Yorktown Resident Coaches Irish National Team

Yorktown resident and former Lakeland/Panas boys lacrosse coach Tim Weir went against some of the best in the world when he coached the Irish National Team in the 2010 Men's Lacrosse World Championships in Manchester, England, July 15 to July 24.

Ireland won six of its seven contests and finished ninth of the 32 teams competing in the event.

"It's like the World Cup in soccer," Wier said. "We won our first-round pool before losing to Scotland. If we had beaten Scotland, we would've played against one of those big teams for a play-in game, and if we won that we would've been in the quarterfinals."

Ireland was up 6-5 at halftime and down 9-8 going into the fourth before losing 15-9 to Scotland.

"We finished third in goals scored so everything worked out," the coach said. "The players brought into everything we taught them, they were great about everything."

Weir said he was concerned about the offense going into the game, because at the team's mini-camp in Dublin, they wouldn't score.

"We were really worried," he said. "As it turned out, it was a blessing in disguise because the reason we couldn't score at our mini-camp is because we couldn't score against our defense, which was really good."

For Weir, a 1979 Lakeland graduate, the experience of coaching in the world championships was unforgettable.

"It's like being named the head coach of the U.S. team, it's like the ultimate dream," Weir said. "It was a great situation."

For Weir that dream started in 2003, when he first joined the Irish coaching staff.

Weir got involved with the Irish national team when he talked about the possibility with a member of the team and the team's trainer, both friends of his.

"I made a couple of phone calls, sent a resume in and they said come on board," he said. "I wanted to develop lacrosse in Ireland. They told me it was an open-end situation, it's unlimited to what can happen to the team and it took off from there."

Weir said he couldn't have done his job coaching Ireland, without assistant coaches, Bob Deegan, who is the defensive coordinator for West Genesee High School and Tom Prior, assistant coach at Don Bosco.

Among Wier's several coaching positions for Ireland included being the head coach for Ireland's National Men's Team, which competed in the 2008 European Championships.

He started as an assistant coach for the national team's 2003 exhibition tour of Dublin and Limerick, coordinating and instructing at youth clinics at Trinity College and the University of Limerick. He also served as Team Ireland's assistant coach/offensive coordinator at the 2004 European Championships and 2006 World Championships (where Ireland's high scoring national teams won their division), and at the inaugural Celtic Cup Tournament in 2005, which Ireland won.

Besides coaching for Ireland, Weir has been on the coaching staff of Manhattanville College for the past five years. The first two of those years he was the school's offensive coordinator and the last three seasons he has been its defensive coordinator.

Before that, Weir coached at Lakeland/Panas from 1995 until 2005. During that time, his teams played in eight Section 1 championship games and won twice. They also won seven league championships and one regional title in addition to participating in one state final four. The Rebels produced nine high school All-Americans and seven college All-Americans while Weir was their coach.

Weir's greatest night at Lakeland/Panas was coaching the Rebels to a 7-4 triumph in the 1997 Section 1 Class A championship game against Yorktown, ending the Huskers' 17-year run as sectional champions.

"Winning that game was the highlight of my coaching career and then the next day my daughter Elisabeth was born," Weir said. "It doesn't get any better than that."

Weir also coached in the North-South High School All-American game in 1997 and 2005. Weir was head coach of the Hudson Valley Region Empire State Games Team in 1994 and 1997, and became the regional coordinator of lacrosse for the games in 2003.

He started coaching at Manhattanville because he wanted a new challenge, he said.

"The timing was right to get on to a new situation," Weir said. "Todd Hodgson, our head coach, has done a great job of recruiting kids. We're an up-and-coming program. We are not there yet. Our potential at Manhattanville is unlimited. White Plains is a town where the players can go out and have a good time and New York City, where they want to get jobs, is just a train ride away."

If being involved in coaching at the college level and the Irish national team wasn't enough, he also coached his son Brian's third-and-fourth grade Yorktown Athletic Club squad to a 17-1 record this spring.

"Who thought a Lakeland guy would coach in Yorktown?" he said. "But there are great people in Yorktown and they have been so supportive," Weir said.