UMW Athletics’ Gearoid Dunbar and Tyler Houston are recently back from the World Lacrosse Championship in San Diego – Dunbar as a player and Houston as a coach in the international competition held from June 20 to July 1.
At UMW, Dunbar is director of rugby, overseeing both the men’s and women’s teams. But he played as long stick midfielder (LSM) for the Irish national field lacrosse team in the 10-day international competition.
“We won all of our pool games, and then had three one-goal game losses to finish up 12th in the world,” Dunbar said. “We were looking to finish a lot higher, but we had a good number of players injured throughout the games. … It becomes a battle of attrition toward the end.”
A native of Carlow, Ireland, Dunbar was first and foremost a rugby player, both for the Carlow Rugby Club and for his championship-winning college team, Institute of Technology Carlow.
But when he initially came to the United States, living first in Las Vegas, Nevada, he picked up lacrosse and played for three years before temporarily moving back to Ireland.
Though the U.S. is home now, Dunbar has for several years played both field and indoor lacrosse for Ireland, including in previous world championships. But he said this summer’s competition was particularly meaningful.
For one thing, he got to play alongside brother Ruairi Dunbar, who recently moved in with him in Fredericksburg. For another, it’s possibly Gearoid Dunbar’s last time playing field lacrosse for the Irish national team – though he will try out once more as an indoor lacrosse defenseman for the Ireland team for next summer’s indoor championship in New York.
Meanwhile, his focus is on UMW’s renowned men’s and women’s rugby programs. This month the men’s team hired Charbel Medlej ’16 as the men’s coach. The longtime women’s coach is Kris Kabza and assistant coach is Bill Lucas.
Houston is an assistant coach of UMW men’s lacrosse under Coach Drew Delaney. For the Swiss national team Houston is defensive coordinator – an opportunity that arose from a UMW study-abroad experience he had as an undergraduate.
As a student lacrosse player majoring in history and art history at UMW, Houston worked with the Center for International Education to get college credit for a summer sports internship in Austria and the Czech Republic.
During his 1½ month undergraduate experience in Europe, he impressed officials from the Swiss national lacrosse team. And soon after graduation he found himself coaching the Swiss team’s defense at the 2016 World Lacrosse Championships. He repeated the role in 2018 and again this summer – despite having “not a single ounce of Swiss blood,” he said with a laugh.
Coaching lacrosse is a passion, he said, whether for UMW or for the Swiss team.
“I have to pinch myself,” he said, “that the sport I grew up loving to play has gotten me all over the country and all over the world.”
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