Shaun Lally and Northampton Community College’s newly formed wrestling programs seem like the perfect match.
Lally has local ties. He graduated from Parkland in 2001 and even wrestled for the Spartans when they were still a club in 2006, after using all but one of his years of eligibility at the University of Pittsburgh.
“It’s crazy, this has actually been my dream coaching job here in the Lehigh Valley,” Lally said of becoming Northampton CC’s wrestling coach. “I’ve always dreamed of this opportunity that, someday, they would have Northampton Community College wrestling, because it used to be a club.”
In February, NCC announced that it had added men’s and women’s teams, which will be a part of the National Junior College Athletic Association. The school hired Lally to lead both programs in April.
While Lally hoped from afar that NCC would make its team official, he gained experience that will now prove invaluable as he gets ready to build the Spartans from the ground up.
He led Stony Brook University during its first two years competing as a club in the National Collegiate Wrestling Association (NWCA) in 2012 and 2013, before taking over a rebuilding project at Muhlenburg College. The Mules won all of two matches in the five years before Lally took over in 2014, but they won 18 matches in his three years in charge.
“It was a complete rebuild. There were only seven kids on the roster, and there’s 10 weights,” Lally said of the state of Muhlenberg’s program. “This is kind of a similar situation in that it’s a building job, but it’s also unique in that there is no wrestling room, there is no wrestling mat, there was nobody on the roster already, there is no alumni base. This is a completely brand-new project … because I’ve built programs that were distressed or from scratch, that’s only going to play to what I’ll be able to do here at Northampton, because I have that experience.”
Lally stepped away from coaching after the 2016-17 season to spend more time with family, but couldn’t turn down his “dream job,” once it opened.
Along with logistical issues like building a practice room and ordering mats, there’s also the challenge of building a roster.
“Marketing, networking, getting the word out,” Lally said of the crucial first steps needed to boost turnout. “If people don’t know about you, it’s not going to be an option, it’s not going to be on the radar, they’re not going to think about it. I’d rather have a kid that knows about Northampton and says, ‘I’m not going to come, I’ll go to Wilkes instead,’ and says no, than a kid not even know that he has the option in case something happens a semester from now or a year from now.”
There are few places in the country that could rival the Lehigh Valley in terms of a constant supply of wrestling talent rising through the scholastic ranks.
“We’re getting interest from other parts of the state, because we are the only community college (in Pennsylvania) that has housing. It’s awesome that we’re going to be getting some New Jersey kids; we’re going to be getting kids from Philly. We have the potential to get kids from any part of the country because of that piece,” Lally said. “But this program, make no mistake about it, we are going to build around Lehigh Valley and District 11 kids.”
Going back to his time at Muhlenberg, Lally saw the upside for local wrestlers to be able to compete at NCC before or after they are part of a bigger collegiate program.
“By having a community college program, it would help them. If a kid can’t get into Lehigh, he could go to NCC for a year. It could also benefit Muhlenberg,” Lally said. “Ultimately, how it could benefit the Lehigh Valley as a whole, because you have two different types of kids, you have a kid that will go D-I right out of high school and that won’t work out and he ends up back home. He needs to get back on his feet again, before he figures out where he wants to be. Then, there’s the kid that’s just not ready for a D-I opportunity or to go straight to college.”
Speaking of opportunities, NCC is now a potential destination for women’s wrestlers who want to continue their careers during a time when the sport is enjoying a boom in turnout locally, in part because the PIAA sanctioned the sport prior to the 2023-24 season.
“There’s only a handful of college coaches that have been to all three wrestling academies. There’s a men’s academy, there’s a Fellowship of Christian Athletes academy and then there’s a women’s academy. I’ve been to all three of them,” Lally said. “I was actually at the very first Women’s Coaching Academy back in like 2012/2013 at Lock Haven University. I’ve kind of been at the forefront, at one point, in the growth and development of women’s wrestling. I’ve been advocating for women’s wrestling.”
While coaching both men’s and women’s teams simultaneously seems daunting, Lally feels reinvigorated after his recent hiatus from the sport.
“It’s definitely a commitment,” Lally said. “… I enjoyed the last seven years. The time that I took away from the sport, I’ve been focusing on music and my family. My kids were much younger then and now they’re starting to wrestle, and this is kind of like the piece that was missing from my DNA, from who I am as a person. When something is important to you, you make it fit into your life somehow. I know it’s going to be more on my plate, but I also know that it’s nothing that I can’t handle. I also know that it’s something that I’ve done before.”
Lally, who sings and plays guitar and piano, had a couple hundred performances over the last year and has a pretty big local gig lined up this summer.
“I have been playing in the Lehigh Valley for about six years now. I have been playing music since I was a kid. Same thing with wrestling, since like junior high,” Lally said. “… I have four performances at Musikfest this summer in a couple weeks. I’m living my best life right now, like I’m living my dream.”
Given that attitude, it’s not a surprise that Lally has an optimistic outlook for what Northampton CC wrestling can become.
“My goal is that, eventually, we’re fully rostered on the men’s and women’s side with capable athletes that are, again, the majority of them coming out of here, out of the Lehigh Valley, and we’re servicing these local high schools and these families, because this is going to be a big thing for them,” Lally said. “Ultimately, I think we can win a national championship as a team within the first couple of years, eventually. A couple of years from now, I don’t see why we can’t.”
Desmond Boyle | For lehighvalleylive.com July 31st, 2024