Since this summer, we have seen the resignation of two of the most well-known, respected, and impactful head coaches in the PLL. For the Carolina Chaos, we saw Andy Towers, as well as the entire coaching staff, step down after some sort of disagreement between the league and the team’s staff. Officially, we know that the league had called for the removal of a member, and by rejecting the league’s request, the entire staff was either forced or volunteered to step down in solidarity with the member who was being asked to leave. Unofficially, there has been lots of talk about what caused the biggest personality in the league to resign. In much less controversial news, Nat St. Laurent for the California Redwoods announced he was stepping down as the head coach.
As general manager and head coach of the Carolina Chaos, Andy Towers led the team to a championship in 2021, however has not found the same level of success since. A primary downfall for the team has been their lack of offensive production, which is speculated to be the source of disagreement between Towers and the league. Tensions started back in November when the league expressed their dissatisfaction with the work of Chaos’ offensive coordinator, Matt Panetta. Towers backed up Panetta, pointing out that Panetta led the championship winning offense in 2021. A back and forth between Towers and the league occurred for about a month, until Towers finally announced he was stepping down in solidarity with Panetta. “Due to a change of circumstances, my staff and I have decided to step down in hopes of giving the Carolina Chaos a fresh start in their pursuit of a PLL Championship,” Towers said in his resignation statement. This controversy has become one of the biggest feuds in the PLL and displays the downfalls of the centralized format of the PLL.
In January, the league announced Roy Colsey as the new head coach and Spencer Ford as the General Manager. This is the first time in the league’s history that these two roles are not filled by the same person. Both Colsey and Ford have experience playing professional lacrosse. Colsey has a wide variety of accomplishments including being a four-time All-American at Syracuse University and was inducted into the Professional Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 2012. Ford helped the MLL Chesapeake Bayhawks to three championships within a six-year span as general manager.
On March 11th, head coach and general manager of the California Redwoods, Nat St Laurent announced he would be stepping down from both positions. As the head coach of the Redwoods, St Laurent led the team to the championship game in 2019, reaching the post season six out of the seven seasons.
The league named Joe Spallina to fill in the general manager role. Although currently the head coach for Stony Brook’s women’s lacrosse program, Spallina has many years of experience coaching men’s lacrosse. In 2012 he was named MLL Coach of the Year for the New York Lizards and led the team to win the championship title in 2015. Spallina’s first order of business as the new general manager was to find and hire a head coach. He is just the second general manager in the league’s history to not also retain head coaching responsibilities, following Spencer Ford. On March 20th, the league announced that Anthony Kelly would be the new head of the California Redwoods coaching staff. Much of Kelly’s success has been on the player side, as Kelly is a previous MLL champion, winning the cup in 2014 with the Denver Outlaws, and a six-time MLL All-Star. It is rumored that Anthony Kelly was a candidate for the head coaching position of the Carolina Chaos as well, a role that ultimately went to Roy Colsey.
In addition to the head coach hiring search that Spallina underwent, he also must help conduct a search for a new offensive coordinator, following the resignation of John Grant Jr.
It should be noted that both coaches that have resigned, Andy Towers and Nat St Laurent, were in their respective positions since the inception of the PLL and filled both the roles of general manager and head coach for their teams. Seeming to create a new precedent for the league, the league is hiring two individuals to separately fulfill these roles for these two teams. Since the creation of the league, the head coach of each team has also acted as the general manager, however we see the PLL moving away from this idea with the hiring of Roy Colsey and Spencer Ford for the Chaos, and Joe Spallina and Anthony Kelly for the Redwoods. It will be interesting to see how separation of power develops for these teams, and if we see a benefit to multiple brains working together or disagreement on opinions causing a disjointed feeling roster.
