Cameron's legacy reaches beyond just Bishop Guertin boys lacrosse

There was a moment during the fourth quarter of last spring's Division I boys lacrosse championship, where Chris Cameron pulled aside official Sean Murphy for a quick word.

Cameron's Bishop Guertin High School team was in the midst of a battle with Bedford, and when a win began to look like the likely outcome, the longtime Cardinals' coach had a request.

"Once we knew the game was in control, I asked Sean Murphy if he could get me the ball," Cameron said, "because I had a feeling that could have been it."

There were a few reasons for Cameron to want the ball. It was the program's fourth D1 title in a row, the second time the Cardinals had accomplished that feat. It was also Cameron's 13th championship overall, setting a state record.

But neither of those reasons were "it."

After a high school coaching career that began in 2003, that not only produced the most championships in state history, but also saw Bishop Guertin in 19 consecutive title games, while graduating 72 USA Lacrosse All-Americans, Cameron announced on Sept. 17 that he was stepping down as the Cardinals head coach.

"I demand our kids to be all in, and to be always pushing themselves to be their best, and they deserve that from me," Cameron said. "I don’t want to say I was complacent. There was never a practice I went to and said ‘I can’t wait for this to be over.’ I still look forward to every practice and every game. I felt like they weren’t getting the best person."

The school announced that same day that Cameron's son, Brian, would be taking over as head coach, effectively immediately, and that the elder Cameron would stay on as an assistant. They'll both assume their new roles officially as Bishop Guertin opens the 2025 regular season against St.  John's Prep, of Danvers., Mass., at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Merrimack College.

It's a move that shocked many, including several boys lacrosse coaches around New Hampshire, but was not a complete surprise.

"I always felt like, and he’s had such a great run, but this year, getting over that threshold (of 13 titles), I knew it could be coming at some point," said Steve Gaudreau, who is now the Bedford coach after spending the previous five seasons at Pinkerton. "Chris has always developed younger coaches and done a good job building it up."

Derryfield coach Chris Hettler, who has also worked alongside Cameron for his club program, the New Hampshire Tomahawks, can understand the desire to pass the torch now.

"A lot of his success has been because he outworked and stayed a step head of everyone else," Hettler said. "He put a lot of time into relationship building with parents and kids. He could have kept doing what he’s doing, but had the recognition that he had someone, who happened to be his son, who has the energy.

"It’s a neat thing to say I love this program so much, I’m going to be able to step aside because someone might be able to do it better."

'You beat the best in the state'

Before the possibility of coaching ever crossed his mind, Cameron was a standout player at Lehigh University, leading the nation in scoring in 1986 and earning All-American honors in 1989. He was just the fourth player in Division I history to score more than 300 points and ended his college career third on the all-time scoring list; he was still 18th going into this season.

Cameron also played on the men's soccer team at Lehigh, and since he didn't play as a freshman, still had a year of eligibility left when he stuck around for grad school. That spring, he helped the lacrosse team as a coach.

"It was just something that, after I graduated from Lehigh, I stayed on," he said. "I didn’t play soccer as a freshman. In grad school, I used my fourth year of soccer and I coached lacrosse and I absolutely loved it. I didn’t have the vision that, coaching, you could make a living out of it."

Instead, he took a job in Boston, while also playing for the Boston Blazers of the National Lacrosse League from 1992-94.

Eventually, Cameron got involved with the youth program in Bedford, and in 2003, took over as the head coach at Trinity High School.

"I had my interview with (former Trinity athletic director) Pat Smith and had my first practice that day," Cameron said. "Our first game was three days later, we’d been practicing in a parking lot, and we played Derryfield and won.

"I didn’t pay attention to high school at all (before that). My assistant said 'you just beat the best team in the state.' I was like ‘wow, really.’ Two days later, we get on a bus and go to Laconia, and we’re down 12-0 at halftime."

Cameron quickly learned the landscape of high school lacrosse in New Hampshire, thanks in part to a neighbor.

"I went to watch my neighbor, Eddie Daly, who played for BG, and they were playing Pinkerton and I went ‘oh my God, I want to be Pinkerton,’" Cameron said. "I was in awe of Pinkerton. I wanted to be like Pinkerton, and it happened much quicker than I thought."

After spending a season at Trinity, Cameron took over as the head coach at Bishop Guertin in 2004. The Cardinals got off to a rough start that year, losing their first seven games, before rebounding to end the year well.

"People were ready to get rid of me at BG and I was questioning myself," Cameron said. "I think they’d won three games total the (previous) two years. We had to work on the culture and build up their confidence because they thought they weren’t any good. People were like ‘who is this guy? What is he doing?’ Then we rattled off eight wins in a row against teams that weren’t very good."

It was around that time that the new high school lacrosse coach decided he wanted to do more for his players.

"When I was at Trinity, I had some good players who wanted to play college lacrosse," Cameron said. "I was calling friends in the coaching profession and saying ‘you’ve got to see this kid.’ They’re like 'no we’re not coming to New Hampshire.' You’ve got to start a club team and go to these tournaments. Then I realized quickly I wanted to be there to help these kids."

The rise of the Cardinals

One of the ways Cameron decided he wanted to emulate the Pinkerton program was in the level of competition that it played every year.

"I saw that Pinkerton would play Longmeadow (Mass.), and I think they played Cape Elizabeth (Maine) back then," he said. "Me playing Division II teams, I don’t think that’s going to get us where we want to get to."

So Cameron tried to get teams from around the region to agree to play games against Bishop Guertin. The only way any of them would do it, is if the Cardinals came to them.

"In order to push them, we had to start playing the out-of-state games," Cameron said. "If you want to play, sure, but you’ve got to be on the road. I had to beg, borrow and steal to get Duxbury (Mass.) to play us. We had to go to Needham (Mass.)."

More recently, Bishop Guertin has played annually against teams from Massachusetts, like Boston College High, Acton-Boxborough and Xaverian Brothers (Westwood). All three are on the schedule for this season.

This will be the third year in a row the Cardinals have played St. John's Prep, and the secondtime the game is played at Merrimack, and this year will be the fourth time Bishop Guertin has faced Staples, from Westport, Conn., one of the top programs in that state.

And for the first time, Bishop Guertin will play against Darien (Conn.), with that game scheduled for Bryant University in Smithfield, R.I., on May 15.

"(Darien) is one of the top teams in the country," Cameron said. "That was part of the vision. If we want to develop these kids and be the best version of ourselves from a team standpoint, we’ve got to play these out-of-state games.

"(The NHIAA) changed it at some point, where those games used to not count. I had to make a decision, do I worry about that, or do I not and where we fall, we fall. It is what it is, we’re going to still challenge ourselves. There was also a point in time when the losses felt a lot more than the wins. A lot of teams followed since. "

Pinkerton has continued to play out of state games, but now others in Division I do as well, including Exeter, Bedford, Merrimack and Londonderry. In Division II, Derryfield and Portsmouth have as well.

"I can’t overstate what Chris has done for everybody in the state, getting New Hampshire lacrosse seen nationally," Hettler said. "That we have Division I college coaches flying in on Sept. 1 to meet with juniors is incredible. He loves to get the kids recruited and seen on a national level.

"People get upset with how much BG wins, but a rising tide raises all ships. Every program has gotten better because they've tried to keep up with BG."

The coaching carrousel

There are three programs in D1 that have become perennial semifinalists in the last decade of boys lacrosse - Bishop Guertin, Pinkerton and Exeter.

Six years ago, those programs were led by head coaches who had been at each one for a long time. Brian O'Reilly was the first to step down, doing so after Pinkerton won its second of back-to-back titles in 2019.

Gerry Holly, who coached at Exeter for over 20 years, then decided to hang it up after the Blue Hawks came close to upsetting Bishop Guertin in the final in 2021.

Now, with Cameron taking on a lesser role with the Cardinals, the coaching landscape among the top programs in the state is changing again.

But that change is now including the next generation of coaches, with five of the 14 teams in D1 going into this year with a new coach, including at Bedford.

“What I had pictured, you had Matt Brewster, who took over at Exeter,” said Drew Bourdeau, who left the Bulldogs after two seasons to become the men's lacrosse coach at St. Anselm College. “Steve Gaudreau takes over at Pinkerton. I took over at Bedford. Dave Wiedenfeld at Londonderry. At some point, Chris was going to step down and we’re going to make it the next Mount Rushmore of coaches.”

Instead, Bourdeau is leading the Saints, who are the No. 3 ranked team in Division II men's lacrosse. Wiedenfeld is an assistant coach at Keene State College, and Gaudreau left Pinkerton to replace Bourdeau at Bedford.

"It’s funny to see the landscape of coaching and how it has changed in a lot of ways," Gaudreau said. "For me, it’s weird to look around and feel like the old guy in town. The nature of things is for people to bounce around, so to have that sustained success is impressive."

Boudreau believes that the success will continue on for Bishop Guertin.

"This is Brian’s dream, he’s always been a fan of BG lacrosse," Bourdeau said. "As a friend, I’m proud of him for the next step."

A family tradition

Last year wasn't the first time Cameron thought about stepping down as the head coach at Bishop Guertin.

"Going into the 2016 season, I didn’t know if I was going to come back," he said. "I was like what am I doing here?"

The Cardinals had lost to Pinkerton in the 2015 championship game. Cameron's daughter, Kristin, had just graduated from Bishop Guertin and was on her way to play at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. Brian had wrapped up his freshman year playing for Brewster Academy, and Cameron's youngest son, Sean, was going to school in Bedford and planned to stay there.

But within a year, almost all of it had changed.

"All Brian wanted to do was be a player at BG," Cameron said. "Then, Sean was like 'I want to go to BG' and that changed everything. That was going to be my last year (in 2016) because I wanted to watch them play."

Instead, the Cardinals bounced back with a title in 2016, and with Brian and Sean joining their father at Bishop Guertin the next year, they made it back-to-back championships.

"Everyone wants you to rank your championships, but 2017 is my favorite because both Brian and Sean were on the team," Cameron said. "They’re all special in their own right. Thank goodness I didn’t (leave). They would have gotten a really good coach and done a good job, and I would have been missing it. Maybe I’d be somewhere else."

That somewhere will still be on the sidelines, wearing his Cardinals gear, but in a different capacity and watching

"I watched Brian throughout the course of the summer," Cameron said. "He coached a lot of the kids. I see the way they are around him and the respect (they have for him). You just know when it’s time. I felt that. I could have gone on for another 10 years because I love it. I felt like it was in the best interest of the program to give it the vision and the energy that Brian has."

Cameron hopes that Brian is able to use that energy to keep the Cardinals at the level they've been at and beyond, which was something he saw from Bourdeau during his short stint at Bedford.

But the reality was, Bourdeau was just trying to match the things he'd seen when watching the Bishop Guertin sideline.

"The respect that he gets on a national level, all from making nothing into something," Bourdeau said. "Now when he walks the fields, other coaches all know who he is, they know who his players are. They point to the shiny helmet and say ‘that’s BG’s helmet.’ He’s put himself and New Hampshire lacrosse on the map.

"To get a glimpse of how he’s able to do it, and the relationships he has, has made me a better coach."