The NCAA tournament quarterfinals are foreign territory to the lacrosse players at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County. But to coach Don Zimmerman, the postseason is what helped shape his hall-of-fame career.
Zimmerman has a chance to lead a second team into the Final Four if UMBC (11-5) knocks off Delaware (12-5) Sunday in its quarterfinal game at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium. The 54-year-old coach won three national titles (1984, 1985, 1987) while coaching at his alma mater, John Hopkins, and another two in 1981 and 1982 while as an assistant at North Carolina.
But whether UMBC wins or loses Sunday, Zimmerman, who has coached 32 All-Americans, believes his team already has had a successful season.
“I really like this team, and I would say that even if our season was already over,” he said. “They are unselfish, work hard and came out of this season OK after dealing with some adversity on the field during the early part of our schedule.”
As Hopkins? coach from 1984 to ?90, Zimmerman stepped into a job where winning a national title was the only acceptable goal. But at UMBC, Zimmerman said he can concentrate as much on being a teacher of the game as he can on building a lacrosse tradition that began with his predecessor Dick Watts, who led the school to the 1980 Division II championship.
“Dick Watts really helped put UMBC on the map as a lacrosse program, and I?ll do my best to continue the tradition that he started here,” Zimmerman said.
UMBC athletic director Charles Brown said he was lucky to hire a coach as accomplished as Zimmerman back in 1994 and views him and the school as a perfect match for each other.
“Coach Zimmerman is interested in the whole student-athlete,” Brown said. “He gives each of his student-athletes a positive experience. We?ve always had a respectable program that in the last year or two has moved toward taking the next step forward.”
Brown added that he thinks everything is starting to come together for the lacrosse program. The school is set to begin work this summer on a nine-month expansion project to upgrade the locker-room facilities at UMBC Stadium.
“We?re not Johns Hopkins or Syracuse yet, but we feel like if we continue to bring in our fair share of the top players in this country or out of the country, there?s no one we can?t compete with,” Brown said.
THE ZIMMERMAN FILE
» Age: 54
» Hometown: Baltimore
» College: Johns Hopkins, 1976
» Coaching record at UMBC: 101-89
» Overall coaching record: 174-105
» Did you know: Don Zimmerman was inducted into the Greater Baltimore chapter of the U.S. Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 2003 ? He attended St. Paul?s in high school and was a member of three MSAA Conference championship teams ? Zimmerman and his wife Dorothy live in Towson ? The Zimmermans have two children, Emily, 26 and Jake, 17.
