The father-son relationship has blossomed through lacrosse since Greg could barely walk.
“I don’t think I ever consciously picked up lacrosse,” Seaman said. “My dad just started me on the game before I even knew what I was doing, and I guess it grew on me.”
Greg’s father currently serves as the head coach for Towson University in Maryland. Over the course of his 26-year tenure in college lacrosse, the elder Seaman has attained not only the distinction of being the only coach to take three different schools — Penn, Johns Hopkins and Towson — to the NCAA Division I tournament, but also boasts having taken all three of those teams to the Final Four.
In the 18 years of his life before donning Tiger stripes, Seaman learned the game under the tutelage of his father Tony. After joining the Princeton squad, however, Seaman witnessed the bulk of his lacrosse instruction come from collegiate lacrosse Zen master, Princeton head coach Bill Tierney. The advantages of having two Hall of Fame coaches to guide his progression and criticize his game, though, can be drowned out by the unique challenge it presents.
“They’re pretty different both as people and as coaches,” Seaman said. “My dad’s teams tend to play with a more laid-back style, definitely a little different from the up-beat tempo Coach Tierney stresses.”
In his third season in Tiger uniform, Seaman has seen dramatic improvements in his on-field performance. Not yet halfway through the season, Seaman has already surpassed his point total from last year by accumulating three goals in six games. The team, however, has had a rocky start to the 2008 season. Coming off a tight 7-6 win at home over in-state rival Rutgers, the Tigers find themselves with a 3-3 record and a No. 17 ranking in the national coaches’ poll.
“It’s definitely not the best start to the season, but we’re still in pretty good shape,” Seaman said. “We’ve gotten to play some of the best teams in the country and gain that valuable experience. We’ll just have to play the rest of the games with our backs against the wall.”
In addition to playing lacrosse, Seaman has also assumed an active role in campus life. Beyond academics and lacrosse, Seaman has also danced for DiSiac since his freshman year.
“It’s pretty tough balancing everything on your plate, but at the same time, you get used to it,” Seaman said. “Freshman year was kind of a shock, but after that it was pretty much like everywhere else,” Seaman said. “Sometimes it helps to have a structure. Knowing you only have a couple of hours to finish up a paper makes you work more efficiently.”
Currently, Seaman is dedicating a large portion of his time to his spring junior paper for the politics department, focusing on the Iraq war and whether newspaper coverage of Iraqi civilian deaths correlated to Iraqi citizens’ choice of U.S. presidential candidates in the 2004 election.Like most of his teammates, Greg entered his senior year in high school as a highly touted prospect. Seaman experienced a recruitment period foreign to most other Division I athletes, however. While being recruited by some of the nation’s best lacrosse programs, his dad threw in a few kind words for Towson.
“It was pretty funny to have my dad recruiting me,” Seaman said. “I also found it amusing that other coaches would have to go up to the Towson head coach and ask about me.”
While the father-son relationship through lacrosse has generally been restrained to an exchange of learning the game and its intricacies, the two lacrosse fanatics have also met in skirmishes on the field.
“We scrimmage Towson just about every year in the spring as the last warm up before the season starts,” Seaman said. “It’s not that serious, not like a real game, but it’s a great opportunity to play against his team and also have his input on what we as a team and I personally could work on.”
For the record, Princeton has won the past few scrimmages.
The son, at least for now, has the upper hand.
Original URL: http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2008/03/27/20568/