by Riley Bauling
Daily Lobo
Give the head coach of UNM's club lacrosse team three to five years, and the team will be playing for a national championship.
"How long is it going to take to be competitive? We'll be competitive next year," John Westfall said. "How long will it take to win a conference championship? Three to five years. To win a national championship? Three to five years. I really think it's going to happen."
That assertion might sound ridiculous to some people, but not to Westfall. He's been on the road to a college lacrosse national championship before.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
That was before the accident.
On a road trip with his Liberty University team that was ranked nationally and was one of the best teams in the country, he was rear-ended while driving one of the team vans on March 14, 2005, in Alabama, he said.
The impact caused Westfall to hit his head on the windshield. He was knocked unconscious as the van veered into the other lane of the highway where it was struck by a tractor-trailer head-on, Westfall said.
The season was put on the back burner while team members and Westfall recovered in the hospital, he said. The national championship just wasn't that important anymore.
Westfall had brain surgery in November. Liberty's goalie at the time, Chad Gurney, had to have one of his legs amputated after the accident. Westfall said it was a miracle no one died.
Westfall said he's finally recovering, but the accident was one of the reasons he retired from his job at U.S. Airways. He owned property in New Mexico and decided to return to Albuquerque where he had coached UNM's lacrosse team in the mid-'90s.
He said he had no intentions of coaching again. Then he met with some UNM lacrosse players and changed his mind. He agreed to help coach them, and now the team is ready to begin its first season as part of the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse Conference's B division.
Westfall said now that the team is legitimately part of the two-division league that includes teams from Colorado, Utah, Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, things can only improve.
"I lost a chance of taking a team to a national championship," he said. "So you can imagine where I'm going to take it. I've been in the game for 30 years. We're going to work on developing this team and taking it all the way."
Wes Stallcup, one of the team captains, said being part of the league is going to convince people the team is here to stay, and it is no longer just something to do for fun.
"Sometimes with the lack of organization that we've seen in the past, people lose interest and they don't come back," Stallcup said. "Now with the fact that we're eligible to be in the Rocky Mountain Lacrosse League, that's a huge step. Once we can attach that to our names, people are really going to come around."
The team paid $3,000 to be part of the league starting in February 2007. It will have 14 games, seven of which will be played at home at Johnson Field or at Rio Rancho High School's stadium. If it does well enough, it can move up to the A division with the more elite teams.
Team member Mike Mooney said the team has all the right pieces to make its inaugural season a success.
"It's safe to say that there is talent on our team," he said. "There are guys that deserve to be playing on an A-league team, except we all go here. We have to figure out a way to get the guys who have the experience and then get the recruits up to the point where they're playing at a competitive level."
Westfall said he doesn't plan on taking any of the credit if the lacrosse team goes as far as he says it will.
"We have some great kids, and if we didn't have the kids, I wouldn't be here," he said. "We got the kids to take it to the next level. I don't have any doubts at all. When I get a winning team, I tell the kids that I'm just along for the ride."
Anyone interested in joining the team can send an e-mail to unmlax@yahoogroups.com.
