Northwestern Lehigh boys lacrosse head coach Marcus Janda is the kind of coach that lives and dies with his team.

When the Tigers were eliminated in this year’s district semifinals it was not a surprise to see Janda standing alone by the team’s bench shedding tears.

There was something more than the loss that was on Janda’s mind. He had made the decision to leave the program that he was instrumental in starting. He wasn’t going to change his mind, so this was the end for Janda as the Northwestern Lehigh coach.

One thing more important to Janda than lacrosse is his family and families tend to grow and change quickly, and Janda doesn’t want to miss anymore of it than he already has.

“My little man Jase Janda, he’s only two, but he’s already got the stick in his hand,” he said. “My daughter, Rhyan Janda, she’s going to be playing kindergarten youth in a year’s time. You’ll catch me on the youth sideline at times.”

The change in coaches will be the first for the program.

When the school decided to start lacrosse for boys and girls in the spring of 2019, athletic director Jason Zimmerman had a lot of work to do to get ready. At the top of his to-do list was hiring a coach.

“We couldn’t have been more fortunate to land him,” said Zimmerman of hiring Janda. “I’ll never forget the day I made a call down to Bob Tice (the assistant athletic director) at Parkland. He said, ‘if you don’t hire him, you’re crazy.’

“With his family getting a little bit older, he decided it was time and coaching doesn’t permit him to do that. Because of his job, he can’t be there for practice at three, so the team was practicing every night at six and he was there until at least eight. Then come the games and it means a lot of time away from your family.”

The team won six games in that inaugural 2019 season and grew from there.

In 2020, COVID canceled the entire spring sports season. Sports restarted in 2021, and the Tigers went 5-12 only to rebound in 2022 when they made it to their first district playoff bracket as the number-two seed.

A win over Moravian Academy moved Northwestern into the finals where it fell to perennial powerhouse Allentown Central Catholic.

A year later came the team’s revenge when the Tigers were back in the district finals and again faced the Vikings. They shocked them to win the young program’s first district championship.

“One of the things that I am proudest of is the number of alumni that come back to see games and that were at Lehigh University when we won districts and celebrated with the current players,” said Janda. “We have always tried to make this like a family and we stressed to those early teams that when we eventually win gold, it will be because of the foundation that they built. Though they don’t have gold medals, they would kind of share in them when we won them for the first time.”

In his six seasons as the Tigers coach, Janda finished with a 58-53 record with a district championship and two other appearances in the district finals.

“When you saw those tears, they were real,” said Zimmerman. “Because it was a chapter closing in his life and now he’s opening another one.

“He gave his heart and soul to Northwestern and even moved into the community. He also did a fantastic job of bringing on a staff that hopefully, we can be turnkey where we don’t miss a beat.”

The biggest honor for Janda would be for the program to continue to build on its success and capture more district championships. Then, Janda can be the one coming back for a visit to share in the gold medals that he built the foundation to win.