Ithaca’s Justin Coffman takes over TC3 men’s lacrosse

The Tompkins Cortland Community College (TC3) men’s lacrosse team is already in action, and they’re led this season by a very familiar face.

Justin Coffman takes over as the Panthers’ head coach after spending the past nine years as an assistant coach, namely as the defensive coordinator. His prior experience within the program has made the step up mostly seamless.

“Transition-wise, it was pretty easy in terms of knowing the program and my facilities and the staff that I’m working with,” Coffman said. “The procedures were pretty simple to get into. The details that the head coach has to go through—keeping track of your players academically and pretty much every facet of the college game—was a step back into it because of my past history of being a head coach at Ithaca High school for different levels. It’s been a good transition. [It’s] definitely a bigger load to take on but I’m all for it, and it’s been a lot of fun so far.”

As Coffman alluded to, he has even more coaching experience outside of TC3. The Ithaca native coached every level of lacrosse as well as a couple of travel teams in the area. He has also coached internationally as part of the Philippines National Team’s staff at the 2023 World Lacrosse Championship Asia Pacific Qualifier. Coffman credits Mark Wenham—who coached him at Ithaca High School—for helping him kickstart his illustrious career back in 2003.

“I started teaching middle school at DeWitt Middle School and our guidance counselor at the time, Mark Wenham, asked me to come aboard and start coaching,” Coffman said. “He’s been my biggest influence and my biggest coaching mentor and I owe pretty much everything to him. I just ended up loving the sport and coaching, and I came up through the ranks after he moved on.”

More than 20 years later, Coffman takes the reins of a collegiate program and gets to implement what identity he wants the Panthers to have, especially with almost an entirely new team.

“[I’m] definitely big on our defense, but it’s a bit of a transition because now I’ve got to focus on the whole picture,” Coffman said. “I’ve got a handful of fresh faces. The majority of my team this year are all freshmen, which is an advantage and disadvantage. They’ve never played college ball yet, but we can kind of start fresh. I’m still keeping a lot of overall program cohesiveness from the previous regime with Coach [Zach] McMullin, but it gives me a chance to put my spin on it.”

Of the 14 players on the roster, all but one are freshmen newcomers. The lone returner is sophomore midfielder Blair Wakula. In terms of key players, the two captains certainly come to mind. Louie Profetta will lead by example in attack, while Skylar Running Rabbit—who hails from the Siksika Nation in Alberta, Canada—will man the defense.

“[Skylar’s] just a big, strong physical player,” Coffman said. “He’s grown up playing box lacrosse so it really helps to have him be that strong, leadership character. Louie is an amazing attack out of the Rochester area. He was an all-league attackman at Wayne High School. He’s one of those ‘always on-the-go’ [players], and he’s a lead-by-example guy. He goes at it hard and he’s very talented, and he’s going to help a lot. With Louie being a little bit quieter and Skylar being very vocal and having different styles of play, they work really well together as captains and have really helped us out. They’ve taken their leadership roles very seriously, and it’s really helped our team out this year.”

The Panthers have a very unique situation when it comes to goaltending. Their previous goalie, Declan Fullerton, is now one of Coffman’s volunteer assistant coaches. Taking over in between the pipes is Matt Nichols, a former baseball catcher with no prior experience playing lacrosse.

“It’s his first time playing, but he’s actually surprisingly very, very good,” Coffman said. “He’s a natural at it just because having a ball slung at you repeatedly [and] very fast takes a lot of guts and a different kind of person to accept that. But he’s accepted that role and he’s done very well for us. He’s still got a lot to learn, but he’s adjusted very well and he’s super excited to get going.”

The Panthers look to pounce back over .500 after a 3-4 campaign last time out. But this season, Coffman is more focused on his players enjoying the experience of playing lacrosse at the collegiate level.

“My big thing is that I want guys to come here for an education and have a great experience on the lacrosse field,” Coffman said. “I know we’re not going to win everything. It’s just the reality of college sports and sports in general. Obviously we want to win, but even if we lose, I want guys to gain that valuable experience of college athletics and have a great experience with teammates.”