Blue Ridge School is excited to name Dom Starsia as its new lacrosse head coach. Following a nationwide search and the review of many qualified candidates, the former University of Virginia head coach quickly became the School’s top choice for this position.
Starsia says, “I am very excited about the opportunity to coach the Blue Ridge team. I have enjoyed every part of getting to know the school and the community and want to thank Headmaster Trip Darrin for his hospitality. What I am really looking forward to is what I truly love about coaching, the daily contact with young people on the practice field. Please stay safe and let’s get ready for 2021!”
Blue Ridge School Headmaster Trip Darrin says, “This Barons Lacrosse Team has dealt with the adversity of losing their season to the pandemic last spring, then having their beloved head coach depart for a college opportunity this fall. I am humbled and simply grateful that these guys now get to be coached by one of the all-time greats. Not only is Dom Starsia one of the greatest teachers, mentors, and tacticians in the sport of lacrosse, more importantly he is a man of the utmost character who has found a connection with the Blue Ridge mission. I am excited for this team and I am excited for Blue Ridge School that Dom Starsia will be part of the process through which our students grow to be young men of character.”
“We are very excited to have Coach Starsia taking over the lacrosse program,” adds Blue Ridge School Athletic Director Bryan Puckett. “In my conversations with Coach, I was impressed with his immediate gravitation to our mission and how much his personal philosophies are in sync with our school’s philosophy. I am looking forward to working with Coach Starsia as he continues our lacrosse program’s outstanding tradition.”
Dom Starsia coached college lacrosse for 42 years, including 18 as an assistant and the head coach at Brown University and 24 years as the head coach at the University of Virginia. He retired from the college coaching ranks in 2016 as the winningest coach in NCAA Division 1 history.
Starsia had never seen lacrosse before he entered Brown University as a football recruit in the fall of 1970. He went on to be First Team All-Ivy in both 1973 and ’74 and was an All-American selection in both those years. Starsia played professional box lacrosse in the National Lacrosse League in 1975 and was selected to the US National Team that competed in the World Games in 1978. He was named the USCLA Club Defenseman of the Year in 1979 and was named to Brown’s Team of the Millennium in 2000.
As a head coach, Starsia’s Brown team won Ivy League Championships in 1985 and 1991 and made five NCAA Tournament appearances. His teams at the University of Virginia made 13 NCAA semifinal appearances, won six ACC Tournament Championships and four Division 1 NCAA Championships in 1999, 2003, 2006, and 2011. He was selected as the ACC Coach of the Year eight times and won the Morris Touchstone Award as the USILA National Coach of the Year in 1985, 1991, and 2011. He was selected as the Field Turf National Division 1 Coach of the Year in 2008 and 2010.
Starsia was honored as the USILA Man of the Year in 2006 and received the organization’s Frenchy Julien Service Award in 2017. He has served on the Harlem Lacrosse Executive Board since 2013 and received their Leadership Award in 2016. He received the Intercollegiate Men’s Lacrosse Coach’s Association Creator’s Award in 2016 and the University of Virginia McCue Society Jim West Service Award in 2017. He was inducted into the Lake Placid Legends Society in 2018 and was selected as the “Virginians of Maryland” Medallion Award recipient in 2020.
Starsia has been inducted into the Brown University, Rhode Island, New England, Central Virginia and the Intercollegiate Men’s Lacrosse Coaches’ Association Halls of Fame. He was inducted into the United States National Hall of Fame in 2008.
He presently serves in a leadership position on the Advisory Board of the Premier Lacrosse League and has authored a book I Hope You Will Be Very Happy.
Blue Ridge School is an all-boys, all-boarding college preparatory school in Virginia that focuses on character development, appreciation for the outdoors, and developing a lifelong love of learning. Students come from across the United States and more than a dozen foreign countries. The student-to-faculty ratio is 6:1 with an average class size of eight. The School’s 750-acre campus is home to a renowned Outdoor Program and more than 15 miles of mountain biking and hiking trails.
The School offers 11 interscholastic varsity sports that play at the Baron Athletic Complex, which was renovated and expanded in 2018. The Complex includes a multi-sport turf field, a 49,000-square foot field house with 2,000-square foot weight-training facility, a six-lane track, multiple full-size grass practice fields, Carl Frye Baseball Field, a golf driving range, and the new Rymer Marksmanship Range.
