Haverford hopes spirit of ‘the helmet’ leads to district success

HAVERFORD >> Mike Leyden had been away for five years, from his senior season at Haverford, through an All-American career at Cabrini, to assuming the JV coaching job at his high school alma mater this spring.

So much had changed for the former attackman since the last time he suited up for the Fords that the end of his first varsity game assisting former mentor Dan Greenspun caught him by surprise.

As the Fords wrapped up a blowout victory against Holy Ghost Prep, Leyden heard the players starting to stir about who would get “the helmet.”

“I didn’t forget about it, but I didn’t really think about it,” Leyden said. “Then the first game, they started talking about, ‘Where’s the helmet?’ and I was like, ‘Oh, I kind of forgot about that.’ And it was nice to see it was still there.”

Haverford’s helmet tradition began as a memorial to Leyden’s father, Mike Sr., a way to cope with the tough times Mike Jr. and younger brother Kevin endured when their father passed away during their high school careers. It’s since morphed into a powerful symbol for the Fords, an ever-present talisman on the sidelines and a physical embodiment of the blue-collar ethos that informs Haverford’s historic success this season.

That’s the attitude Greenspun and Leyden hope guides Haverford, the No. 7 seed in the District One Tournament, when it begins postseason play Tuesday by hosting No. 26 Wissahickon at 8 p.m.

The tradition of the helmet transports Mike Jr. back five seasons, to when his father was diagnosed with melanoma and died after a short battle with the illness in April 2011.

As a way to memorialize Leyden, the team adopted a new tradition: A white hard hat, exactly like the one Leyden Sr. wore for years working for Aqua American, emblazoned with Haverford logos. The helmet symbolized Leyden’s dedication, his tireless effort to work — rain or shine — in supporting a family and contributing to a community. Applying that same lunch-pail work ethic to lacrosse could turn a team of average talents into a whole that greatly exceeded the sum of its parts.

Each game, the Fords award the helmet to a player who excelled in capturing Leyden’s spirit on the field — doing the dirty work, making heady plays, coming through with the brand of toughness that wins games. The current holder of the helmet has the final say in whom to bestow it on next.

“If everyone is trying to get the helmet, then it should be the way we want to play, just hard on the groundballs, doing all the little stuff,” defender Mike Romanofsky said. “It doesn’t really matter who scores, but it’s how hard you work to get the goal.”

That determination plays into the identity Greenspun’s program has internalized. Haverford High may never be the top lacrosse draw in its own town, and the greater lacrosse world associates success with its more renowned neighbor, the Haverford School. The results have tracked that: This season’s 14-4 campaign is the most successful in well over a decade, the first time the Fords have cracked .500 since 2008 and escaped middle-of-the-road, Central League purgatory.

Greenspun, also a Haverford alum, hasn’t changed the talent pool’s parameters; they remain a public school with a relatively small catch area in the deep end of a hotbed of athletic recruiting. Much like other recent successful sports teams at the school, the Fords are just a group of kids from the same neighborhood who wanted to stay at home.

Some of those players — like 100-point scorer Bobby McClure or second-team All-Central faceoff man Luke McCallion — have turned into all-league talents. But an intangible like the helmet helps explain how the pieces come together for such a momentous season. That’s why, for all the run-and-gun offense the Fords have brandished in leading the Central League in scoring by a significant margin at 13.4 goals per game, the helmet has often found its way into the hands of a no-name, no-nonsense defense backstopped by goalie Danny Tierney.

“It’s a statement of this township,” McClure said. “We’re all a bunch of kids from a neighborhood, and you come up through the youth programs, you get to the high school and you’re just expected to play your hardest and make the best out of the team.”

“I think that’s kind of what we base our team off of,” Mike Leyden said. “We never had the best kids in the country at that level, but we have kids that are coming out every day and work hard and push each other in practice.”

Since Mike and Kevin, a 2014 graduate, have moved on from the program, the meaning of the helmet has continued to evolve. Opposite the large red-and-yellow “H” on one side, the helmet is adorned with three black-and-white mementos: “ML” for Leyden Sr.; “ER” For Romanofsky’s father, Ed, who succumbed to cancer last spring; and “TS” for Trent Stetler, a 2012 graduate who committed suicide in January 2015 while at Elon, and in whose honor the Fords have started a summer lacrosse clinic.

That’s a lot of tragedy for any program to carry. But those tribulations imbue the Fords with a greater sense of purpose, one that translates into a competitive fire that is easy to spot on the field.

“We’re like a family,” Mike Leyden said. “Through this organization and throughout the school, the helmet lets people know that we’re all there for one another and we all work hard for one another.”