Michael Crotty still remembers the message his college coach Dave Paulsen gave their team at Williams more than two decades ago. The Ephs were coming off a Division 3 national championship in 2003, and Paulsen wanted to put in the past.
“(He) said, ‘We’re not defending anything,’” Crotty recalled. “We’re not the defending champs, we’re attacking another title, and we’re going to do it game by game. And I love that idea.”
Now the director and head coach of the Middlesex Magic AAU program, Crotty applied that lesson this spring to his 17U squad, which won the Under Armour Association national championship last year in just its second season on one of the top circuits in the country.
“I said to them, ‘Hey, people are going to call us the defending champs. We’re not defending anything. That thing’s in the trophy case, no one can ever take it from us. That’s ours,’” Crotty said. “What we need to do is go attack another title.”
