4 Questions With Mill Creek Lacrosse Coach Alan Tallman
We talked with Mill Creek lacrosse and flag football coach Alan Tallman about coaching two of the more unique sports in the GHSA.
Q: You coach two different sports: lacrosse and flag football. I’ll ask about lacrosse first: How long have you been the Mill Creek lacrosse coach, and how did you get involved in the sport?
A: This is my third season as the head lacrosse coach at Mill Creek. I was at Riverside Military Academy for the previous six seasons, and I was an assistant at Boston College High School (MA) for seven seasons.
I spent my formative years in upstate New York – a traditional lacrosse hotbed – at a school called Carthage Central School near a military base called Fort Drum. I was an Army brat. It was really a social thing for me; the game was so pervasive in the community that it was nearly impossible not to pick it up. I picked a stick up and fell in love with the game when I was in fourth-grade.
Without being conscious of it at the time, I was surrounded by some of the greatest players to ever play the game — with the Powell brothers being the biggest of many big names to hail from Carthage.
I was fortunate enough to receive a football scholarship to the University of New Hampshire and immediately began coaching both sports upon graduating from UNH.
Q: Flag football is one of the newest sports introduced by the GHSA. How did you become the flag football coach there at Mill Creek?
A: Put simply, I just answered an e-mail from our athletic director seeking a coach to replace last year’s coach who wasn’t able to continue this season. But this position was intriguing and really exciting for me for a couple of reasons.
One, I’ve been out of football for about five years (coached high school boys for almost a decade and played at University of New Hampshire), and this was an opportunity to dive back in without the time commitment demanded in boys football. That is not to say we don’t put a lot of time into what we do. It’s just simple math. Managing the sheer number of players in the boys game versus managing 18 players is a world of difference. As the head lacrosse coach and a father of three girls, I decided to stop coaching football when I accepted my position at Mill Creek.
Secondly, having three girls and the idea of them potentially playing in high school or even in college is really exciting.
Furthermore, Mill Creek has nearly 4,000 students, so I knew we’d be able to assemble a dynamic team in year one – and we did.
I was also blessed with an incredibly gifted and talented staff. Drew and Anna Kindig are married and actually met through playing flag football at UGA. They really know the flag game well. They are tremendous teachers on the field who bring great energy and insight to what we’re trying to accomplish everyday.
Q: As far as Lacrosse is concerned, is there a feeder program that prepares players for the high school level?
A: Yes, we have a tremendous youth program that’s been established for about a decade. That was one of the main things that attracted me to Mill Creek and inspired me to apply when the opportunity arose. I had built our program at RMA from nothing, so it was nice to step into a situation that had a foundation to build from.
The growth of the sport is really important, and there are a ton of great people, great coaches committed to growing the sport.
But, yeah, there’s a real stark gap between the “haves” and “have nots” in Georgia lacrosse because there are schools who have youth feeder programs with kids who play travel ball nearly all year long, and you have programs who can’t even field a JV team, so they’re just scrapping together enough kids to call it a team.
It’s unfortunate, and there’s a lot of work to be done, but it’s been great to see the number of programs increase by 40-plus schools just in the last eight years.
Q: Flag football has doubled the number of teams statewide versus last season. Do you have more girls interested in joining your team there at Mill Creek? Do you conduct tryouts?
A: Absolutely, the interest since our season concluded has been overwhelming. Not only have top athletes from traditional sports expressed serious interest, but we’ve even had several adults inquire about coaching.
Yes, we will host a tryout again, and we’re literally expecting double to triple the number of girls who come out.
Written by: Phil Jones
