It’s Official: Randy Mearns Named Men’s Lacrosse Head Coach at St. Bonaventure.

We heard some whispers last week that St. Bonaventure was close to signing their first head coach of their new men’s lacrosse program. Yesterday, Inside Lacrosse, and our very own Chris Jastrzembski, reported that the new head coach would be Canisius head coach (now former head coach) Randy Mearns.

It appears all those reports and whispers were correct as St. Bonaventure today announced that Randy Mearns was the new head coach of the men’s lacrosse program slated to start in 2019.

St. Bonaventure University Director of Athletics Tim Kenney had nothing but praise for his new head coach.

"Everyone who knows Randy talks about his energy and his vision to move things forward. He's coming to St. Bonaventure to create something special and with Randy at the helm the sky is the limit for this program. His reputation in the lacrosse world is huge. We're going to build this program from the ground up and into a championship contender."

Coach Mearns seemed very excited to get started at his new gig as well.

"As the process went, this became more and more of a great fit. The opportunity at St. Bonaventure really intrigued me; when I came on campus I was immediately inspired. This is a gem of an institution. I think we can really build something special here. "The academics at St. Bonaventure are phenomenal, the people are phenomenal and the support for the program is there. "Tim Kenney is a visionary who is excited about this journey and I want to thank Tim and (St. Bonaventure University President) Dr. DePerro for this opportunity. I'm tremendously excited to be part of it."

#TrustTheProcess

As highlighted by Chris in his post yesterday, this is a big scoop for St. Bonaventure. Mearns graduated from Canisius and has been a major part of that program since 1989. He was part of their first recruiting class under former head coach Ed Van Tine and is still the single-season record holder for points (94) & assists (49), and the Griffs’ all-time leader in assists (95). Mearns coached at Canisius for the last 19 years, won two MAAC Championships, & got the Griffs to the NCAA Tournament in 2008 and 2012. He’s pretty much Mr. Canisius Lacrosse.

It’ll be interesting to see which conference (if any) St. Bonaventure joins by 2019. I think getting coach Mearns might help them in their application to join the MAAC, given his long history with the conference. I discussed why I thought the Bonnies would be a great fit in the MAAC in this conference realignment post from the weekend.

It’ll be exciting to see how the search for a conference home all plays out for the Bonnies. I have a feeling that if St. Bonaventure does join the MAAC, that the first Canisius vs. St. Bonaventure conference game will be quite fun to watch.

UPDATE: Canisius has named assistant coach and recruiting coordinator Brendan Murphy as their interim head coach.