Completed Event: Men's Lacrosse at Virginia on March 23, 2026 , Loss , 7, to, 18
Final
Men's Lacrosse
at Virginia
7
18
This Week in Dartmouth Men's Lacrosse
4/24/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Lacrosse
HANOVER, N.H. ? It is something almost every recruit is told when choosing a college.
Pick a school where you'll be happy if you are hurt and can't play anymore.
“My dad definitely said that,” recalled Dartmouth senior Chad Gaudet, a standout tailback on the Middlesex School football team in Massachusetts.
Gaudet listened to his father, Chuck, who played football and ice hockey at the University of Pennsylvania, and he's oh-so-glad that he did.
To understand why, flash back to the the fall of 2004 when Gaudet was a Dartmouth football star in the making. After working his way up the depth chart at tailback, he exploded on the scene with 102 yards against Harvard in the sixth game of the season, making him the first Big Green freshman to break the century mark since freshmen were made eligible in 1993 and still the only freshman to do it. Two weeks later he did it again, rushing for 137 yards against Brown. He added 95 yards against Princeton in the finale.
With 389 yards in just over four games in his freshman campaign, Gaudet came into his sophomore fall looking like a lock to one day erase Dartmouth's career rushing record. But against Colgate in the 2005 opener, Gaudet ? a bull at 6-foot, 218 pounds that fall ? took a helmet to the left knee on his first carry of the season. He hobbled off the field hoping a little ice would get him back in the action.
It would turn out to be the last carry of his college football career.
Gaudet had suffered a tibial plateau fracture in his left leg, chipping off a piece of bone critical to the alignment of the knee. “I think the doctors told me it is most commonly seen when someone is hit by a car,” he said with a laugh. “Dr. (Charlie) Carr told me it was the worst one he's seen in 20 years or so.”
At Mass General in Boston Gaudet had a bone graft to fill the depression left by the fracture and pins and a screw inserted to stabilize the repair. After spending the rest of the fall at home under the watchful eye and trained hands of his physical therapist mother, Jody, he studied and rehabbed that winter in New Zealand before beginning to tentatively run the next summer.
Unable to return to the gridiron in the fall of his junior year, he was helping coach the football team at Kimball Union Academy when he had an ephiphany of sorts.
“I was at a low point because it was looking like my football career wasn't going to pan out,” he admitted. “It was fun working with the kids but I was like, ?I should be doing something myself.' ”
That something would prove to be lacrosse.
In addition to football, he had played basketball and lacrosse at Middlesex and had even drawn some recruiting interest for his play with the stick.
“I came from a real successful high school program,” he explained. “The coach is well-respected and they've sent a lot of guys to college. I'd had that option coming out of high school. One of my coaches was really pushing for it, but my goal from the get-go was to play football.”
But with football probably over, Gaudet trained his sights on getting back on the lacrosse field for the first time in three years.
“I trained with Mike Boyle (legendary Boston-area trainer) once I made the decision,” he said. “I was in horrible shape and wondering if it was really worth it. It was tough at first. I wasn't able to cut and I was really sore, but eventually it came back to me.”
It was January of last year that Gaudet officially joined the Dartmouth lacrosse team.
“The guys were really great,” he said. “It was really like a new family. They took me right in. Coach (Bill) Wilson didn't make me tryout or anything. He told me he believed in me and told me I could do it from the get-go. He was great.”
A long-stick middie in high school, Gaudet got on the field for the first time a year ago as a short-stick defensive middie.
“That was a bit of a transition,” he said. “I wasn't really used to the short-stick, but the job is the same: Keep the other guy away from the goal and pick up ground balls. I adapted to it pretty quickly.”
Gaudet would finish the season fourth on the team with 31 ground balls while winning 23-of-58 faceoffs. His knee was feeling sound enough that he briefly flirted with the idea of giving football a final go, even though the doctors warned him that should he suffer another injury there were no guarantees he'd be as fortunate with another surgery.
Gaudet's focus changed when he won the Dartmouth lacrosse team's Blue Collar/Charlie Hustle Award.
“A lot of the guys on the team could have received it,” he said modestly. “But I guess that really pushed me over the top about lacrosse and wanting to be successful at it. That's when I made up my mind for sure that I wasn't going to come back to football. I really wanted to focus on lacrosse and have a good year.”
To that end he played in a summer league, went out to Vail and put a lot of effort into perfecting his faceoffs.
The work paid off.
Through 12 games he's won 119-of-214 faceoffs, a healthy 55.6 percent. Assistant coach Andy Towers, one of the nation's foremost faceoff experts, believes Gaudet has put himself close to the top handful of faceoff men in the country.
He also leads the team with 71 ground balls and has mixed in two goals along with three assists.
“He's a hard worker, a guy who has come into Division I lacrosse as a self-made player,” said Wilson, who never fails to bring Gaudet's name up in weekly interviews. “He went from a short-stick D middie to close defense to a longstick middie. He'll do whatever it takes within the team to give us an opportunity to be successful. He's a great athlete and a very unselfish player.
“He's had a little bit of an injury but he fights through it. Some players would practice Friday and play Saturday if they were in his situation but he practices every day. We certainly appreciate that. He's a guy who plays hard between the lines making our team feel confident. Our guys really respect him.”
So much so, it turned out, that in just his second year in his second Dartmouth sport the non-recruited player was chosen a captain at the end of fall practice.
“That was a great honor,” Gaudet said. “I love all the guys on the team so it meant a lot to me. It's definitely a learning experience being a leader to a bunch of guys.”
While the won-loss record this season hasn't turned out quite the way Gaudet, his teammates and his coaches hoped, the tailback-turned-middie thinks the lacrosse future in Hanover is bright.
“It's been frustrating,” he admitted. “We had high expectations coming in. There's a lot of talent on the team. There've been so many little things, but I think we are hitting our stride now.
“Coach Wilson has the team heading in the right direction. I'd be hard-pressed not to see them have a lot of success next year. They've worked hard and learned a lot this year.” Take it from the onetime star football star who listened to his father four years ago and is oh-so-glad he did.
Last Week in Dartmouth Lacrosse
The Big Green (5-7 overall, 1-3 Ivy League) outscored Yale, 17-14, before dropping a closer-than-it-looks 11-7 decision at No. 4 Virginia.
Brian Koch led the way against the Elis (3-8, 0-5) with four goals (on seven shots) and one assist. Mike Novosel turned away 11 shots.
“We needed a win and we got our first Ivy League win,” said Wilson. “From the opening moment in the game, Jon Livadas set the tone in the huddle and on the field.
We did an outstanding job being intense right off the bat.
“Chad Gaudet set the tone in the faceoff X, going against a guy like (Gregory) DuBoff who is regarded as one of the top faceoff middies in the country. Chad went something like 70 percent against him and had a really good outing. We controlled the tempo of the game and playing intense and that gave us the opportunity to win.”
It also gave them the chance to clear the bench after building a 17-10 lead.
“We were really excited for our starters to give everybody on the team a chance to play that day,” said Wilson.
Ari Sussman had three goals and an assist in the loss to UVa (11-2) before a crowd of 2,157 in Charlottesville.
“In the first quarter we won faceoffs, played strong, cleared the ball, had possession time on offense and hammered our opportunities,” said Wilson. “When they had the ball in the first quarter we made stops and they turned it over.”
The result: an early 2-0 lead and an 8-6 game in the third period.
“The game got away from us a bit in the second quarter,” said Wilson. “We didn't clear as effectively as we had earlier in the game and gave them second-chance opportunities. For the first quarter, the third and the fourth we played even or outplayed Virginia. But they got the best of us because of the second quarter.”
This Week in Dartmouth Lacrosse
The Big Green entertains Princeton (7-4, 4-0 Ivy) on Saturday afternoon.
“They haven't had an easy season,” said Wilson. “They've had injuries like everyone else has, but they are still a couple of games away from winning the Ivy League championship.
“We're not really thinking about that aspect, but just getting a win that would be wonderful for our guys' confidence. It would help them understand they can compete with, and beat, a team at the top of the league. We'll definitely be the underdog going in. We need to be a hungry team and be the hunter against the perceived favorite.”
Wilson thinks his team is ready for the challenge, if only it can put a full game together. “If we play for four quarters our guys believe we can beat any team in the country,”he said. “This would be the week to do it. It would be another step forward for our program.”
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