Bear Ball Exclusive: Meet NBHS Lacrosse Coach Sean Fleming

Bear Ball Blogging was created to keep fans connected to New Bern HS sports. We started with the football and basketball program. Now we move on to one of the fastest (and fastest-growing) sports in the US: lacrosse.

Lacrosse is a relatively new sport in North Carolina. It is a team sport that is played with a stick, a ball, and two goals. It incorporates elements of hockey, soccer, and basketball. Lacrosse is the oldest sport in North America, created by Native Americans hundreds of years before Columbus arrived.

New Bern High School’s Lacrosse program is almost ten years old and has won 5 conference championships. The first lacrosse coach at New Bern was Steve Hopkinson and he created quite a winning tradition. However, he stepped down after the 2019 season, after winning his third straight conference championship and leading the program to the second round of the state playoffs for the second time in a row.

I recently talked with the man taking over for Coach Hop, Coach Sean Fleming. So who is Coach Fleming? “I am originally from Philadelphia. I live here in New Bern, before that, I lived in a combination of Germany for work and school and Greenville for my studies at East Carolina. I have three younger brothers who were all involved in Lacrosse, it was a family thing for sure. I am also quite close to them, despite them being in Philadelphia still. I enjoy sports. I am an avid sports fan and also enjoy staying active.”

Coach Fleming started playing Lacrosse in high school while looking for a new sport to replace baseball, his first love. “So I started playing [Lacrosse] by helping to start a club team at my high school, with my friends and some of the community members. That was in 2001 when Lacrosse was beginning to boom in the Philadelphia region, which is sandwiched between Maryland and New York, two historical hotbeds for the sport. It has come a long way since then, and what I should be thankful for the most is being cut from the high school baseball team to help me find the sport.”

Coach Fleming had this to say about the impact of lacrosse on his life, “Lacrosse has been a really important part of my life for a long time. Really since I started playing when I was 15, which was 17 years ago. It provided my brothers and me with a lot of opportunities. It’s also a fun and fulfilling way to give back to the youth.”

After graduating from high school, Coach Sean continued playing lacrosse in college as a member of the club team at East Carolina University. “I played club ball at East Carolina for three years, I also played during my semester in Germany, on a team there that was a part of a team that played on base (US Army Base).”

How did a Philadelphia native end up at ECU and then New Bern? “So I went to school at East Carolina and was living in Greenville, because, at the time, I had cousins who lived in Wilson, the only portion of my family in NC. One of them graduated from ECU and I knew I wanted to move away from home, find something new and exciting. So Greenville was the start, I found New Bern because of a job opportunity, Bosch in appliances, it was a great fit for me, and they offered me a position even before graduation. So it all came together for me.”

Mumfest means a lot to New Bern and it is also important to Coach Sean’s life. “I’ve always known I always wanted to coach, I quite literally stumbled across the Bruins (New Bern’s youth lacrosse team) at the MumFest in 2011, that’s how it all started. It is fun to interact and help in the community. The journey all started with the U15 Bruins and moved up to high school from there. Most notably, with a group of players that had a lot of talent and great attitudes. I was very motivated to move up with them, and contribute some of my playing knowledge of the sport in total, to the high school program.”

Coach Fleming talked more about his love of coaching. “My coaching career started with the Bruins U15 program back in 2012, it has evolved a lot since then. I quickly realized how much I enjoyed it, and I even feel today it’s a calling of sorts. Sometimes I wonder if it’s because of my shortcomings as a player, but in actual reality, it is just an opportunity to develop young men and to grow the game.”

After years of coaching with and also serving as president of the Bruins youth lacrosse league, Coach Fleming was able to start coaching in High School, “I started my role as an assistant coach at New Bern in 2015 as a volunteer. But last year, I was moved up to the JV head coach position and was also Coach Hop’s right-hand man on the varsity team. Which eventually led to my position as head coach for the 2020 season.”

Coach Sean had this to say about the current program “I would say the program has been chock full of talent since I got here. The real change was capitalizing on that talent by working with the youth program, getting a JV schedule, and winning playoff games.”

After years of time and effort with New Bern youth lacrosse, Coach Sean was very excited and honored to be the Head Coach at New Bern High. “The moment was really exciting. I was grateful for the opportunity that was given to me by the athletic director Steve Hardee. They acknowledged that I poured a lot into the program, both on the youth side and at the high school. They gave me the opportunity despite having quite a busy and active career, that could at anytime conflict with coaching. But they still gave me the opportunity, and it was really exciting because of all the potential this program has.”

So, just a few short months after receiving the great news, the Bears were able to kick off their new tenure under Coach Fleming in February, “So the first season as head coach has not been conventional by any means. But I learned a lot through the challenges we faced, capped off with the pandemic. I learned the most about the importance of staying connected with the group and building long term relationships with the rest of the athletic department. I didn’t get a whole lot of bus driving experience. Other than that, it was good.”

Coach Fleming is particularly disappointed for a talented senior class who only played 5 games in their final season. “The hardest part of the quarantine is not able to realize the potential this group had. Especially the seventeen seniors, the ceiling was high; I know that much. I feel for them.”

Even through tough times, Coach Fleming is keeping an eye on the future as brighter days are ahead, “The biggest thing for the group and myself have been to keep looking forward, and not to get caught up in what could’ve been, and what we didn’t achieve which could lead to challenges for us mentally. What I have been doing and been focusing on is making sure we stay connected and looking forward to the future.”

Coach Fleming is looking forward to capitalizing on what will be a crucial offseason, “Next up is a much more involved and busier and active summer and fall schedule, assuming it is safe to do so. Individual work and team play are both vital, it’s key to keep our group strong, and it’s best to keep those big numbers invested in the program. We had 44 kids this past season and couldn’t be happier about that.”

Through the tough times that the country and world are enduring right now, Coach Fleming is still proud to be a Bear, “I couldn’t be prouder! The Bears were my high school mascot; the transition was seamless; I find myself keeping a close eye on the success of other sports programs. I love to instill the team’s sense of pride in the boys, especially to keep the alumni network strong.”

Coach Fleming and the New Bern High School Lacrosse Program would also like to take this chance to provide a link for more information to any potential youth or HS student interested in playing the sport that has given a lot to so many at New Bern HS.

http://www.bruinslacrosse.uslaxteams.com/

https://www.facebook.com/NewBernYouthLacrosseClub/