Roanoke Gets Rise out of Surprise Star Tuma
by Jac Coyne | Lacrosse Magazine Online Staff | Coyne Archive | Twitter
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| Doing whatever his coach has asked of him during his
first three seasons has turned Roanoke's Justin Tuma into a
do-it-all middie for the Maroons. © John Strohsacker |
It was time for the Roanoke men's lacrosse players to take a
break. The Maroons were on an empty campus preparing for their 2010
NCAA quarterfinal tournament game, so head coach Bill Pilat broke
up the routine and brought his players to a local golf course.
On the driving range, one by one, the players stopped swinging and
turned their gaze to teammate Justin Tuma. There was Tuma, all
5-foot-10, 185 pounds of him, striping the ball to the farthest
reaches of the range – well beyond anyone else, including the
coaching staff.
"It was unbelievable," said Pilat, a linksman himself. "The pro at
the course came up to me and said, 'Does he play on the golf team?'
I said, 'No, he's a lacrosse player.' The pro said it was one of
the best swings he's seen."
Pilat knew Tuma could golf. When he sent his recruiting video, he
included hockey and golf clips. Still, the coach was taken aback by
just how good his junior captain was.
That's kind of the way Tuma operates.
Playing for Bloomfield Hills Lahser High School, a school located
in a leafy suburb of Detroit, Tuma was by the far best player on a
weak team. He didn't attend many of the camps that draw flocks of
varsity coaches, so he didn't find much interest in him. Michigan
wanted him, but he didn't receive his acceptance letter until after
he committed to Roanoke. Pilat and his staff had seen the video,
and figured Tuma could be useful.
"When we recruited him, we thought he'd be a faceoff guy, but we
weren't sure if he'd get a regular shift," Pilat said.
It wasn't from lack of trying.
"I played everything in high school," Tuma said. "I pretty much
played attack, but I would take faceoffs and dodge from the
midfield. I just got used to playing all over the place. When I got
to Roanoke, they shuffled me around. They'd put a d-pole in my hand
for a couple of practices. I played attack here and there, played
some midfield. My freshman year I took maybe three faceoffs."
Tuma wound up on the first middie line, starting 10 games. With
running mates such as Chas Carlson and Billy Cameron, both
upperclassmen, he had just four goals and five assists.
"He came in his first year and we needed to run offense on the
first line as a freshman, which he did fine," said Pilat, whose
Maroons finished 8-6 in 2008. "He didn't have a lot of points, but
he was fine. The team wasn't as successful because we had a bunch
of injuries."
Pilat knew that the 2009 season could be special for Roanoke. With
potent junior and senior classes, along with several players back
from injury, the potential was there for the Maroons to be an
offensive juggernaut. If they could just tighten up their defense,
they'd be a contender.
Tuma surprised Pilat for the first time.
"I went to him and said, 'Look, we've got everyone back and I
think we're going to be very strong. I want you to play d-middie. I
want you to faceoff and play d-middie, because that's where we need
help and you can do it."
Pilat had just asked a first-line offensive middie to forget about
the glory of playing offense and assume the thankless role of
d-middie. The coach waited a couple of seconds before the answer
came.
"He just said, 'Yeah, Coach, of course. Whatever you need.'"
Said Tuma: "Coach Pilat told me I might be better suited to play
d-middie and taking more faceoffs, so I kind of dedicated myself to
being the best d-middie I can be."
An odd thing happened in Tuma's transition. While he won 62.4
percent (108 of 173) of the faceoffs he took and locked down the
opposition's top midfielders, he also racked up 31 points – a
three-fold increase from when he played offense fulltime.
Tuma had transformed himself into one of the most diverse players
in the game.
"Going into his junior year we thought, do we keep him at
d-middie? But he had so many points," Pilat said. "We figured let's
just run him at both and put him where need him. He can do it
all."
"I knew that if I wanted to help the team as best as I could and
see the field as much as I could, d-middie was the best place for
me," Tuma said. "I knew that it could potentially move into an
offensive position. At the time, I just said I'd do whatever. It
ended up working out great. I had as many offensive points as I
could ever hope for. It helped me be a more well-rounded lacrosse
player."
It all came together last year. Tuma was a one-man force, leading
the Maroons to the national quarterfinals. He won 64.2 percent of
his faceoffs (156 of 243), finished first in ground balls by 40 and
posted 49 points (30g, 19a).
Now the only question surrounding Tuma is how to not burn him out.
Depending on the opponent, Pilat said, Tuma will get his breaks
from faceoffs and playing defensive midfield.
When everything's on the line, however, Tuma won't leave the
field.
"We told him that the Stevenson game [in the quarterfinals] was
one where he wasn't going to be able to have anything left in the
tank when it's over, and he didn't," Pilat said. "He's our best
faceoff guy, but he's also our best short-stick defensive middie
and our best offensive middie. You kind of have to pick your poison
depending on the game."
For Pilat, it's easy to speak with reverence about how a lightly
recruited Michigan kid turned into one of the best Roanoke players
in recent memory.
"He's definitely a coach's dream," Pilat said. "He's in the honors
program here and his GPA is 3.67. You never worry about him from
that aspect. He just wants to win. He was floored that he was an
All-American as a sophomore and, last year, he couldn't believe he
was second team. He doesn't think about that kind of stuff. If we
win, he's happy. If we don't, he's miserable. He just wants to do
what's best for the team, and he always does."
Coaches and teammates describe Tuma as a quiet kid, a captain of
deeds rather than words. But when the subject of expectations
– and the possibility this could be a down year for the
Maroons – was broached, he had an unexpectedly fiery
response.
"I could care less about what other people think," Tuma said.
"As long as the team is on board. We need to know, especially the
freshmen and sophomores, that we have a great team this year, and
we can be just as good as we were last year. We lose a lot of guys.
We also bring a lot of experienced guys back. Last year was last
year. It was a great year, but I just want to get focused on the
year ahead and what we could accomplish."
Watch out, doubters. Justin Tuma has mastered the element of
surprise.
