Justin Turri hired as men’s lacrosse head coach

The Red Storm’s lacrosse team feels that they have the head coach to turn it around in last weekend's hire of a coach from a successful program - who also has local ties.

Justin Turri has been named the new head coach of the St. John’s men’s lacrosse team, as announced by the school on Friday afternoon.

St. John’s lacrosse, despite being in fertile ground for the sport, has struggled for years. Turri, meanwhile, has been a major piece of some strong lacrosse squads

The native of West Islip, New York built his coaching pedigree by working with the offenses of college teams. He last served as the offensive coordinator for Michigan, where he led the Wolverines to becoming the 11th best scoring offense in the country in the 2022 season. In each of his four seasons as an assistant in Ann Arbor, he helped to acquire a top-15 recruiting class in the country.

He also served as an offensive coordinator at Harvard, guiding the Crimson to the 28th best offense nationally in 2017. Before those two stints, he began his coaching career as an offensive assistant coach for Army and Providence.

Before rising through the coaching ranks of college lacrosse, Turri was a four-year starter at Duke, where he was named a two-time All-American and won a national championship in 2010. After college, he balanced coaching duties with a fruitful nine-year professional career, playing in the Premier Lacrosse League and the now-defunct Major League Lacrosse (MLL).

Turri will be tasked in vitalizing a dormant lacrosse program. In the 33 seasons of the program’s existence, the Red Storm have never qualified for postseason play. Previous head coach Jason Miller left with a record of 67-145 after leading the lacrosse program for 16 years. The Red Storm have not beaten a Big East opponent since 2016 and they have finished with more than 10 losses in seven of their last nine seasons.