Anatomy of a Leader: Tucker Durkin

My name is Stuart Gil. I’m currently a junior at the Annenberg School for Journalism at the University of Southern California. Over the past year, I’ve been working with Rabil Companies in a broad set of roles - from event coordination and sponsorship on the Rabil Tour, to onfield execution and coaching. Recently, I had the opportunity to sit down with Tucker Durkin - a Rabil Events partner on Defensive Academy - and one of the top players in lacrosse today. The conversation covered Durkin’s success as a player, and more recently, in his transition to coaching.

A little background on Tucker: The Florida Launch defenseman has excelled at every level — from being twice named an All-American at LaSalle College High School, starting every game in his four-year career at Johns Hopkins University, to being named Captain of the Florida Launch, Most Outstanding Defender at the 2014 FIL World Lacrosse Championships and 2017 MLL Defensive Player of the Year. He’s considered by many to be the best defenseman in the game. Without retiring, Durkin has successfully taken his talents to the sidelines as the Head Coach at Bryn Athyn College and a featured pro on the Defensive Academy - a nationally-operated defensive training concept - along with fellow Team USA defenseman Kyle Hartzell.

In just my third year of coaching Lacrosse at the youth level, I already know it’s something that I’m extremely passionate about. My weeks consists of spending hours in the classroom, helping out with Rabil Events, and working in my school’s media center. The time I spend coaching has quickly become a sanctuary of sorts. Coaching has challenged me to lead, listen to others and make smart decisions in ways that no other experience could provide, and I’ve quickly learned that it requires just as much preparation as playing, even at the youth level. Coaching one team at one age group is challenging enough, so when I learned that Durkin was coaching a college team in addition to Defensive Academy events - that host a variety of age groups - I was eager to understand how.

I spoke with Durkin recently to find out, not only what’s driven him to compete throughout his career, but what has motivated him to become one of the sport’s busiest coaches. To my surprise, it was less a conversation around an innate passion for the game - but rather - how he’d stuck with it through challenges, and how the leaders in his life helped him grow into the player and person he is today. Their influence helped him succeed, and now he’s doing the same for the next generation of players. It all started with his family teaching him how to compete.

“Lacrosse definitely wasn’t my first love. I played everything growing up… a whole lot of basketball, a lot of football,” Durkin said. “I was competing against my siblings in everything.” Being the youngest brother, Durkin was always outmatched physically. His father, seeing an opportunity, instilled in Durkin a no-excuses approach that molded him into a tough competitor. “He used to say ‘It’s all between your ears,’ and that really resonated with me. It’s where I learned to compete against guys that were bigger, [and] stronger.” Durkin took the approach that it was how he played that determined his performance.

It was a mindset that would propel Durkin to the next level at every stage of his career. Having great coaches didn’t hurt; in high school Durkin played for world-renowned defensive coach Tony Resch, someone he credits much of his development to. At Hopkins he played for Dave Pietramala, one of the best defenseman to ever play,. “I was the luckiest defenseman in Lacrosse,” Durkin recalls. But more valuable than their defensive expertise was their ability to connect with him as mentors. “They were extremely good motivators. As a player one of the biggest values in coaching is having guys that you really want to play for.” Instead of citing the success he’d already had, or a dream to one day play professional Lacrosse, it was his relationships with his coaches that motivated him to pursue perfection on every rep, in every practice, and in every game. “I wanted to run through a wall for those guys. I didn’t want to let them down.”

Coach Pietramala’s tough-but-fair approach to coaching his players would prove to be catalyst in Durkin’s playing career. “He had a way to humble you as a player, and I loved it. If you had a great game, he wasn’t afraid to let you know about it. But if you weren’t giving it your all, he was all over you.” After buying into the system for three years, Durkin was handed another opportunity to grow, this time by being named Co-Captain at JHU.

It was no longer acceptable just to take care of himself: knocking out schoolwork, staying healthy, and preparing for practice. At all times he was expected to lead, meaning most of his captainship played out off the field. “Being a captain, a leader or a coach, you’re balancing personalities and problems, and [figuring out] how to solve them. I had gone from a role where I was looking to someone else to solve issues to being the one that’s being looked at,” he explained. He was tasked with forming relationships with his teammates to help them through the challenges they faced in lacrosse and in life. He was learning how to build and maintain the very same relationships that had helped him throughout his career, but as a leader instead of a player.

Five years into his professional career, Durkin is still building these relationships. He’s found that there is no coaching formula, no one-size-fits-all approach to communicating with players, at any level. “Part of being a good coach is being a good analyzer of talent…you need to teach each player according to their play style and skill level in order to give them the most improvement. You have to tailor your instruction to your audience.”

Teaching methods may vary from player to player, but one philosophy from his college coaches has stuck with Durkin in his transition to coaching for the Defensive Academy. “At Hopkins, it didn’t matter if you were an All-American or a backup. Coach treated you the same as everyone else,” he said. The effect was beneficial for developing and advanced players alike; those that needed more instruction got it, and those that were more skilled stayed hungry to please the coaching staff. Durkin puts this into practice at his events, where skill levels vary between players beginning their middle school careers and those that are on the cusp of securing a spot on a Division I roster. The result has been nothing less than spectacular. Along with Hartzell, Durkin has taken a major step in creating a meaningful connection between professional and youth players, giving them reason to continue their practice, and embodying all the positive influence that this sport has on people who play throughout the world.

About the Author

Stuart Gill is a student at the Annenberg School for Journalism at the University of Southern California. Outside of the classroom Stuart coaches youth Lacrosse, co-hosts and produces USC’s sports talk show The Water Cooler, and produces content for Annenberg Media as a weekly Sports Editor. Stuart joined the Rabil Tour in Summer of 2017 to assist in increasing the popularity and influence of Lacrosse nationwide while celebrating the positive experiences it creates for young athletes.