Crabs History

Our History  --- 29 years in the making!

Our club has won, at least once, every tournament we have ever entered.

We started as 1 team in the summer of 1990 preparing for the very first Champ Camp as the MSA All Stars. Coach Kim Strutt invited me, then a young asst JV coach at BL and Junior AA Cockeysville Rec coach, to be his assistant at Goucher that weekend. It was a blast and we decided to find some more competition in the summer of 1991 to get ready for Champ Camp. It really was the birth of summer Club lacrosse as we know it today. I moved on to Mt. St. Joe to be asst varsity wrestling coach with Paul Triplett and be the new Head JV lacrosse coach for Drew Bowden. We kept the summer all star team going as Baltimore All Stars. In 1994 after helping coach MSJ to a National Prep wrestling title at Lehigh I headed up to Greenwich Ct to take over thier struggling Varsity program as its new Head Coach. For several years while I was the head coach at Greenwich High School, I would pull together some of the CT guys with my old Cockeysville players and we would play in some tournaments. Those were some teams ! When you combine players like (Jamie Hanford,Bud Kitselman, Rich Pace), a couple Long Island guys (Matt Crofton, Jay Jalbert, Conner Denihan, Eric Wieden) with top notch Baltimore guys (John Glatzel, Ryan Mollet, Brian Nee, Dan Lamonica, Ricky Schultz) you get some incredible teams!

In 1997 after 3 years at Greenwich High School I moved home and took a job with Gary Gill at Mackenzie Commercial Real Estate. I jumped back into the Cockeysville Rec program as the Junior AA head coach and stayed there until founding the National Premier Youth Lacrosse League in 2008. In the summers we kept playing as the Baltimore All Stars and for 2 years while my sons were being born John Carolan a local TSU standout and Cockeysville coach ran the squad as BLC. In 2003 we decided to brand the program as the CRABS and I came up with the design which in 2011 was trademarked with the United States Patent and Trademark Office!

2013 will mark 25 years of coaching lacrosse. I have been honored to serve as a 2 time selector for Team USA Under 19 as well as serving as the 2003 World Games Chairman for US Lacrosse. I have served the sport as a Head Rec., Freshman, JV and Varsity high school coach. In the last 5 years I have helped co found the National Premier Youth Lacrosse League and the National Scholastic Club Lacrosse Association.

Needless to say, I have been very fortunate to work with some of the very best players and people involved in our sport nationwide. The sport continues to grow and evolve and I am excited about the future!

Ryan McClernan