By Harry Minium
NORFOLK, Va. – Lilly Siskind was determined to follow the path set by her family and play lacrosse at Towson University.
The family legacy at the suburban Baltimore school is long and deep. Her father, Jules, was an All-American men's lacrosse player at Towson and is in the school's hall of fame. Her older brother, Max, also played lacrosse there.
And while her mom, Susan Suskind, and siblings Zach and Ariel did not play lacrosse, they all have Towson degrees.
Five family members. Five Towson degrees. And yes, Lilly acknowledged, she felt self-imposed pressure to become No. 6.
Alas for Lilly, the youngest of four siblings, she was something of a later bloomer in lacrosse. Yes, she had 168 goals, 65 assists, 146 draw controls and 91 ground balls at Henderson High School in West Chester, Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia suburb.
But she piled up a lot of those stats after most lacrosse schools had finished recruiting. Often, lacrosse players commit before they begin playing in high school.
"When I was a freshman and sophomore, I just hadn't hit that peak," she said. "I wasn't performing at the best level.
"I put so much pressure on myself because I wanted to play (at Towson). It consumed me and I didn't play as well as I could have."
Towson offered her a chance to walk-on without a scholarship, which she declined.
"I wanted to go someplace that really wanted me and that I could call home," she said.
She then turned her attention to Penn State, a lacrosse powerhouse. She began attending camps there and promoting herself to coaches. When recruiting ended, Penn State didn't have a place for her, either.
By then, it was her senior year and few schools had scholarship money available. So, she reached out to ODU coach Heather Holt, who offered her a locker and a chance to play, but had no money to give her.
She accepted that offer and hasn't regretted it a moment since. Before she arrived on campus, Holt found some scholarship money for her after another recruit de-committed.
Four years later, she is among ODU's top 10 in both goals and assist. She is tied for 19th nationally with 69 points, tied for 26th with 50 goals and tied for 13th on free position goals with 15. She is third in the American Athletic Conference with 3.33 goals per game.
Lilly Siskind with her family
ODU concludes its home season Saturday when it hosts Vanderbilt at 1 p.m. at the L.R. Hill Sports Complex. Although she's a senior, Siskind won't be among those honored on Senior Day. She plans to take advantage of the extra year of eligibility offered by the NCAA because of the pandemic and will return for a fifth season next spring.
Originally, she told Holt she intended to graduate this May and join the working world.
"I said I was ready to move on, to close out the book on my career," she said. "But I talked to my brother (Max) and as I talked with him more and more, I realized that lacrosse is part of my identity, part of who I am.
"He said if you don't go back, you'll always be thinking about it. If you had stayed, maybe ODU would have won more games. If you don't go back, you'll have those doubts, whose what ifs, the rest of your life."
Holt was planning next season without her when she began to hear rumblings from Siskind's teammates that she was coming back.
"She told me, 'I heard through the grapevine that you're coming back,'" Siskind said of Holt. "I told her I wanted to come back if that was OK with her."
Holt, of course, said yes immediately.
Siskind said the mentoring she received from ODU's coaching staff, and the friendships she made with teammates, also made her reconsider leaving.
"My dad has taught me a lot," Siskind said. "One of the things he told me throughout recruiting is that you always end up where you're meant to be. I've been so happy here. The experience has been amazing.
"I have friends at some top schools and they're just not happy. Even if you think it's your dream school or dream place, it sometimes ends up not working out."
"Heather is a great coach and so is coach Kellogg," she added, speaking of 12-year assistant and former ODU star Ashley Waters, who went by Ashely Kellogg before she was married.
"They embraced me as soon as I got here. Although it wasn't in my family tradition, I knew I could thrive here."
She has, both on and off the turf. She graduates in May with a degree in business marketing. She will graduate in May of 2023 with a bachelor's degree in business management.
She has excelled academically and has become involved in numerous community efforts, including meals on wheels, feeding the homeless and providing a meal for firefighters on the anniversary of 9/11.
"The community service, something we're not required to do but asked to do, takes us a lot farther than we could ever go on the lacrosse field," she said.
If her parents were upset or hurt about her decision to go to ODU, it never showed, she said. They immediately purchased and began to wear ODU attire and have been frequent spectators at ODU games.
Both were intimately involved in her development as a player. Her dad was her first coach and coached her throughout most of her career in youth leagues. Siskind began playing in the first grade for an all-boys team – at the time, there were no lacrosse leagues for girls.
Everyone has heard of Little League Parents, those who yell and pressure their kids to excel, but her mother and father were the opposite.
"He was my coach the entire time" she played travel lacrosse, she said. "He wasn't a loud or boastful kind of coach."
Rather than yell, he often used hand signals to tell his players when they needed to pick up the tempo, slow things down or simply calm down.
"Regardless of whether I played my best game or my worst game, he was always the same," he said. "He taught us to never get too high or too low.
"I admired that about both of my parents.
"Growing up, my mom took us to every single tournament. Dad was often with my brother.
"You don't realize how much your parents did for you until later on in life. Every Father's Day there was a tournament. I was so lucky to have them."
Her brothers and sister also had a hand in her athletic development. They played back-yard basketball, badminton, whiffle ball and any other game they could think of. And they didn't cut their little sis any slack.
"I think that's why I'm a little tougher" than some players, she said. "I never got treated like the little sister. I had to win on my own and I didn't win many games."
She was also taught that scoring isn't necessarily the be all and end all of lacrosse.
"You want to feel good about yourself but not lose yourself along the way," she said.
"It's so much more important to be a good teammate, to make sure you're not a hot head, to be someone everyone can rely on.
"Scoring as been awesome for me, but that's not what I was taught to do. Feeding others was the most important thing. Anyone can score, but it's the person who
opens you up plays and moves the ball that carries the offense."
ODU concludes its regular season next Saturday at Temple, minutes from her hometown. The team will depart next Friday, practice at Temple and then head to West Chester, where players, coaches and athletic training staff will dine at her family home.
"I can't wait," she said.
Recently, after a 12-11 home loss to Delaware in which she had two goals and two assists, Siskind was approached by Delaware assistant coach Steph Lazo, a former Penn State All-American who was on the Nittany Lions' coaching staff before going to Delaware.
Lilly Siskind with her siblings
"She came up to me after the match and told me, 'Penn State really missed the boat on you,'" Siskind said.
"For her to say that to me was awesome.
"But from lacrosse to all of the friends I've made to all of the great things we've been fortunate enough to do in the community, I never would have ended up here had I not been turned down by those other schools.
"My dad was right. I ended up where I belong."
Minium: Rejected by Other Schools, Lilly Siskind has Flourished Playing Lacrosse for ODU
