Basketball at heart, lacrosse on the brain: New York teacher heads Westport's new program

WESTPORT — Mark Ward has been torn about two sports for most of his life.

He grew up loving the game of basketball, but couldn't get enough of lacrosse.

"Basketball is my main love, but I can't get away from lacrosse," Ward said, cracking a smile.

The former New York resident was recently named Westport’s inaugural boys lacrosse head coach this spring. He takes over the program that started out with nine players to now 26 members. The Wildcats co-op with Bishop Connolly last year.

More: Vote for your favorite Herald News high school lacrosse player - 21 nominees

"So, the No. 1 goal was to go from nine kids to what we have now," Ward said. "Now we are working on next goal, which is build the program. I'm hoping to have a JV team next year and then go into youth."

Ward, 61, has made multiple coaching stops at the high school level in upstate New York, including his last stop at Binghamton High School before he retired from teaching three years ago. He soon joined Roger Williams University to be an assistant basketball coach then became the assistant lacrosse coach.

"Something happened to one of their coaches on lacrosse, and I was asked to be an assistant for them," Ward said. "This is my third year, living here full-time. I was at Roger Williams for two years and then this year this position opened. So they asked me to take it over."

Ward specializes in coaching goalie play where he put together a number of videos, which he sold. He was later asked to speak at the United States Lacrosse Convention.

The Wildcats won their inaugural game 9-3, an opening day matchup against Cape Cod Technical. Since then, it has been a struggle for Ward's group.

"The lack of experience, lack of skill with their stick ... we need more time with our sticks," Ward said. "It is not easy to pick up. We've been together for two weeks basically. It is going to take awhile but we're excited. We'll get there. We have really good kids and that's the nice thing about it.

Senior captain Hunter Mateus, who plays long stick midfielder or close defenseman, said a lot of his teammates are new so they will experience growing pains along the way.

"I think we have a good group of guys all coming to play a sport this season," said Mateus, who will play lacrosse after high school for Division III St. Joseph. "But as we keep practicing, which we've haven't had that much of practice, and everyone will get use to it, like controling the ball and all that. I think we'll be a lot better and improve. here's a lot of learning curve, but I think we can overcome them."

Ward lives with his wife, Mary, who played collegiate sports at Division I St. Bonaventure. His son Dylan Ward is a basketball coach at Division III Wilson College and daughter, Dr. Madison Ward, is a physical therapist professional in Dartmouth. She played for Merrimack College. Each of Ward's children is 6-foot, 3 inches.

Now it's one game a time for Ward.

"We're very excited for this opportunity," he said. "We are looking to build off of this season."

Herald News and Taunton Daily Gazette sports editor Steven Sanchez can be reached at ssanchez@heraldnews.com. You can follow him on Twitter @Chezsports

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Mark Ward takes over first-year lacrosse program at Westport