July 5, 2006

Note: This story first appeared in the June 2005 issue of Lacrosse magazine, a member benefit of US Lacrosse. Click here to become a member.

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John Desko somehow became the young writer's dad.

Perched up high on the leather-bound seat of his new-smelling Chevy Silverado, he drew in pencil a sketch of Syracuse. The young writer sank at the sight of it.

"I need to stop home real quick," Desko said. "Have you checked into your hotel yet?" The young writer slumped a little further in his seat.

"No," he replied.

"Here," Desko said, pointing at the map. "The Armory should be right in this area."

He drew overlapping circles on the back of a torn-out playbook sheet, as if to say "Go here, stupid." Opening the door to his right, pen in ear, the young writer stepped down from the truck. Desko grabbed at his shirt sleeve. "Do you want to follow me?"

Right. As if John Desko isn't busy enough, he thought. Desko had already taken three hours out of gameday to talk about his childhood, his bout with Crohn's disease, his formative lacrosse years, his opinion of the modern game, his recruiting methodology and his reaction to the notorious Michael Powell "flip."

Now Desko's going to escort his disoriented derriere through Syracuse?

"That'd be great," the writer replied, as he leapt from his pickup to the pavement. "Thanks, John."

And so he followed Desko -- through the university's crowded streets, up I-81 and over to Route 690. Desko signaled for him to get over, simultaneously squeezing his busty arm out the window to point the wanderer off the highway.

At 4 p.m., John Desko became his dad -- overbearing and overprotective. He eased the writer's confusion with remarkable approachability. Apparently, he's this way with everyone, especially his Syracuse lacrosse players.

"Was he moving his arms around a lot?" asked Jay Pfeifer, Syracuse's goalie at the time. Actually, yes, he was. "Yeah, he does that," Pfeifer said, adding of Desko, "He knows how to take care of us." When asked what he meant by that, Pfeifer cited the time in which the team was unhappy with the equipment provided by a proposed sponsor. Though a lot of money was at stake, Desko had a simple response:

Can the sponsor.

There are no grey areas when it comes to his players' happiness.

At 6 p.m., as the rain pelted the inflatable roof of the Carrier Dome, the young writer sauntered into the Orange locker room. Players decked out in warm-ups and eye black offered some curious glances, before returning to their pre-game rites. Some tinkered with their sticks. Others taped their ankles and wrists. They bathed in the unmistakable musk of a lacrosse locker room, a bacterial beast feeding upon 51 pairs of sweat-soaked leather gloves and moldy arm pads.

Ahhh, the sweet stench of lacrosse.

But where's Desko? After all, at this point, the writer was in tight cahoots with the big fella, wasn't he? Senior midfielder Geoff Keough advised otherwise.

"You don't want to be on his back when he's got game plans on his mind," Keough said.

The young writer ignored him.

Promenading through the pack, he rounded the corner and found Desko standing alone - by himself in the back room, one arm propped against the locker, the other clasping his hip. His eyes were cast like iron to the floor.

"Hey," he said, in a deep and uninviting tone. He looked annoyed for the first time that day. His exterior hardened. He no longer exuded that fatherly warmth. He again was Coach Desko. He commanded respect, a right he has earned as the only man directly involved in each of Syracuse's 22 consecutive final four appearances from 1983-2004. His privacy mattered. And so the young writer stepped back, and left him alone - to do what he's done for 25 years, the last seven as head coach of the country's most storied lacrosse program.

A Scare, a Scar and a Score
What life event, would you say, defined you as a person?

It seemed like a stupid question, one of those amateurish offerings typically put out there by unseasoned journalists.

Desko planted his right leg on the desk and lifted the nylon of his pants to reveal a scar just above his ankle. The mark reveals a side of Desko that few people in the lacrosse world know - the vulnerable side. It reminds him constantly of the disease which nearly robbed him of sports, among other things, as a young man.

Playing basketball during his junior year at West Genesee High in upstate New York, Desko got kicked above his right ankle, bruising the bone. But the bruise never healed. Instead, it worsened, infecting the bone and discharging a yellowish puss before Desko realized he should see a specialist.

He had dropped 45 pounds in just a few months, mainly because every time he ate, it hurt. Despite numerous tests - including invasive scopes, x-rays and barium exams - his doctors found nothing.

"A scary time," Desko said. "Really, it was a time where I thought I could die from it."

They brought in a specialist, Desko said, a renowned surgeon who happened to be making a presentation at a nearby medical conference. The surgeon suggested exploratory surgery, during which he found evidence of Crohn's disease.

According to the National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse (NDDIC), Crohn's disease is an inflammatory bowel disease which often causes blockages in the small intestine. Nutritional deficiency is its most common symptom, a result of insufficient dietary intake and the loss of proteins, calories and vitamins through the intestinal walls.

At his physical peak, Desko weighed 180 pounds. Between football, basketball and lacrosse, he had grown accustomed to playing varsity sports year round. But by fall of 1975, he had shrunken to 135 pounds, a dangerously low weight for a man of his stature.

"A scary time. Really, it was a time where I thought I could die from it." Team USA coach John Desko, on his initial struggles with Crohn's disease

Today, Crohn's disease is treatable by anti-inflammatory agents, with surgery being a last resort. Otherwise, surgery to remove part of the intestine can help manage the disease, but cannot cure it.

Desko, who spent three weeks in the hospital after having a large portion of his small intestine removed, played lacrosse that spring. But the scar remained. Technically, he still has Crohn's disease. "It's one of those mystifying diseases that there are no answers for," said Desko, who added playfully while patting his belly, "but it obviously hasn't flared up. I can keep my food down."

Needless to say, he also rediscovered his appetite, as his portly figure today might suggest. But after missing the football season and returning tentatively for basketball, lacrosse became his focus - and he was one heck of a midfielder for West Genny, playing both ways under coach Bill Wormuth.

With little incentive to leave home, the lifetime New Yorker came to Syracuse as a player in 1976, playing midfield and then switching to defense as an All-American in 1979. That same year, the Orange earned their first NCAA tournament berth.

"John was the fastest player usually on the field," said Syracuse assistant Kevin Donahue, who played with Desko at West Genny and Syracuse, before reuniting with him on the Orange staff in 1989. "If there was anybody faster, I certainly never played against him."

Desko had only gotten a taste. Upon graduating in 1979, Desko was hired by then-head coach Roy Simmons Jr., and became the program's first full-time paid assistant.

His starting salary was $1,000.

Loyalty Pays Off
1982.

Brezhnev died.

Michael Powell was born.

Syracuse missed the playoffs.

The Orange streak of 24 consecutive NCAA tournament appearances that includes 23 final fours (UMass eliminated Syracuse in the 2005 first round to stop the streak) made since then spanned two head coaches, nine national championships (although the NCAA vacated the 1990 crown), the Gaits, the Powells and the lifespan of most current collegiate players.

Desko spent 17 of those years as an assistant to Roy Simmons Jr. before taking over in 1999. Along the way, he said, he turned down a number of offers for head coaching positions at other schools - namely at the urging of Simmons, who told Desko if he stuck around long enough, he could inherit something pretty special at Syracuse.

"If you don't have the job," Simmons told Desko before his retirement season, "I won't retire."

Desko ran his camps, recruited his personnel, helped run his offense and defense, and ultimately adopted his philosophies. As Simmons went, so did Desko.

One of Desko's favorite stories about Simmons has to do with the time they traveled to Lexington, Va., together to coach the 1980 USILA North-South All-Star Game at Washington and Lee University. Always the jokester, Simmons decided he'd name all the formations after Union generals and Union-won battles of the Civil War.

An angry spectator - one among many in a crowd of southerners - called Simmons out. She pointed out how "ignorant" he was for not realizing that one of his own players, Princeton's Billy DeButts, was the great-great grandson of Robert E. Lee. DeButts was more amused than he was offended. But Simmons took the entire team to the Civil War general's grave afterward as a goodwill gesture.

When asked about the incident, Simmons smiled.

"It's my first time down there, and we went out and got a rebel flag to hang in the goal during practice. Then we go and name the plays after Union battles won," Simmons said. "The townspeople gave me hell."

That kind of creativity, however, was not lost on Desko. He watched Simmons connect with the players the way even he admits he cannot.

"Our motivation is winning," said Desko, who's done plenty of that in eight seasons as head coach, including leading an unlikely Syracuse team back to the final four this year with a 10-5 mark. "But Roy was pretty good on a soapbox."

It is in part because of Simmons' impact that Desko has developed an appreciation for innovative lacrosse. Some coaches, he said, would just as soon grind the game down to a paralyzing sequence of predictable plays. But when Michael Powell decided he wanted to break out a mid-sprint flip during a game against Massachusetts in 2004, Desko obliged.

"He was going to do something Syracuse fans had never seen before," Desko said. "I realized it was something he had to do. He had to get it off his chest. Every time he'd touch the ball, they'd be calling for it in the stands. It became disruptive, for me and for Mike. We were man-up and I said, `Mike, let's get this over with.'

I didn't expect him to shoot."

Powell shot, and missed. But "The Flip" got its intended spotlight, including ESPN's "SportsCenter," and the still frames are blown up in sequence on the walls of the Syracuse athletics office. Whereas some coaches may discourage that kind of showmanship, guys like Desko and Simmons figure the best way for lacrosse to develop is to let its athletes express themselves freely.

"If a player's out working on a behind-the-back shot, or a behind-the-back pass," Desko said, "I enjoy that."

Despite their success, Desko and Simmons have just one USILA Coach of the Year Award between them - and it went to Simmons in 1980, the same year they coached the Division I North-South All-Star Game.

Desko has never won the award.

"I think you should talk to Coach Simmons about that," Desko said. "At Syracuse, you're never going to win Coach of the Year. The expectations are too high."

Blame those who set them.

A New Challenge
As head coach of the U.S. Men's Team that will compete in the 2006 International Lacrosse Federation (ILF) World Championship commencing next week in Canada, Desko reunited with Powell - and 119 other all-stars just like him - when tryouts were held in June 2005. Paring them down to the ILF-mandated 23 players put Desko in a pretty precarious position.

"Trying to mesh those talents and personalities together will be very intense," Desko said.

Among the 23, five (Casey Powell, Mike Powell, Ryan Powell, Roy Colsey and Pat McCabe) played at Syracuse, the most of any school.

Yet nothing was further from Desko's mind, however, as his eyes remained beaded to that locker room floor.

The struggles last year reminded Desko of the 1999 season, his first as head coach, when the Orange lost four regular-season games but advanced to the NCAA title game as the No. 8 seed. He, in turn, reminded his players of that, as they were not to underestimate Albany.

Syracuse beat Albany that night.

Afterwards, while eyeballing the post-game spread of pizza and wings, Desko bid the young writer farewell. Desko winked at him, and told him to have a good time down at the Armory.

At least he knew how to get there.