(Photo by Michigan Photography)

by Dave Franklin | MCLA.us

Peter Hollen was a rising college senior at the University of Southern California at the conclusion of the 2017 season in which he played long-stick midfielder for the Trojans.

Hollen, who had forgone opportunities to play varsity football and lacrosse at the next level, wanted to make the most of an experience playing in the MCLA at USC. Over the course of three years, Hollen had three different head coaches and, even though his teams never finished above .500, the Trojans did make the SLC playoffs for the first time in 2017.

"I'm the sort of person that feels if you are going to do something, you go for it 100 percent,” Hollen said. “Maybe our invitation to the postseason was unexpected, but I wanted to play. Sadly, the program just didn't have its priorities together."

The Trojans were due to play Arizona State in the first round of the SLC tournament, where the Sun Devils were heavily favored. Long story short, there were USC lacrosse players who wanted to enjoy one of their last weekends of the semester opposed to traveling to likely take a big ‘L’ against ASU.

"It was disappointing, and I was aware of the repercussions the program was facing,” Hollen said. “Doing nothing wasn't an option."

For years, USC lacrosse was aided by business school alum Charlie Meister, who played as an undergraduate at Brown.

"Charlie was helpful in making sure the program didn't completely fall apart, but he was fed up,” Hollen said. “For years, he was fundraising and helping non-varsity lacrosse recruits get into USC or the business school by putting his name behind them as a character reference. Some of these kids ended up not playing on the team at all, and when others that Charlie helped bailed on the postseason, it really hurt."

From there, Hollen traveled to the SLC coach's meeting with Peter Swander, who would be stepping away from the head coaching position after the meeting.

"While being completely expelled from the MCLA was on the table, the conference offered the alternative of being demoted down to Division II,” said Hollen.

"People still talk about how impressive Peter was in that meeting," said Dan Moriarty who was hired to be head coach of the Trojans for the 2018 season.

"Somehow, Peter got the board to agree to keep USC in Division I on a probationary period where there would be no postseason eligibility," explained Moriarty.

"We hoped that if we did qualify for playoffs that the board would renounce the ban to really let Peter compete in the playoffs before graduation, but sadly they didn't bend.

“But that's how things are for Pete: he sacrifices to make things better for the guys he's leaving behind him."

Moriarty, a Long Island native who was coaching at Southwestern (Texas) University, was looking for a new opportunity and perhaps a chance to move further out west. He came in contact with Hollen about the coaching opening.

"This program had some good coaches before me, especially Chris Boland and Adam Ghitelman,” Moriarty said. “However, I could tell the dynamics were off between the coaches and the athletes, and the results were not optimal."

Moriarty found out a buddy from Long Island, Jake Van Nostrad was working locally for Hurley and sought him out to be an assistant coach.

"I thought being at USC would be pretty cool,” Van Nostrand said. “I didn't know much about the MCLA, but Dan and I took the temperature as to how things went wrong for previous coaches and we knew we needed to take a new approach."

How was a team that had never traveled outside the state of California, never played during spring break and had never shown up for a postseason going to improve?

"By teaching lacrosse and being good dudes," said Moriarty. "Jake and I talked about it and we were pretty transparent when we shared our ideas with Peter. The team never played during spring break - fine, we were going to keep it that way, let the kids enjoy their vacation.

“Attendance at practice was an issue, but punishments wouldn't work. We needed to create an environment which would make the boys want to be around, want to come to practice, want to get better and want to compete. Forcing it previously never worked."

"Coach Moriarity and Coach Van Nostrand really developed this great system where they were going to ask the players to buy-in before demanding anything of them,” Hollen said. “It worked out pretty well."

The 2018 campaign was a success for USC. Although the Trojans were still on a postseason ban, the team finished 8-6 and beat UC Santa Barbara for the first time in program history.

"Again, we really wanted the conference to let us continue the spring, really for Pete's sake, but we sent the kid out with a winning season and assurance that his alma mater's lacrosse program was back intact," Moriarty said.

"That's actually what I was thinking about as it related to team goals my senior year,” Hollen said. “The standards the SLC set for us to stay in good standing were fair, but everyone was expecting us to screw it up and I was determined to prove them wrong more so than anything else. Now I know I left USC lacrosse is in a good place and I don't have to worry about it."

However, some things were still in limbo. Moriarty made personal plans to move back east but at least there would be consistency with Van Nostrand getting promoted to head coach.

How about Hollen?

Not only had he worked hard to keep USC lacrosse on track administratively, but he was the best player the Trojans had.

"He's a stud athlete" said Van Nostrand. "He's actually a stud at everything. He's a stud at life.”

“We knew Pete was a [NCAA] Division I talent, the issue is Pete is so humble, he hardly listened when we talked about facilitating opportunities for him to play NCAA DI in 2019," added Moriarty.

"Yeah, I was kind of lost in all this,” Hollen said. “The coaches kept encouraging me to play in grad school and that they were putting out feelers for me. One day I got a call from my high school coach at Torrey Pines telling me to expect to hear from Kevin Conry, the head coach at Michigan."

Sure enough, the call came.

"I got a highlight tape of Peter and had a relationship with Jono Zisi from Torrey Pines," said Conry. "I'm a lacrosse junkie and love that the MCLA exists because it really gives every young lacrosse player in the country the ability to go to the kind of school that they want and play competitive lacrosse.

“Of course, being at Michigan, I was very aware of how this program came to be and all the good work John Paul did to bring Michigan from the MCLA to the NCAA. I'm extremely grateful to this University and JP for that," added Conry. "That said, I wasn't concerned about Pete's playing ability coming from the MCLA.

“It was explained to me that even if Peter never touched the field for the Wolverines, he'd be the best teammate the program would likely ever see. At Michigan, humility and toughness are part of our core values, we live our lives the way we play the game and we play the game the way we live our lives, so I couldn't pass on a kid who lives by that."

Hollen was admitted to Michigan's master's in social work program. This allows the option to get a joint master's in business at the Ross School if he wishes to continue for another three semesters after he get his social work diploma mid-year.

" I was a day removed from being required to show up on campus in Ann Arbor and I wasn't sure I was going, to be honest,” admitted Hollen. “Part of me thought it might be wise to just move forward with my life and professional career opposed to going back to school for a year to play lacrosse.

“However, I'm glad I came."

The last things to address were Hollen's untraditional tactics of playing defense with a long stick and the way he would fit onto the roster for the Maize and Blue.

"This is the Big Ten – it's the best college lacrosse conference in the country – and some of the habits Pete developed before coming here needed to be tweaked," Conry said.

"Making Pete a short-stick defensive middie was naturally the right choice by the staff in Ann Arbor," explained Van Nostrand. "He's so athletic and fast, he can be more valuable by matching feet and playing angles opposed to throwing big checks."

"I've been enjoying the transition,” Hollen said. “I hit the wall a lot to get the muscle memory down of throwing with a shorty and Coach Conry has taught me a lot about reacting as opposed to thinking too much on the field in this role."

Hollen has played in all seven games for the Wolverines, causing four turnovers and picking up eight ground balls. He was voted as to be a captain for Michigan's game against Jacksonville on Feb. 23, an 11-10 victory for Michigan.

"I'm so glad we are finally telling this story right," said Moriarty. "There is no kid that's more deserving of the positive press than Pete."

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