The “Tomahawks Lacrosse” club was born using borrowed gear and practicing on any piece of green grass they could find. Three years later, after three All-League selections, two All-American honors and a spot in the North/South High School All-American game, Rorke was recruited to play at Syracuse for the legendary coach, Roy Simmons Jr.
Rorke lettered all four years at Syracuse,(1993-96), was a member of 2 NCAA Division I National Championship teams (1993/95) and was, in his senior year, a Team Captain and Honorable Mention All-American. After graduating from Syracuse, Rorke attended Navy Officer Candidate School and accepted follow-on orders to SEAL training in San Diego. After an action packed 13-year active duty career as an officer in the SEAL Teams, Rorke starred in the box office hit 2012 feature film “Act Of Valor” featuring active duty Navy SEALs in a movie based on real world SEAL adventures. His first book, ‘Damn Few: Making the Modern SEAL Warrior’ ended up on the NY Times Best Seller list.
He and his wife currently live in Southern California and Rorke is deep into his most challenging assignment, being a father of two beautiful little girls.
Julie Duff
Julie grew up in Byfield, Massachussetts, the sixth of eight children. She played high school lacrosse at Governor’s Academy where she captained the lacrosse teams in her junior and senior years. Receiving one of the early women’s athletic scholarships, she went on to play at the College of William and Mary where she co-captained the lacrosse team and received the Outstanding Student Athlete Award in her senior year.
Julie made the US Squad her freshman year of college. In the following years, Julie toured with the US Team to Canada in 1983, England, Scotland and Wales in 1984, and was a member of the World Cup Team in 1986.
As a coach, Julie began as assistant to Feffie Barnhill at William and Mary in 1985. She was head coach of the Varsity Lacrosse Team at Exeter Academy from 1986-1989 where she taught philosophy and ethics. From 1991-1993, she served as head coach of the Stanford Team while attending Stanford University where she received a doctoral degree in philosophy of education.
As an umpire, Julie received her National rating in 2008. She has umpired high school and college games, including NCAA D1 collegiate games, Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Playoffs, and NCAA D3 playoffs. She is the first woman to have achieved the national level as both a player and an umpire.
Julie served as a member of the US Lacrosse Women’s Division Board of Governors from 2002-2006, Chair of the Selection Committee for the US Women’s Teams from 2007-2008, Chair of the College Review Board for US Lacrosse Women’s Division from 2006-2008, and as a member of the Northern California Umpire Board where she facilitated the training of west coast umpires.
Julie lives on a small urban farm in Oakland, CA with a menagerie of characters including Figaro the miniature horse, Rupert the English Mastiff, and Elsie the goat. She teaches at Escuela Bilingue Internacional in Oakland and loves her life in the California Bay Area.
Ellee Koss
Ellee Koss has been promoting and developing Lacrosse in unlikely places. She has been a pioneer coaching men’s teams at all levels of play including competitive collegiate lacrosse. Ellee’s focus now is to increase and create opportunities for urban youth to participate in the sport. She is committed to supporting youth of diverse backgrounds in realizing their potential on and off the field.
Ellee played the game at Lexington High School (outside of Boston) under the tutelage of PE teacher Sandy Lawson, a member of the US Women’s Team. While at Boston University she was part of a group of women who founded and developed their first team since the early 50s. While it was pre Title IX, pre-D1/NCAA, they played a rigorous schedule against Harvard, Boston College, Northeastern University and others. This team gave rise to the competitive D1 team that is thriving today. Ellee also played Boston Lacrosse for several years.
As a professor at Bentley College, for two years, she worked with students to create and coach the first men’s lacrosse team in Bentley’s history. Today Bentley College is nationally ranked in D2 Men’s lacrosse.
Ellee worked with parents at Woodside HS (Woodside, CA) to start the high school’s inaugural lacrosse program. In their first year they had one boy's team on which several girls played. In year two, they had a girl's team and two boy’s teams - all of which Ellee coached.
Ellee went on from Woodside to start a lacrosse program at Sacred Heart Prep in Atherton. Again, their first team - a boy's team - also included 8 girls.
During the 2001-2004 time frame Ellee also worked with other coaches and CCS to develop the Peninsula Athletic League (PAL) and the framework for the future playoff structure.
Ellee served as Vice President of NorCal Lacrosse Foundation for over 6 years. In 2005 and 2006 Ellee was one of the coaches of the Palega Bulldogs in the Lacrosse for Life program in San Francisco. She also coached the U13 Boys USL Festival Tournament at UMass Amherst. Since 2010 Ellee has been volunteering her time at Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco teaching lacrosse to youth and staff alike. In 2011 they received an equipment grant from US Lacrosse. Today, Ellee is also working with the youth of Hunters Point by continuing the work of Lacrosse for LIFE at Gilman Playground.
Ellee has a PhD in Economics, an MA in Economics and a BA in International and Comparative Studies. She is a consultant in leadership and transformation and an international pioneer in the use of vision and values to drive and transform organizations to high performance. Ellee has written and published many articles and a book entitled: Even Bears Can Learn to Tango: Leadership Wisdom for the Ages. She is also an avid photographer.
George M. Pereira
George played goalie and midfield at Ossining High School (NY) and at Oneonta State (NY). He began his coaching career in Mountain Lakes New Jersey, where he coached youth lacrosse for three years.
He moved to Danville, California in 2000, and since there were no local lacrosse programs in the area, he co-founded the Diablo Scorpion Lacrosse club. Using the Mountain Lakes program as a model, he implemented similar philosophies in this new program which included respect for the game, players and officials, encouraging the playing of multiple sports and a focus on fundamentals. George was the President of the Club from 2000-2005. Under his leadership, the Diablo Scorpion lacrosse club became the largest lacrosse program in the Bay area in 2004, within five years and through the present the club is the largest individual club in the State of California. The program is thriving today with over 670 players enjoying the game annually.
From the inception of this new program through 2005, George was the head coach of several Scorpion Boys teams. During that tenure his teams won several championships and the program’s teams were consistently amongst the strongest in the league. George also actively volunteered as a Board member of the Northern California Junior Lacrosse Association (“NCJLA”). He was the President of the NCJLA in 2005.
In 2006, George moved on to an assistant coach role at De La Salle High School. That same year, he was also an Assistant Coach on the first Northern California U15 team to win the Vail Lacrosse Tournament. Later in 2006, he was honored as US Lacrosse Northern California Man of the Year, and was also awarded with the US Lacrosse “Excellence in Growing the Game Award” at the USL National Convention.
He continued as the Varsity defensive coach for the De La Salle Spartans through 2010, and proceeded to the NCS Championships in each of those years taking home 3 titles. He was named Assistant Lacrosse Coach of the Year by the Contra Costa Times in 2009. In addition, he continued his offseason coaching of the Norcal travel teams and led the Norcal U17 Team to its first Vail Championship at that age level in 2008.
He continued to volunteer his time off the field as well. From 2006-2010, he was an active Board Member on the NorCal Chapter of US Lacrosse Board. He actively promoted and supported the growth of the sport, coaching conventions and assisting the Chapter in supporting its members.
George has spent the last four years back with the Scorpion program but this time coaching its Girls teams. He has passed on his passion for the game and gone through a great learning experience with similar success, and capped by winning the U15A NCJLA Championship in 2013.
Jack Pierce
Jack Pierce has been playing, organizing and coaching lacrosse since his undergraduate days at the University of Notre Dame where he served as team co-captain of the 1970 team. He is currently an active player on the U.S. Naval Academy’s Super Masters team, which competes each year for the Vail Super Masters’ title and he also has played for the Notre Dame Masters team in national Masters competition.
He has played on, managed, organized and coached numerous California men’s club lacrosse teams including NorCal champions, San Francisco Lacrosse Club (NorCal Champs ’75, ’76, ’77), the Golden Gate Lacrosse Club (NorCal Champs ’81), the Monterey Lacrosse Club and the Sacramento Lacrosse Club. He has been a member of several Nor-Cal Club All-Star teams during his tenure in NorCal Club lacrosse. In 2002, he was selected to play on one of the U.S. Masters teams competing at the World Games in Perth, Australia.
Jack has also organized and coached lacrosse on the Junior and High school levels. He participated in the formation of Oakland Youth Lacrosse at its inception in the late 1970’s, later coaching and organizing the Oakland Junior Lacrosse program and the Skyline Youth Lacrosse programs in the mid to late 1990’s. He has served as the parent the lacrosse coordinator and assistant defensive coach at Bishop O’Dowd and Lick Wilmerding high schools.
Jack has also coached a number of Northern California high school All-Star teams. Most recently he returned to serve as a defensive assistant coach for the Bishop O’Dowd High School Lacrosse Team (2009-2011).
Three of his four sons have played high school and/or college lacrosse and he continues to play with one or more of them each summer on teams competing in the Lake Tahoe tournament.
Rorke T. Denver grew up in Los Altos, CA and was on track to play Division I water polo in college. Shortly before he began his spring swimming season his sophomore year, he saw a small 3x5 flyer as he walked out of an English class announcing the creation of a ‘Club Lacrosse’ team. Rorke’s parents and grandfather had attended Syracuse University and after a few trips east, Rorke had seen kids playing catch in their yards with funny looking sticks.