tips and tricks, well, WATCH OUT.
With the addition of Grill and Brown to the staff, plus the hiring of former Marquette midfielder Jacob Richard earlier this summer as an assistant coach, the MU sideline is now loaded up with All-American lacrosse players. In fact, the men’s lacrosse Twitter pointed this out.
For those of you keeping track at home, the #mulax staff has 4 former AA/pro players (Brundage, Richard, Grill & Brown) and @MUcoachAmplo.
— Marquette Lacrosse (@MarquetteMLax) September 16, 2016
To clarify, because they ran out of space: That’s four collegiate All-Americans who also played (or are still playing) professionally with Major League Lacrosse..... and also head coach Joe Amplo.
Well played, MU Lacrosse Twitter. Well played.