Through-the-Box
A Coaching Spotlight on
Lexington's Reihl Mahoney
The Scoop
14 The Scoop / Spring '18
The Scoop: First off, could you discuss your years of coaching in Lexington Youth Lacrosse?
Reihl Mahoney: Sure. We moved from Arlington to Lexington in 2004. I started coaching youth hockey first because my oldest, Jack, was already playing before we moved to town. Many of his hockey friends also played lacrosse. So, when he decided to try it, I dusted off an old stick from college, jumped in head first in 2005 and haven’t looked back since. My coaching evolved organically like most youth coaches’ careers do. I started off assisting on a team for one son, eventually took over as a head coach, and then started coaching another son’s team. Then, I helped get the U9 program off the ground, started coaching select, learned the girl’s game when my daughter started to play, assisted on all of her teams, got convinced to join the board, became a boys’ director and before I knew what happened became co-president. During the busiest years I was coaching 3 hockey teams and 4 lacrosse teams… kind of a crazy schedule back then. I did the math recently and if I counted just the time I spent on the turf, on the ice, on the sideline or behind the bench – it was well over 600 hours a year. And that doesn’t even count travel time, dealing with parents or the administrative/organizational stuff I was doing. I’m fully retired from hockey and I’m partially retired from lacrosse coaching. I’m just assisting with a U15 select team this year. I’m still co-president and focus most of my time on administrative and league related duties, though I still try to be an ‘ambassador of fun’ by organizing and hosting our big LYL Day at the Cannons Tailgate and the MBYLL Northwest All-Star Day at the Cannons Tailgate.
Could you detail your Lexington Day at the Cannons?
Sure. As the LYL program started to grow over the years, we began to go to more and more Cannons games and bring more and more kids. What began as just a crew of parents and kids tailgating individually, morphed into more organized tailgates with growing numbers. So, we decided to take the leap and make it an event for all of Lexington Youth Lacrosse. It started with one maybe two boy’s
U13 or U15 teams playing games and tailgating before going in to watch the Cannons play – maybe 50-75 people. The next year it took off and we also invited the other towns we were playing in the youth games to join us. It quickly ramped up to 250+ people and took on a life of its own. Now it’s a full day event with 4 youth games – boys U11, U13 and U15 and a girl’s U13 game, shooting contests, raffles prizes, meet and greets with Cannons players, a giant barbecue starting at noon and running right through the start of the Cannons game. This year Chelmsford is joining us and making it their town wide event as well.
Reihl Mahoney is the Co-President of Lexington Youth Lacrosse and is currently an assistant coach for the U15 Select Team. With a resume that includes over thirteen years of coaching and a day job at Kistler and Knapp Builders, The Scoop caught up with Coach Mahoney to discuss how he first developed an interest in the sport, how he first got involved in coaching, and how the game has evolved over the years.
By Matt McGuirk