Feature Story - Rob Bordley ’70, All-Ivy In Two Sports, To Enter Lacrosse Hall Of Fame

The Landon School in Bethesda, Md., is a school for boys in grades 3-12. Rob Bordley spent 11 years there.

Well, he spent 11 years there the first time around.

"I did third grade twice," he says with a laugh. "I guess I wasn't the best student. I call that my post-grad year."

That was his introduction to Landon. Who could have imagined then that his run at the school wouldn't end until more than 60 years later? If he started out near the back of the class, he certainly made his way forward – and then stayed there.

He was an honors student when he graduated from Princeton University in 1970, after earning All-Ivy League honors in lacrosse and football. And he spent his career at the head of his classrooms, whether they be inside the building or on the playing fields outside.

"I can speak for myself and for countless other graduates of Landon," says Mark Kovler, a Landon grad who became a first-team All-American midfielder at Princeton before graduating in 2009 and who is now a fifth-year surgical resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital. "There are a lot of people out there who would like to give a huge amount of thanks, appreciation and gratitude to Coach Bordley for the type of person he crafted us into being, the type of player we became and the kind of citizen he expected us to be. There are a large number of people who would count Coach Bordley as one of the most influential people in their lives, and that is certainly true for me."

Kovler's college coach, Bill Tierney, is a member of the US Lacrosse National Hall of Fame. Now his high school coach, Rob Bordley, will be joining Tierney there.

Bordley is one of the eight members of the National Hall of Fame's Class of 2020, which was announced this week. Bordley is being recognized as a truly great coach, one who never coached a college or professional game but who instead spent his career as a high school teacher and coach and who had a record of 655-123 in lacrosse, with four teams that were honored as high school national champions.

He sent countless players from Landon to college lacrosse, including at least 14 who would play at Princeton and at least five who would serve as Tiger captains. His former players have gone on to careers in fields such as medicine, law, business and the military (including five Navy SEALS).

"I must say, I was startled when I heard the news," Bordley says. "I don't really know much about the Hall of Fame, but I will say that it is very humbling. I think anyone who knows me knows that I always had great assistant coaches, and they deserve so much of the credit. I always said a good idea is a good idea. It doesn't matter who had it."

Bordley will now be immortalized with the greatest players and coaches in the history of the sport.

"I didn't know Rob as a player at Princeton, but those ties and the lacrosse coaching profession brought us together in later years," Tierney says. "Rob's acumen as a great lacrosse coach at Landon, his success and his ability to develop his players to be Division I ready were unmatched by most and make him one of the greatest high school coaches ever. This honor is truly deserved."

Bordley came to lacrosse late, having not played it until he got to high school. By then, his best sports were football and track and field, and he grew up also playing baseball.

He went to Princeton after leaving Landon in 1966 (saying he "left" Landon, given how his post-Princeton career played out, is sort of laughable) and played football and lacrosse as a Tiger. He was listed at 5-7, 150 pounds, but he was fast and he was fearless, qualities that served him especially well on special teams when he covered and returned punts.

He also was a wide receiver, which up until his senior year wasn't that glamorous of a spot, given that Princeton was still playing the single-wing. It wasn't until Jake McCandless replaced Hall-of-Fame coach Dick Colman for Bordley's senior year that Princeton went to a pro-style offense, and the result was an Ivy title in 1969.

"We absolutely blew the Yale game in 1969," Bordley recalls. "And then we had to play unbeaten Dartmouth the next week in Palmer Stadium. I didn't think we had a chance to turn things around in one week, but we did. We actually ended up beating them easily."

That 35-7 win over Dartmouth earned a share of the title. Of all of the players who benefited from the move away from the single-wing, maybe none did more so than Bordley, who went from a minor role in the offense to a senior year that saw him make 30 receptions for 351 yards and three TDs to earn first-team All-Ivy League honors.

His junior lacrosse season had been one of promise as well. A middie, Bordley was a second-team All-Ivy League selection, and he was focused on possibly earning first-team in a second sport his final season at Princeton.

Instead, world events interceded. It was a tumultuous time, the spring of 1970, with Vietnam War protests on college campuses across the country and eventually the shootings at Kent State. In this climate, Bordley felt he could not in good conscience finish out his lacrosse season.

"There were teams who stopped playing," he says. "I did my senior thesis on the Tonkin Gulf resolution and the origins of the way in Vietnam. I felt like the country was lied to and manipulated. I'm not really sure why I and others felt that not finishing our season would have an impact, but we were caught up in the emotions of the time. I didn't believe in the war. I'd written my junior paper and senior thesis on the war."

Princeton's coach at the time was Ferris Thomsen. Bordley went to his office to meet with him.

"He was an older father figure, almost a grandfather figure," Bordley says. "I adored him and had a great deal of respect for him. It was one of the toughest things I've had to do. I had dreamed of being first-team All-Ivy, maybe All-American. I'd worked hard to get ready for that season. Ferris tried to talk me out of it, and we ended up hugging. I'm proud of myself because I gave up something important for something that I thought was more important."

If that decision was difficult, what happened after graduation wasn't.

"I wasn't sure what I wanted to do after graduation," says Bordley, whose father Rob was in the Class of 1940 at Princeton. "I thought I might like to try teaching and coaching, and that's what I did. To be honest, the teaching part at first was the hardest. That's a lot of work. But the more I did it, the more I loved the teaching part. Now I miss the classroom more than I miss the coaching."

He became a history teacher, and during the course of his time there, he taught basically every kind of history there was.

His introduction to coaching at Landon was actually in basketball, when during a timeout in the final seconds of a game in which he trailed by one he drew up the perfect play for his best player – only to be told when the team broke the huddle that the player had in fact fouled out.

"Somebody else hit the shot," he says, again laughing at the memory.

He'd spent 10 years as the head football coach in addition to lacrosse, but the majority of his career was spent coaching one of the nation's best high school programs year after year. As of now, that career can be amended to be known as a Hall-of-Fame career.

"Coach Bordley was similar to Coach T in that both absolutely expected the best that you had to give," Kovler says. "What coach Bordley did was instill a sense of work ethic in all of his players. That became obvious in high school and led many of his players to be successful in college as well. He certainly led by example at all times. He was the hardest working guy on the team. He always drove up to college practices and games to take notes on drills and plays. He was constantly working to improve himself as a coach. He really inspired the team and the kids to work hard to improve themselves. He's also extremely humble. He always credits his assistant coaches for the success of the team. He never took the credit. It was always about the team and the assistant coaches."

He had options to move up to the college ranks, but it wasn't something that appealed to him. Instead, he stayed at Landon, where he coached his sons JR (who played at Maryland) and Austin (who played at Delaware). His daughter Claire was a first-team All-American lacrosse player at Virginia after attending Holton-Arms, as Landon is an all-boys school.

The football and lacrosse stadium at Landon is named for him.

"I would have liked the X's and O's of college," he says. "The recruiting wasn't for me. Ultimately, though, it came down to the fact that I was always very happy at Landon."

Rob Bordley's Hall-of-Fame Description
Bordley will be inducted as a truly great coach. One of the most successful boys' high school coaches ever, he amassed a 655-123 record in 44 seasons at Landon School in Bethesda, Md., becoming one of just five coaches to surpass the 600-win milestone. He retired following the 2018 season with a career winning percentage of over 84 percent. Bordley led Landon to 32 league championships during his tenure, including four undefeated seasons. His teams were ranked number one in the Washington Metropolitan area 19 times. Bordley coached 47 high school All-Americans and produced 59 players named to the All-Metro first team. He also had 39 players who would go on to become collegiate All-Americans. Bordley was selected as both The Washington Post's and the USLCA's coach of the year five times, and was recognized as the National Interscholastic Lacrosse Coaches Association (NILCA) man of the year in 2017. He also won the US Lacrosse Gerald J. Carroll Award in 2017. He was inducted previously into the US Lacrosse Potomac Chapter Hall of Fame in 2004.

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