Lisa Miller
College: William & Mary 1987
Title: Head Coach
Experience: Third Season
Phone: (857) 998-0951
Lisa Miller, who built the Syracuse women's lacrosse program
from scratch into a perennial NCAA tournament contender, returns
for her second season with the Crimson in 2008-09.
Miller has made a tremendous impact on the team in just one
season at the helm. The Crimson picked up nine wins in 2008, the
most victories in six years. Harvard had its best start since 1992,
going 7-1 through its first eight games. Jess Halpern '11 was named
the Ivy League Rookie of the Year, while two other players earned
All-Ivy League honors. The Crimson was second in the Ivy League and
33rd in the nation in goals per game with 11.81.
Miller, a Plymouth, Mass., native and the 2007 Big East Coach of
the Year, led the Orange to six NCAA Championship appearances in 10
seasons. She is also head coach of the Canadian National Team,
served previously as an assistant coach at Brown and Wheaton
(Mass.) and was an All-America player at William & Mary, where
she is a member of the school's athletics hall of fame.
After entering 2007 ranked 10th among active coaches with a .664
winning percentage, Miller improved on that mark and finished her
Syracuse tenure with a 106-53 record (.667). The Orange's streak of
10 straight winning seasons, all under Miller, is tied for the
fifth-longest in NCAA history. During her SU tenure, Miller's
players have garnered 17 Intercollegiate Women's Lacrosse Coaches
Association All-America selections, 31 all-region picks and 32
All-Big East honors. She mentored the Big East Attack Player of the
Year in 2004 and the conference's Midfield Player of the Year in
2001, the league's inaugural season.
Miller has served as the IWLCA academic chair since 2004. Her
student-athletes have earned three selections to the College Sports
Information Directors of America Academic-All-District teams and
one Academic All-America honor. Her players have earned selection
to the IWLCA Academic Honor Roll on 14 occasions, and the 2005 team
was recognized as an IWLCA National Academic Squad.
Eight of Miller's players have gone on to become collegiate
coaches, with three earning head-coaching positions.
Miller's final season at Syracuse was perhaps her finest. The
Orange went 13-6 to set a school record for wins, defeated five
ranked teams, shared the Big East regular-season title, won the
inaugural Big East Championship and knocked off No. 8 seed
Vanderbilt in the first round of the NCAA Championship before
falling to eventual national champion Northwestern in the
quarterfinals.
Miller led Syracuse to 12-win seasons in 2005 (12-5), 2000
(12-4) and 1999 (12-4). An 11-game winning streak in 2000 helped
the team reach the NCAA Championship in just the program's third
season of play. The 1999 squad won the ECAC Championship, as Miller
was named IWLCA North Region Coach of the Year and one of three
finalists for Division I National Coach of the Year.
In 1998, Syracuse's first season of competition, Miller guided
the team to a 9-4 record and the top scoring offense in the country
at 15.08 goals per game. The team also led the nation in scoring
margin, outscoring opponents by an average of 7.3 goals.
Miller was named the Canadian National Team head coach in
January of 2007 after serving as an assistant coach for the
Canadian team in 2000-01. She began a term as a member of the NCAA
Women's Lacrosse Committee in September of 2007 and has previously
served on the Tewaaraton Trophy Selection Committee (2004-06) and
as chair of the All-America Committee (1995-98).
Prior to taking over at Syracuse, Miller got her first taste of
the Ivy League as an assistant coach at Brown from 1994-96.
Following her third and final season, in which she helped Brown go
15-4 and reach No. 15 in the national rankings, Miller left to
start the Syracuse program.
Miller began her coaching career here in Massachusetts. She
served first as an assistant coach, then as associate head coach at
Wheaton from 1991-94 after getting her start as head coach of
girls' lacrosse and field hockey at Thayer Academy in Braintree in
1988-89.
At William & Mary, Miller was captain of her team, the 1987
Outstanding Female Senior Athlete and an All-America selection. She
graduated in 1987 with a bachelor's degree in economics. Entering
the 2007 season, she still ranked fourth on the William & Mary
all-time goals list with 118 and seventh on its career points list
with 145
Miller was also a member of the U.S. National Team as a senior
and completed her playing career as an alternate on the 1989 World
Cup squad. In 2004, Miller became only the third women's lacrosse
player to be inducted into the William & Mary Athletics Hall of
Fame.