If you’re new to Notre Dame, chances are you may not have known we had a lacrosse team. If you knew Notre Dame had a lacrosse team, you may have seen a few of their players walking around carrying some type of sticks that have different sized baskets attached at one end.

Well that “basket” is called the head and the “stick” is called the shaft. And that new guy walking around campus isn’t a graduate student, he’s the new head coach and his name is Derek Pedrick. The old coach, Steven Dini moved on for better career opportunities.

Derek is from the upstate New York area, from a place called Saratoga Springs. He has played Lacrosse for 17 yrs of his life and loved every minute of it. Pedrick said, “I was working as a sales rep for a company that sold lacrosse equipment. There was an opportunity to become the assistant coach at NDNU and when the head coach position opened up I took it.” He hasn’t looked back since.

The Argonaut asked Pedrick how he first got involved with the sport, he replied, “It’s a very popular sport back home and my favorite of all the sports I played when I was younger. It’s also a fun sport to coach,” which shows in the answers given by players, when questioned as to how they felt about their coach. Last season the team finished with an overall record of 7-6. In their conference they finished 7-0.

Hunter Adams, a Junior from Austin, Texas in his 3rd season of lacrosse at Notre Dame said, “Coach Pedrick, is in the process of, really turning around this program. He has us working together as a team and is pointing player potential in the right direction.”

Hunter was also asked about some expectations he had from the team, since The Pedrick takeover. To which he answered, “We expect to win the conference (again), work better as a team and win some out of conference games.”

When the same question of expectations was directed at Coach Pedrick he responded with, “I expect everyone to work hard and put the team first. I expect them to compete on the field and off (in the classroom).

“We want to be the best in the division and get better every day, but most important I want lacrosse players to graduate,” he said. “Driving these values home every day during practice and in team meetings seems to be doing a lot of good for the attitude and moral of the team.”

Tony Tescallo (a freshman from Petaluma) echoed thoughts similar to Adams, “He seems like a good guy and good coach. He has us working really hard to become better.”

When Tescallo was asked if he had any expectations for the team since the new head coaches arrival, he replied, “He should be able to make us more of a contender outside the division and competitive overall.”

From first impression, Coach Pedrick has a mix between down to earth vibe and a no non-sense attitude. He seemed very focused and all about lacrosse.

“My ideal weekend would be us having a good practice or win in a game. Followed by a good dinner and some good sports on ESPN,” he said. Pedrick’s laid back lifestyle quickly turns on and off if he needs to get a fire lit underneath his players.