Princeton University Athletics
Feature Story: The Influencer
February 16, 2023 | Men's Lacrosse
Tyler Sandoval stumbled out of the gate. Then he overran the ball. This face-off seemed lost.
And what would be the big deal if it was? This was just a scrimmage anyway. It would be a completely forgettable moment, were it not for two interesting subplots.
First, there was what Sandoval did on the play. He stopped on a dime and did a 180, scooping up the ball and splitting two defenders before finding open group to secure possession. It was a play that required athleticism, balance and strength, all of which Sandoval has in abundance.
That, though, is not all he has. Nope. The Princeton junior also has a following of nearly 400,000 on Instagram and closing in on 300,000 on Tik Tok. As such, that one face-off from one lacrosse scrimmage in early February has been viewed over and over and over, with a count exceeding 100,000 in the first five days. If you think that’s a high number, consider that he also has multiple videos that have gone well over the one million mark.
His following makes Sandoval one of the most-known players in college lacrosse, and it has given him the perfect vehicle to pursue what it is he most wants to do: help others.
“That’s who he is,” says Princeton head coach Matt Madalon. “He puts himself out there for everyone to see. He’s not hiding anything. He’s as genuine as it gets. He wants to help people, however he can. One day, that will be through medicine. For now, it’s by being te best teammate he can be, but it’s also through his reach on social media.”
In the world today, there are those who use their massive social media followings to get attention. Sandoval uses it to educate, to connect, to reach out, to set an example and more than anything else, to make sure that those who do follow him to know they are not alone.
It’s a mission that grew out of his own experiences, when as a middle schooler on Long Island he was subjected to bullying and isolation. He has used that memory to fuel himself ever since.
“It was bad,” he says. “I’d get text messages from parties saying that I wasn’t invited. It got progressively worse from that. They’d be calling me around the clock, sending me vulgar messages. I didn’t really know how to handle it.”
His solution was to throw himself into his training, which he simply took on himself in his backyard. If he got a text message like that, he’d simply go for a run, even in the middle of the night. He also threw himself into his face-off training, a position he picked up in middle school because a coach said he “looked like a FOGO.”
In fact, he overdid it. He trained so hard and practiced so much that he ended up tearing cartilage in his elbow, an injury that required surgery. It was after he recovered that his facing off ability skyrocketed, beginning on, interestingly enough, social media.
Sandoval sent a DM on Instagram to Greg Gurenlian, who is one of the greatest face-off men of all time and perhaps the best teacher of facing off there has ever been. Gurenlian began to train Sandoval, who immediately became one of the best in the country in his class.
He’d help Chaminade High School to three league championships, and he was named the MVP of the Catholic High School state championship game as a junior in 2018. He was also the Face-Off National Showcase champion in 2019.
He committed to Princeton early on in his time at Chaminade, and he arrived on campus in the fall of 2019 to solidify a position at which the Tigers have traditionally struggled. He started his career by winning 54 percent of his face-offs while adding a goal (against Rutgers) and assist (against Johns Hopkins) as the Tigers raced out to a 5-0 start and a top three national ranking. He almost singlehandedly won the Rutgers game, turning a 6-6 tie into a 12-6 Princeton lead by winning six straight face-offs that led to six straight goals.
And then? The pandemic hit. Just like that, his freshman year was over and his future was now uncertain.
“It was so frustrating,” he says. “We thought we’d be back in two weeks, but then we started to realize what was going on. I mean, both of my parents are doctors, and they were sanitizing groceries in the very beginning. That’s when the reality began to set in.”
Like all Princeton students at the time, Sandoval was left with a difficult choice, to stay enrolled or to withdraw for a year and let the pandemic hopefully pass. As pre-med students, Sandoval and his teammate Weston Carpenter agreed they’d stay enrolled to take organic chemistry and molecular biology. He started classes in the spring as well but made the tough decision to withdraw when the 2021 season was cancelled.
“I called up Coach Madalon almost immediately and told him that I was going to withdraw,” Sandoval says. “My dream has always been to be on the lacrosse team, to win a national championship. Withdrawing would help me achieve that goal. Not withdrawing would have haunted me for the rest of my life. It was one of the best decisions I ever made.”
He made good use of his time, getting an online research position with the hospital at Duke University, through which he’d end up authoring two papers on orthopedics, including serving as the lead on one of them. He comes from a medical family, as both of his parents are doctors. He’s wanted to follow in their footsteps for as long as he can remember.
“Even if I win the lottery,” he says, “I’d still go to medical school.”
He hasn’t exactly won the lottery on social media, but he has become a sensation in a relatively short time. And it started with the same two role models, his parents.
“The whole social media thing started on my gap year,” he says. “I spoke to my parents, and I told them that I really wanted to be a doctor but I also really want to help people. I want to help millions and millions of people. I needed a much larger audience that I ever thought I could achieve. Both of my parents gave me the confidence and support I needed.”
With the changes to the rules of college athletics that enabled athlete to earn money off of their Name, Image and Likeness, Sandoval applied for and became a student ambassador for an energy company. He made a Tik Tok video advertising a promo code in October 2021. By the end of November he had 3,500 Tik Tok followers. Then he started putting up lacrosse videos and training videos.
Once the 2022 season began, his following was at 10,000. Within a month it had reached 70,000. It made him a bit of a celebrity to the young lacrosse fans — and a target to opponents.
“I realized I was building a following,” he says. “Clearly everyone who knows lacrosse knew I was making these videos. I remember the first time after a game when a few kids ran up to me and said ‘you’re Tyler from Tik Tok. Can I have your autograph? Can we take a picture?’ The fact that I could make someone smile really told me something. This was very unique. At the same time, pretty much all of our opponents would say something to me about the videos. Some of it was pretty wild. I talked to my teammates, and they told me not to worry about it. The comments the other teams make to me don’t matter.”
From there, he branched out into videos about recruiting and then ultimately into another subject that has really resonated — academics. Those are the videos that have really gone viral, registering views in the millions.
He enters his junior season this weekend as Princeton’s top face-off specialist. He won 54 percent of his 377 face-offs last year, adding a goal, two assists and a team-best 94 ground balls. He won 57 percent in Princeton’s three NCAA games a year ago as the Tigers returned to Championship Weekend.
This year, he’s one of four Princeton FOGOs, along with sophomore Koby Ginder and freshmen Andrew McMeekin and Jim Williams. It’s a deep, talented group that pushes each other every day in practice and keeps each other grounded on game days.
“We help each other a crazy amount,” Sandoval says. “Koby and I actually met when I was in seventh grade. I gravitated towards him immediately. Now we’re like brothers here. We have some sort of crazy universal connection. I can get very emotional, and Koby has done an awesome job of regulating my emotions.”
The position is one that attracts a unique kind of player. There really isn’t another position quite like it in sports, with such a nuanced individual skill that impacts on the team so meaningfully. It’s not easy. It’s not for everyone.
Want to really know what it’s about? Want to know what it's like to be a lacrosse player while being a Princeton pre-med student? Check out Tyler Sandoval on social media, just like a few hundred thousand others.
— by Jerry Price
