Brian Reese, for the last five seasons, has been the head girls’ lacrosse coach at Lutherville Maryvale Prep (Md.).
It is not just a job; it is a balance. Maryvale Prep is part what has been the nation’s most competitive private-school league over the last quarter-century. You literally cannot sling a lacrosse ball in that area of Falls Road without hitting a skilled and fit lacrosse player.
Coaching a team with an amazing inflow of talent is not just a matter of running practices and putting in concepts, but occasionally winding them up and getting out of the way. That especially goes in a situation where your child is not only on your team, but is the top-ranked senior in the country according to numerous ratings services, which is what has happened to Cayden Reese, the fine attacking midfielder.
This makes Brian Reese’s departure, formally announced last month, all the more puzzling. I call the departure “puzzling,” because he made a public statement detailing frustration with the school’s administration and a lack of support for the varsity lacrosse program.
According to the Baltimore Sun, Reese had been contemplating a departure from Maryvale as early as 2023, and had told team families that the 2026 season, one in which Maryvale won the IAAM Class “A” title, would be his last.
But in my years of writing about girls’ high school field hockey and lacrosse, I have noticed numerous situations when scholastic coaches leave their programs when their daughters graduate and head to college.
Interestingly enough, in another cross-sport parallel, Brian Reese’s departure from the No. 1 scholastic lacrosse program happened only a couple of academic years after Jodi Hollamon left her coaching position at Delmar (Del.) once her youngest daughter Jordyn graduated.
And this fall, both Jordyn Hollamon and Cayden Reese will be student-athletes in the same place: the University of Maryland at College Park.