STANFORD, Calif. - On June 12, Danielle Spencer was announced as Stanford's head women's lacrosse coach. The three-time national champion player from Northwestern coached at Stanford in 2012 and returns to The Farm after three seasons as the head coach at Dartmouth, where she won Ivy League Coach of the Year honors in each of her final two seasons. Here is an introductory Q&A with the seventh head coach in program history.
Why Stanford?At Stanford, you can truly have the most elite athletic experience and academic experience in the world. You can make both a priority in your life, and the culture and support is there to excel at both. There is no ceiling here -- you are going to be surrounded by the best athletes in the world and the best students in the world, and you are going to be supported on the field and in the classroom.
The campus community is so innovative. You can tell that we are sitting in the middle of Silicon Valley. You can see things on campus and know that we are a level above. As a young coach who is eager to get better, I want to be at the forefront of exciting changes in coaching, sports, and higher education. I just feel as an elite athlete, this place is going to be something that is attractive to you because you'll be at a place where you aren't going to just practice, but you'll have the best technology and information to help you continuously develop athletically. We are creating an environment for athletes who really want to get better.
And from a purely lacrosse perspective, we can train outdoors 365 days a year because of the amazing weather. With our climate and resources, there is no limit to how successful our team can be.
Coaching PhilosophyMy vision for Stanford Lacrosse is to empower women and build brave leaders. I want the players to graduate ready to lead others and be the ultimate team player. We use lacrosse as a vehicle to teach the attitudes, behaviors, and skills required to do so. When they graduate, they'll know how to communicate well with others, they'll know how to lead a team and themselves, and they'll have such a strong belief in themselves that they are willing to take any risk in their life -- whether it's a career opportunity or their personal lives. The way they'll attack life, they do it because they come from a lacrosse program that made them feel so prepared and confident.
I feel like with a Stanford degree and lacrosse background, you shouldn't just be able to go into the workforce, you should be able to make an impact. I want to create a lacrosse experience where we teach the life values of work ethic, communication, leadership and humility, and because we have been successful, the athletes feel extremely confident in all aspects of their lives.
Looking for Future CardinalWe want humble and hungry. We are looking for players who are all about the team, but are curious and want to get better. We want kids with a strong work ethic, and those who always want to improve. And that's the right fit for Stanford University, too. That's what the University is looking for – curiosity, humility -- the right fit for the Stanford community. And that's what will fit with our program, too. We want women who are smart, who want to train like elite athletes and be brave leaders. We want those who don't want to play it safe, but want to take risks and go outside of their comfort zone to improve on the field and in life.
Connecting with Cardinal AlumniI can't wait to meet them and I can't wait to start collaborating with them. It's important to tie together the past and future of the program. We want to honor the tradition while also looking at the future.
I know some of them from when I coached here and its exciting being back. It's definitely important to me that they feel valued for what they did for the program, and that we respect everything they did to get the program off its feet, and now we are going to try to make them proud by taking the program to the next level.