Greg Burns, three-time All-American and national champion, 1987 to 1990

It was all about Gary and Paul (Gait). They were the best, and they were — I don’t want to say they were coddled — but they were the favorite child. We were running (during a 1990 practice). We were in trouble, or we lost. I can’t imagine we’d lost because we barely ever lost. So I think we were in trouble. 

And all of a sudden, one time (Tom) Marechek yells out, “Hey Desko, don’t the Gaits have to do this?” Desko turns around, puts his hat on backwards, and is like, “Who said that?” And no one said a word, we were just silent. So, needless to say, we kept running.

The 90s: Syracuse’s success under Desko and Simmons Jr. continued into their second decade together. A third-straight title in 1990. Two more in 1993 and 1995. Following the 1998 season, Simmons announced his retirement. And by the start of the 1999 season, Desko was at the helm.

Jamie Archer, two-time All-American and national champion, 1990 to 1993

My freshman year, you’ve got the best players who’ve ever played the game: the Gaits, all those guys, Marichek. And we have a fall practice on Hookway, and back then Hookway was kind of like trees were all over the place. The fields weren’t all where they were now. 

Probably our third practice together, fourth practice together, and I’m just kind of over in some drill, and Desko yelled out for the man-up team to come over. Of course, I wasn’t a part of the man-up. It was my freshman year in my first, second, third practice. I didn’t hear my name being called, so he called it again. Didn’t go over again. And he finally screamed it, everyone could hear it, so I finally turn around and go over, and he kind of looks at me and goes, “Alright, I want you to…” and he just started pointing to trees around Hookway. “You’re going to run, you’re going to go touch that tree, you’re going to go touch that tree.”

(He) basically sent me on a run and goes, “And then go get me a drink of water.”

Roy Colsey, four-time All-American, 1992 to 1995

We’re in the national championship against Princeton my freshman year, and all through my career, coach Simmons had always said, ‘Look, I don’t care if you throw it between your legs, behind your back — if you get the job done, get the job done.’ So I made the pass behind-the-back as I was dodging. It was a good pass, the player caught it, he turned and shot, and he hit the goalie in the facemask. 

We ran off the field, and the defense went down and whatever happened, and coach Desko lost his mind on me. And anybody who has been on the wrong side of a coach Desko verbal thrashing, they know what I’m talking about. He used to chew Maalox because he would get indigestion during games, so the Maalox is on the sides of his mouth and he is screaming at me. “Goddamn it, you throw a behind-the-back pass, you’re not gonna be on the field.”

I was a hothead, and I don’t think I was an easy guy to coach. I went to the end of the bench, and I was like, “I’m not playing, screw you.” This is in the middle of the championship game, and it’s a close game, it’s against Princeton. And I’m laughing because coach Simmons comes down to the end of the bench, and he puts his arm around me. He walks me back down past all the players and into the substitution area, and I’m back on the field playing.

Ric Beardsley, four-time All-American defender, 1992 to 1995

When (Simmons Jr.) went down with pneumonia, (Desko) was our coach. We found out he was our coach right before the game. They hospitalized coach Simmons, and we found out right before the game, and I was like, all of us were wondering what the hell is going on. 

Desko walks into the locker, and he looks around at us, and we’re like, “Alright, coach Simmons used to give these killer pregame speeches.” He could read the room. He could understand if you were too tense, he’d tell you a joke. If you weren’t fired up enough, he’d get you fired up. 

And he just looked at us, looked at us, and he just started to shake. When he used to get angry, he used to shake, he would freak. And all of a sudden, he goes, “I f*cking hate (Hopkins).” And that was it. We all blew up.

Jim Morrissey, two-time All-American and national champion, 1993 to 1996

I was coaching in ’99, or maybe it was 2000, one of those years. We’re at an early Saturday morning practice, and it’s kind of just chilly out, not a great day. Practice ended, and coach Desko said, “Ok everybody get on the balls.” And then he said, “Go find the balls,” for the second time. Meanwhile, I could kind of sense, like “uh-oh.” No one was really getting the balls. Guys were just screwing around. 

And then the third time he said, “Everybody get on the balls,” we had coaches getting balls, we had trainers getting balls, players were running for balls, everybody got the balls. My point is, he’s so even-keeled until you (get to) that place where coach Desko can go that we all know, we’ve all seen. It’s one of those things where you remember where you were and what you were doing when coach Desko had an outburst, and you didn’t want to see that again. He always had a quiet way of just keeping everybody in line just based on his leadership style and his presence. He’s like the boss.

Paul Carcaterra, All-American midfielder and ESPN lacrosse analyst, 1994 to 1997

I used a certain kind of stick, a factory-strung leather stick, where a lot of people would string their own sticks and customize them. I didn’t like that. I was the only guy on the team that actually liked it right out of the factory, which was bizarre.

It was my senior year. I broke a stick in the beginning of the season. We were outside, it was cold and I had a temper-tantrum. I was swinging the stick, because it wasn’t a matter of just going to the equipment room and getting a head, a kit and stringing it because that’s not the way I liked it. I’ll never forget little Timmy Desko, he was probably like 5 or 6 at the time, he had a factory-strung stick because all little kids would. They didn’t string their own sticks. So I’ll never forget when coach Desko was like “What’s your problem? Why is it so important — that stick? String another one.”

I’m like, “I can’t string another one. It’s a factory. It’s been restored.” And Tim literally was using the same stick. (Desko) goes, “So use that, then.” So that was the stick my senior year.

Alex Rosier, national-champion goalie, 1994 to 1995

It was like coach Simmons was the good cop and Desko was the bad cop. He would let you have it if you needed to have it. At the time that I played, it was a little more coach Simmons than coach Desko, but let me tell you, if you messed up, coach Desko would let you have it. He would definitely let you know, and I don’t know where it came from, I don’t know how those two operated as far as “you go tell him, or I’ll go tell him.” But he was definitely a figurehead that you were always like, “Wow, that’s Coach Desko. We’re not taking it over the line.”

I just remember, if coach Desko or coach Simmons were leaning on their lacrosse stick, Ric Beardsley would come over with his defensive stick and smack it out of their hands, and it would go 30 feet. Ric is Ric, I can’t hold a candle to that guy. In practice, if they were leaning on their stick or something, Ric would come over and do it.

The 2000s: In Desko’s first full decade as head coach, Syracuse nearly doubled its national championship total — winning in 2000, 2002, 2004, 2008 and 2009. He also led the 2006 United States Men’s Lacrosse National Team to a silver medal as its head coach.

Jovan Miller, two-time All-American and All-Big East first team selection, 2008 to 2011

2009, we’re at Loyola. It was a very emotional game in general because we had gotten news the day before that one of the legends of the program, Brian Crockett, had died in a car accident. So we were already kind of all discombobulated in general. Coach (Desko) had shared the story with us before we went out onto the field, and Loyola was (also) pretty good that year. It was a very hard time because I was a sophomore, but we had juniors and seniors that had played with Brian. So it was just like an “out of nowhere” kind of, it was just a really sad aura around the team.

That was the first time that the whole team had been together. Usually, when we go out for our warmup, we stay out for the national anthem, and then we play. This particular time, we warmed up, and then coach D, he brought us in, not into the locker room but to some steps where it was just the team and him and the coaching staff, and he broke the news. And coach Desko’s not an emotional person, but he started crying, and it just started to trickle through the team. It was a very hard time to get refocused, and it took us literally a half to three quarters to start playing, to really start going and playing. 

But yeah, we came back to win that game, and that was the Crockett game. We found a way.

Joel White, two-time Tewaaraton Award finalist and first-team All-American, 2008 to 2011

I played short-stick through the entire fall and kind of went home thinking that that’s where I was, competing for a second midfield line spot as a freshman. (I) was pumped up throughout the winter to go back, and I got back in the spring, and really what stemmed it, I think, was some injuries and things like that at the long-stick midfield position.

Then I got back in the spring, he kind of walked up to me with a long-stick in his hand, and at that time it was very rare to see a stick in his hand. He was like, “So what do you think of playing long-stick midfielder?” I just kind of laughed at him and shrugged it off, and he did it for about a day or so, and then finally coach Rogers walked up to me and was like, “Listen man, I don’t know what you’re doing, but this is what you have to do to get on the field.”

The 2010s: Syracuse hasn’t won another title since 2009. It advanced to the final four just once, and the quarterfinals just five times. But with winning season after winning season, Desko continued to etch his own legacy, separated from the shadows of Simmons Jr. before him.

JoJo Marasco, Tewaaraton Award finalist and first-team All-American, 2010 to 2013

I’ve always been deaf in my right ear, and that was like a big thing. But it was the first practice, I’ll never forget it, and Joel White and John Galloway were obviously the greatest captains, and they always looked out for me and helped me kind of get recruited there. Desko, he’s got 60 guys on the sideline, and all the freshmen were getting the balls after practice, and I guess we were back further from where the net was, collecting balls, and I was like the last one getting balls, and he probably just forgot, and he starts yelling at me to get back in the huddle, or we were breaking down, and of course I didn’t hear him. 

Joel (White) goes up to him, he’s like, “Coach, you know he’s deaf in his right ear, man? He can’t hear you.”

Chris Daddio, top faceoff specialist, 2011 to 2014

We had to win (the UNC game in 2014) to make it into the ACC tournament. I went on a heater at the end of the game and won, I think, pretty much every face-off for the last quarter and overtime. It may not have been every one, but I think 80, 90%, something like that. 

There was one moment where, going into overtime, I won the face-off, and I struggled getting the ball to Dylan Donahue or anyone on attack, and (I) kind of threw it right past them, and we almost lost the game because of that. We ended up winning in overtime, but (Desko) kind of came up to me after the game and just told me, “You’re going to remember this game probably more than any other game of your career” because of those reasons. 

He made it a point to grab me, because I was never one to get excited or get high on myself and celebrate that much, just because of all of my struggles. And he just kind of came over to remind me, “Hey, this one, you’re going to remember, and you should really celebrate.”

Kevin Rice, ACC Offensive Player of the Year and All-American, 2012 to 2015

One thing I always really appreciated about coach Desko also was his willingness to get after the officials to defend his players. If he felt like you got cheap-shotted or took a slash that wasn’t called, he was not shy about letting the officials know and that serves a couple of good purposes: It makes your player happy that your coach sees and is defending him, and it also stops the player from being the one to yell at the ref. 

He’s obviously been around the game for so long that he has been involved in every situation that you can think of. He was always calm. My sophomore year, when we made the title game, we played a program-record of one-goal games in the season, and we were a pretty young team. So we needed that calm demeanor because, every game, it felt like there was a timeout in the fourth quarter where we were up one or down one, or the game was tied, and we just needed sort of that level head as opposed to us 19-year-olds who were all excited because the Dome was loud and it was a big game.

Derek DeJoe, midfielder, 2013 to 2016

It’s like the worst weather, and coach Desko hates the rain, hates the weather, so thank God we play in the Dome, where it’s always 75 and sunny. And if it’s any sort of weather, he’s wearing his big Nike puff coat with his big old mittens, and he looks like the Michelin Man coming out there to practice. 

One day, it was probably the worst weather, I think we were getting ready for an outdoor game — I think it was Providence. Coach Desko, instead of coming to practice, he pulls up on the side of our field, and it’s, I mean it’s sleeting sideways, like typical upstate New York weather. We’re like, “Gosh, we have to practice outside, we’re not inside for this one.”

And for the first half of practice, (Desko) flicks on his high beams and watched practice from his car because he didn’t want to come in the weather.

These interviews have been edited for clarity.