W. Lax went from worst to first

Penn has 26 varsity head coaches. Only one won a national coach of the year award during the 2006-07 season: women's lacrosse coach Karin Brower.

Led by Brower's self-described "straightforward and honest" coaching style, the Quakers achieved their best season ever, including their highest national ranking (No. 2) and a trip to their first ever Final Four.

This outstanding season has led to several individual postseason awards, including both Goalie of the Year for rising senior Sarah Waxman and Brower's Coach of the Year award, as well as no fewer than seven All-American selections from various media outlets.

Although Brower appreciates the national coach honor that both womenslacrosse.com and Inside Lacrosse Magazine bestowed upon her, she wishes she could share the award.

"I wish it was Coaching Staff of the Year and not Coach of the Year," she said. "[The two assistant coaches Julie Shaner Young and Gloria Lozano] and I worked together all year long. I love working with them since they both motivate the girls. in their own way. Those two have made me better."

So how much of the team's success can be attributed to Brower?

"The success we have had this season is 100% attributed to Karin's dream for Penn lacrosse," rising junior Becca Edwards said. "She grew this program ... by following her vision and selling her players on this dream. This season our coaching staff came up with solid game plans that always gave us the best chance to win and we did our best on the field to make it happen."

In fact, all of the players interviewed for this story agreed on one thing. Without Brower the team wouldn't have come close to the achievements of this year.

"I don't think that an average coach would have been able to build the chemistry that our team had," Edwards said. "We really were a family and that was because Karin made it that way."

"Karin built our team from the ground up," outgoing senior and former tri-captain Karen Jann added. "Without her none of us would be here. I think most people on my team would agree with me in saying that Karin is like one of our parents."

It is this underlying intimacy that makes Brower's coaching style so successful.

"It is Karin's philosophy that if you are close with all of your teammates, best friends with them, you can challenge each other and push each other as hard as possible on the field," Sarah Eastburn, another class of 2007 tri-captain said.

In addition to strong team chemistry, Brower brought smart game-planning to the Quakers.

"All three of our coaches have an impeccable game plan that we learn and practice before each game," Waxman said. "Also, although it was [the players] that executed the plans, it was our coaches that pushed us in the fall to be better and then prepared us to be confident enough to go up against the hardest teams."

While this year was great, Brower's career at Penn has not been just smooth sailing.

When Brower took over in 2000, the team was coming off a disastrous 1-12 season and seemed to lack discipline.

"It was very different than any other Division-I program I've seen," Brower said. "At first they needed a lot of discipline. It was tough on them since they weren't the players I had recruited."

But since then, "a lot of the rules are now enforced by captains and upperclassmen," she said. "Now there's great leadership in the locker room and they discipline themselves. The upperclassmen have set a high standard for the team's work ethic."

One reason for the upperclassmen's leadership is their respect in turn for Brower's leadership.

"Personally, Karin has had a tremendous influence over my four years as a lacrosse player at Penn," Eastburn said. "She completely turned me into the player that I was."

Even in one year Brower can have an effect on her players.

"Coming into college, I didn't really know what to expect out of myself as a player," rising sophomore Ali DeLuca said. "But each day, not only did [Brower] continually help with my lacrosse skills, but she always expressed a confidence in me that helped make the transition from high school lacrosse to college lacrosse a lot easier. She's the type of coach that you want to make yourself better for."

Imagine if every coach at Penn could be described the same way.

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