Former Virginia assistant replaces Corcorqn as M. Lax coach

Van Arsdale gets first head coaching poition after Corcoran leaves Penn to take top at Swarthmore When Marc Van Arsdale accepted the head coaching position of the Penn men's lacrosse team on July 22, he acknowledged the many changes that lie ahead in his personal life and for the Quakers' program. The former Virginia assistant coach will have to make the adjustment from the relative tranquility of Charlottesville, Va., to the bustle of city life in Philadelphia. He is moving from one of the nation's premier programs to the last place team in the Ivy League. He will no longer have seducing scholarships to hand out to the nation's elite high school players. Instead, he will have to sell Penn, the lacrosse program and himself. But one regularity of Penn life will not take getting used to for the first-time head coach -- the intense rivalry with Princeton. Van Arsdale knows as well as anyone the feeling of losing to the Tigers. Virginia has ended its season with an overtime loss to Princeton in the NCAA national championship game two of the last three seasons. The difference at Penn, of course, is that the Quakers haven't been to a Final Four since 1988 -- three head coaches ago -- and routinely suffer their losses to Princeton in the regular season, not the NCAA playoffs. The selection of Van Arsdale as the 22nd head coach in Penn's 97-year lacrosse history ended a three-week search for the replacement to Terry Corcoran, who stepped down to accept the top position at Division III Skidmore. Van Arsdale has spent six seasons with the Cavaliers, where he worked primarily with the offense. He was also responsible for much of the recruiting at Virginia. Prior to that, Van Arsdale was an assistant at lacrosse power Hobart, his alma mater, for four years. As a student at Hobart, he played on four Division III national championship teams and was named a first-team All-American as a senior. "Marc is one of the up-and-coming young coaches in lacrosse," Penn athletic director Steve Bilsky said. When Corcoran took the helm two summers ago, he was expected to turn around a Quakers program that had gone from NCAA semifinalist to 1-5 in the conference in just five years. But the task proved too daunting for Corcoran, who failed to win a single Ivy game during his two-year layover. Corcoran left Penn with a 10-18 overall record, including an 0-12 mark in conference play. Achieving success at the Division I level has proven less troublesome for the 33-year old Van Arsdale. As a member of the Cavaliers coaching staff, he has made three straight trips to the Final Four. One key adjustment for Van Arsdale will be trying to match his recruiting success at Virginia without the benefit of scholarships. "Here, I'll have to try to sell the whole package. The key is feeling good about what you're selling," Van Arsdale said. "UVA can sell the fact that they're at the top right now. Here, we'll have to show them that we're going up and that, if you come here, you can be a part of it. We'll grow up together." Van Arsdale has already received some advice on recruiting in the Ivy League from his boss at Virginia, head coach Dom Starsia, who spent 22 years at Brown prior to taking the Cavaliers head coaching position in 1992. "Recruiting is different here and there. At Penn, there are more variables," Starsia said. "When you talk to a boy in the Ivy League, you've got to discuss the financial aid situation, what the admissions department would think, how it fits with the academic index. Here, we just cut to the chase. It's more direct here. We can focus on the athletics because we have athletic grants." With Van Arsdale calling the shots, the Cavaliers trademark wide-open offense exploded for an average of 17.5 goals per game this past year as Virginia ran up a 11-4 record. Van Arsdale plans on slowly working the run-and-gun style offense into the Quakers' bag of tricks. "I'd like to bring some of that," he said. "I played in that style, and it's the same way at Virginia. I've seen it be successful. But it all hinges on the personnel. We're not going to outrun people down the field if we can't physically outrun people." In order to successfully implement a Virginia-style attack, Van Arsdale says he will have to find athletic midfielders and attackmen who can move the ball around. "I'm looking forward to playing an up-tempo game," Penn senior attackman Jon Cusson said. "That's the style I played in high school, and I think it can work here." Van Arsdale won't have to wait long to show off his new team in front of his old employers. Over the summer, six weeks before Van Arsdale was hired, Penn and Virginia scheduled a game against each other for next March. "When I first came to Virginia six years ago and left Hobart, where I had played for four years and coached for four years, one of our first games was against Hobart," Van Arsdale said. "It was easier then being on top, on the side that was favored. This time, we'll likely be the overwhelming underdog. But it'll be great seeing some of the people there again." Van Arsdale has had a number of suitors in the past few years, interviewing for vacancies at Navy and Maryland-Baltimore County. In fact, Van Arsdale was a candidate for the Penn position three years ago when G.W. Mix resigned as head coach. But Corcoran got the job, and Van Arsdale had to wait another two years for his break. "Hopefully, I've been learning more each year that I do this," Van Arsdale said. "Also, I think the Penn situation is better suited for me now. I think it was important when Corcoran came in to have a coach who had been a head coach before. That's not so important now." Van Arsdale won't have much of a honeymoon at Penn. In addition to the Virginia game, the Quakers have also scheduled perennial-power Syracuse, in addition to their loaded Ivy schedule, which includes top-20 teams Princeton, Harvard, Dartmouth, Brown, Yale and Cornell. "Next year, all of the big boys are on our schedule," Van Arsdale said. "We'll have to ask ourselves: Are we ready to get on the field and have a chance? That's something we'll have to find out." Van Arsdale says that eventually he hopes to bring Penn up to Princeton's level, but acknowledges that it will be a slow process. "Right now, Princeton's at the top of the ladder," he said. "But there are a lot of other teams on the ladder between Princeton and us. Hopefully, this year we'll start beating some of those teams, and we'll work our way up from there." The coaching change figures to affect the seniors more than anyone. They will be playing under their third coach in four years and will likely not be around when and if Van Arsdale brings Penn lacrosse back to its former glory. "When I first came here as a freshman, I never expected to play under three different coaches," Quakers senior midfielder Ed Hanover said. "But I don't think the guys are too disappointed. I think everyone's pretty excited about having Van Arsdale come in here." That is everybody but Starsia, who admitted to having mixed feelings about losing his top assistant and good friend. "I tried to talk him out of it. My wife and I called him in the car [that] morning and begged him to stay," Starsia said. "He's meant so much to this program, to me and to my family. I think the Penn athletic department will enjoy having Marc and his family."

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