There are certain dates that become part of your life story, whether you want them to or not.

August 6 is one of mine.

For most people, August 6, 2011, is remembered as the day Extortion 17 was lost in Afghanistan — thirty Americans killed, including members of the Navy’s special operations community.

For me, it is much more personal than a date in history.

But what I find myself thinking about most isn’t the helicopter.

It isn’t the headlines.

It isn’t even the terrible number of lives lost.

I think about the men.

The fathers.

The families.

The sons.

And I think about the strange and unexpected way lacrosse brought so many of them into my life.

Long before I understood the significance of August 6, I was simply a young coach in Virginia Beach trying to figure out what I was doing.

I had been a good lacrosse player. Humbly said, I was very good. I was a Division III All-ODAC player at Virginia Wesleyan, and in 1992, I was selected to play in the Division III North-South All-Star Game.

But none of that automatically made me a coach. I learned that very quickly.

During only my second practice as a youth coach, I decided I needed to know the boys beyond their athletic ability. I started asking them random questions — favorite subjects, favorite athletes, things they liked to do.

When I came to one nine-year-old boy, I asked him something about his father.

He looked directly at me and said:

“My father is dead, sir.”

I was floored.

It was the last answer I expected. I had to walk away and hide my tears before I could come back to the field. That was the moment I realized I wasn’t there simply to coach lacrosse.

I was there to coach boys.

Every one of them had a story. Some stories I would know. Others I would never know.

And some would change my life.

That realization opened a door into a community of families unlike any I had ever known.

Virginia Beach is a military town. Through lacrosse, I became friends with fathers who happened to be Navy SEALs and members of the special operations community.

They never needed to tell me who they were.

They didn’t talk about themselves.

They simply lived their lives.

• Quietly.
• Professionally.
• With humility.

Over time, I began learning from them.

I learned about their team culture.

About trust.

About accountability.

About the idea that talent alone isn’t enough.

Talent gets you noticed.

Trust gets you followed.

The best teams have both.

I took those lessons and began building my own coaching philosophy around them.

I didn’t have a blueprint when I started coaching.

They gave me one.

Eventually, I became the South Beach Director for HRLax, and lacrosse became a vehicle for bringing these families together.

One of the most memorable experiences was taking our travel team to Stowe, Vermont.

We were called Navy Spec Ops Lacrosse.

Through our relationships with these families, we were honored to be represented by the Navy SEAL Foundation and permitted to use its logo on our uniforms.

We also represented the Brendan Looney Foundation.

John Looney and his son were part of our team. Our sons were teammates. John coached our South Beach Storm teams for several years.

That trip wasn’t just about a lacrosse tournament.

We were young lacrosse players trying to represent something bigger than ourselves.

We wanted our boys to understand the values these men lived:

• Trust.
• Humility.
• Commitment.
• Service.
• Sacrifice.
• Take care of the person next to you.
• Do your job.
• Be accountable.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but those lessons were changing me.

Then there was Britt Slabinski. I was fortunate enough to coach Britt’s sons.

I had no idea that coaching those boys would eventually lead my family and me to the White House to attend Britt’s Medal of Honor ceremony. I will never forget that.

Britt speaks about four pillars:

Courage.
Conviction.
Compassion.
Commitment.

Four words.

But they describe much of what I had already seen in these families. They also became part of what I wanted the young men I coached to understand. The strange thing about all of this is that I thought I was coaching their sons.

I wasn’t.

They were coaching me.

They were teaching me how to be a better coach. A better father. A better man.

Then came August 6, 2011.

And suddenly the men I had known as fathers and friends were being remembered as heroes.

The tragedy didn’t create my respect for them. It revealed how much they had already meant to me. I think about the boys whose fathers deployed while I was coaching them. I think about the boys who waited for their dads to come home.

And I think about the unbearable reality that some fathers never did.

As coaches, we kept showing up.

Practice continued.
Games continued.
Life continued.

But something had changed forever.

Some boys were now carrying a grief that no nine-year-old, ten-year-old, or eleven-year-old should ever have to carry.

There are no coaching manuals for that. You simply try to be there. You try to provide consistency. You try to help them understand that their father’s example did not disappear.

It lives in them.

And, in some small way, it lives in all of us who were fortunate enough to know them.

I have coached thousands of boys over the years.

I’ve won games.

I’ve lost games.

I’ve coached championships.

I’ve experienced disappointments.

I’ve received numerous coaching accolades

But those things are not what I remember most.

I remember the people.

• The fathers.
• The sons.
• The friendships.
• The conversations.
• The families.
• The lessons.

Lacrosse brought these people into my life.

But they gave me far more than lacrosse.

They gave me a blueprint for leadership. They showed me what trust looks like. They showed me what sacrifice looks like. They showed me what it means to put something bigger than yourself first.

Every August 6, I remember them.

I remember their families. I remember their sons. And I remember that little nine-year-old boy who unknowingly changed the trajectory of my life as a coach.

I thought I was there to teach those boys how to play lacrosse.

I eventually realized something much bigger.

They were teaching me how to live.

And I will carry that lesson for the rest of my life.