Defense-minded Thomas looks to build lacrosse power at Dubuque

T.J. Thomas, who played his high school lacrosse in St. Charles and coached the boys team for four years at Geneva High School, landed his first college head coaching job.

The University of Dubuque announced Thomas as its new head men’s lacrosse coach on Sept. 17.

He’d coached there as a graduate assistant before serving as defensive coordinator and faceoffs coach at Albion College from 2023-25.

Funny — though he couldn’t have thought so at the time — after Thomas helped Dubuque’s 2022 team earn a 12-8 record behind the best defensive season in program history, Albion beat the Spartans 11-6 in the first round of the Division III tournament.

“They had two all-Americans on offense and I’m like, well, if we can keep them to 11 goals we might be doing something right,” said Taylor, who graduated from St. Charles East High School in 2010.

A month later he was at a recruiting event and bumped into an Albion assistant who said the Michigan program was looking for a full-time assistant.

“I was looking for a full-time job, and the rest is history,” said Thomas, 33.

True, that is history. Thomas now is looking ahead to Dubuque.

“I personally know how awesome this place is,” Thomas said. “I love the town, loved my experience here, and I felt like this was a no-brainer for me to come back.

“We have some of the best facilities in the Midwest, if not at the Division III level in the country.

“The town is a really nice place to live, there’s lots of stuff to do, it felt like home. Everyone is super nice and welcoming,” said Thomas.

He’s been playing a lot of golf and still sees a number of alumni who played for the Spartans while he was coaching as a graduate student.

Thomas played lacrosse at Aurora University while earning a degree in special education. At Dubuque, he got his master’s in sports management.

At St. Charles East he played with the St. Charles Lacrosse Club, a combination of Saints and St. Charles North players while lacrosse was an Illinois High School Association emerging sport.

At Geneva from 2016-20, Thomas coached the first couple seasons as an IHSA sport, lacrosse gaining sanctioning starting with the 2018 season.

“That was my first time really coaching at the high school level and I was the head coach,” said Thomas, who had a mentor in assistant Jim Pomillo.

“It was a learning experience, I had a lot of fun coaching, we had a lot of very talented guys and had an awesome coaching staff that was very patient with me, that was super supportive and helped me grow and develop as a young head coach at the high school level.”

Thomas hopes to translate that experience to success at Dubuque.

“I want to bring a conference championship back to Dubuque,” he said.

“We won our first one in 2022 and they’ve been close the past couple years, but I want to establish a championship culture here where guys want to come in, work extremely hard and have a great time working hard — guys who want to compete for a championship every year and just want to play at a high level, play at a competitive school in the Midwest and keep building this program to be the best that it can be.”

Update

Under first-year head coach Kristen Kelsay, a St. Francis High School graduate, Michigan State’s women’s volleyball team started 10-0 for the first time since 2012 and the fourth time overall.

A 3-0 win over Binghamton on Sept. 18 put the Spartans at 8-0, the best start for a first-year head coach in program history. Kelsay surpassed the 7-0 start of Annelies Knoppers back in 1974.

Kelsey came to Michigan State after two seasons as Minnesota’s associate head coach. On Sept. 25 the No. 12 Gophers dealt Kelsay her first loss, 3-0.

Moses leads the way

The Daily Herald’s Mike McGraw recently wrote about Benedictine University’s football team ending Aurora University’s 46-game win streak in the Northern Athletic Collegiate Conference, 36-35 in Aurora on Sept. 20. He had a couple nice bits about Benedictine quarterback Jack Moses (Lake Zurich), and so did the NACC itself. The conference named Moses its offensive player of the week. Moses completed 26 of 37 passes for 322 yards and 4 touchdowns, including the 25-yard game-winner in the waning minutes.