Lacrosse began as a hobby for Matt Striebel.
His sister, Jessica, played first and brought her stick home. He was a baseball fan and dreamed of becoming a major leaguer.
“Like every kid in America,” the Northampton resident said.
Intrigued, the Gill native started playing as a teenager for the Franklin County Lacrosse Club for Jeff Coulson, who now owns Indoor Action Sports in Greenfield.
“Growing up here in western Mass., and I grew up in Gill, which was obviously not a hotbed of lacrosse at the time or really now. It’s such a dynamic combination of other sports you’re familiar growing up with,” Striebel said. “You get the best of all those worlds combined in one Frankenstein sport. For a lot of kids, and I see this all the time at camps, it just grabs you, and once it does you’re hooked for life.”
Lacrosse became Striebel’s passion and profession. He won championships at every level and worked to spread the spark lacrosse ignited in him. On Saturday, Striebel, 40, will earn one of the sport’s highest honors with his induction to the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame.
“At a certain point, I’d had a career that was solid enough and significant enough that I had a pretty good idea that I would one day make it to the Hall of Fame. The part that was surprising to me was how quickly I got that call,” Striebel said. “It was a validating honor. It puts your career in a nice, cohesive narrative.”
He’ll be inducted as part of a nine-member class at the The Grand Lodge in Hunt Valley, Maryland, just outside Baltimore.
“It’s increasingly starting to set in. There’s some behind the scenes getting tickets for people and organizing all that stuff that makes it seem like it’s more in the real world and less something that’s really special and exists as the culmination of a career,” Striebel said. “It’s sitting in a space that’s between about to be real and pretty fantastic.”
Striebel received the call while out to lunch with his family at Green Bean in Northampton. It came from a Philadelphia number he didn’t recognize, so he let it go to voice mail. Rick Lake, the men’s lacrosse director of USA Lacrosse, was on the other end of the call.
“My immediate assumption was they were calling because the annual giving campaigns had started up,” Striebel said. “As a veteran of three U.S. teams, they look to me to give donations every once in a while and I assumed that’s what it was.”
Instead, he found out he was being inducted alongside one of his longtime teammates and best friends Ryan Boyle. Boyle was a freshman at Princeton during Striebel’s senior year in 2001. They both played attack, but Boyle took all of the repetitions during fall practices since Striebel also played soccer for the Tigers.
As a returning All-American and team captain, Striebel tried to coexist with the freshman.
“It was pretty apparent that Ryan was just better at it than I was, even as a freshman,” said Striebel, who attended The Hotchkiss School before Princeton. “The coaches brought me into their office and said, ‘Striebs you had a great run, we’re going to move you to midfield.’ For about 48 hours, I hated Ryan.”
But he realized that if the team was going to compete for a title, that would give the Tigers the best chance. Princeton won the national championship for the second time in Striebel’s career.
Striebel began his professional career the next season during the inaugural season of Major League Lacrosse. He played for the Bridgeport Barrage, and three years later after the franchise relocated to Philadelphia, they asked Striebel if Boyle was worth a first-round draft pick.
“I said he was and it would make our team better instantly,” Striebel said.
The Barrage won the MLL title, one of three in Striebel’s 15-year career. He and Boyle also played together for the USA on three World Lacrosse Championship teams.
Boyle started a company called Trinity Lacrosse in 2005 and brought Striebel on as the program’s national director, which is his full-time job. They run camps and events all over the country.
“The fact that I was able to go in with Ryan, that’s such a poetic bookend to our career and our friendship in the sport,” Striebel said.
Striebel was first called up to the U.S. national team in 2002, less than a year after the September 11 terrorist attacks. The Americans took gold in Perth, Australia.
“To be able to put on a jersey and represent your country playing a sport you love, there aren’t many honors that are more fulfilling than that,” Striebel said.
He enjoyed teaming up with other elite players in a competitive setting. Unlike All-star games, which Striebel played in eight times, the world championships provided a goal to achieve rather than an exhibition.
2019 Hall of Fame Inductee | Matt Striebel from US Lacrosse on Vimeo.
When the U.S. lost the 2006 final – the first time they hadn’t won gold since 1978 – Striebel and his team left their medals in the dormitories in Ontario.
“It was a really difficult loss to stomach,” he said.
Striebel and the USA redeemed themselves in 2006 in England with the nation’s ninth gold medal.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to win a lot of incredible championships in my career, and those USA championships are definitely up there,” Striebel said. “I’ve had a fortunate career.”
He recognizes that fortune and works to give others the same opportunity. Striebel coached Northampton High School for seven years before stepping down following the 2018 season.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to go all over the country and around the world spreading the gospel of lacrosse and sharing the sport with people who care about it,” Striebel said. “It has a strong fraternity of followers. It’s been amazing to see that expand to include so many people and so many places.”
Trilogy partners with organizations like Harlem Lacrosse to bring the game to areas and environments that haven’t historically played it.
“For many years it’s been a predominantly white, wealthy, preppy sport, and that’s not sustainable and that’s not the best version of lacrosse that’s going to exist,” Striebel said. “When the sport is available to kids all across the country whether you’re living in an inner city neighborhood or Fairfield County, Connecticut, that’s when the sport is really going to have achieved its peak.”
Kyle Grabowski can be reached at kgrabowski@gazettenet.com. Follow him on Twitter @kylegrbwsk.