A Whole Lotta Love – My View of the 2025 Callum Robinson Mustang Classic

A Whole Lotta Love… A Whole Lotta Lacrosse… In that order.

That’s what this past weekend’s Callum Robinson Mustang Classic was all about.

The two-day, ten-game festival of NCAA Division III lacrosse was celebrating its tenth season at Stevenson University. But the celebration of the sport took on a whole new meaning in 2025.

Callum Robinson graduated from Stevenson in 2015 and became one of the most accomplished players in program history. The native of Australia was a key contributor to the Mustangs’ NCAA National Championship title in 2013. In addition to his national championship, Robinson was named a USILA First Team All-American, Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC) Men’s Lacrosse Scholar Athlete of the Year and was later drafted by the Chesapeake Bayhawks of the Major Lacrosse League (MLL).

Callum, his brother Jake and American Jack Carter Rhoad were senselessly murdered in Mexico’s Baja California in May of 2024.

The Robinson Family formed the Callum and Jake Robinson Foundation, whose motto is to encourage the world to “Live Bigger, Shine Brighter and Love Harder.” This is achieved through grants and programs for diabetic athletes, coastal/beach clean-up efforts and… lacrosse.

There was no need for the Stevenson Athletics and Lacrosse programs to sell the “buy-in” to its community and alumni, the nine other competing lacrosse programs and the fans, who travelled from up and down the east coast to contribute to the success of the event. Thousands more watched the games via the Mustangs’ streaming services.

Yes, Stevenson had run the event for nine previous years, but there was a new purpose to their efforts. And with that came pressure as many more eyes would be witnessing the event. A great deal fell on the shoulders of Head Coach Paul Cantabene, who not only had to prepare his team to face a pair of nationally-ranked programs, but stay in constant communication with the other coaches and Stevenson administrators in order to run a smooth game operation. Moreover, the veteran mentor would have to compartmentalize those aspects versus the emotional magnitude of the past 10 months.

I am sure there were some hiccups along the way, but, from my perch in the press box for 12 hours each day, all aspects were brilliantly executed. How did they pull this off?

(I neglected to mention that, in order to keep games from going past 11 p.m., there were only 7:30 halftimes and some teams only got 15 minutes on the game field before their opening face-off. Can you see Division I lacrosse coaches agreeing to those restrictions?)  

Perhaps there was some divine intervention as the weather cooperated and none of the games extended to overtime.

But it was love and sacrifice that prevailed at Mustang Stadium on March 14 and 15. From the Stevenson staff honoring their “superhero*”, working tirelessly to serve 500 student-athletes, their families and guests to the coaches and staffs sacrificing the crafting of a perfect game plan for the good of the event. (For example, Gettysburg and Lynchburg had less than 20 hours between their Friday and Saturday face-offs.)

The SU facilities and game operations staffs handled the potentially chaotic and conflicting activities with good humor, better musical suggestions and, most importantly, tremendous communication and execution. Looking beyond the play on the field, the two teams for the upcoming game were warming up on the large practice field. Prior to that, busses had to be parked, teams had to get to locker rooms, trainers had to be accommodated. Done, done and dusted.  

In the press box, timekeepers, statisticians, announcers, deejays, broadcast staff, athletic communications representatives and media functioned as a cohesive unit and handled their business with aplomb. I can’t count the “thank-yous” I heard in those two days.

And, by the way, not one losing coach blew off his post-game interview, making their way to the fifth floor of the press box. And each one praised their opposition and all ten took additional time to commend Stevenson’s efforts.

The play on the field was outstanding as well. In a rematch of the 2024 national championship game, Tufts and RIT reprised their first 45 minutes of 2024 and headed to the fourth quarter with the score even. And history did repeat itself as Tufts shifted its offense into another gear and prevailed, 17-11.

And the host Mustangs, playing with purpose, energy and love, swept their 8:30 p.m. games, edging No. 18 Lynchburg, 14-8 and No. 12 St. Lawrence, in an 11-10 thriller. The foghorn is still ringing in my head.

In his post-game interview with Glenn Clark late on Saturday night, Coach Cantabene said he couldn’t put into words what the weekend meant to Stevenson lacrosse. I would respectfully disagree, and rather than try to paraphrase, I would encourage readers to check out that interview on the Mustangs’ YouTube channel.

*The facilities staff outlined Callum’s No. 10 in gold on the ten-yard line of the field, a wonderful touch.

 I was going to continue this blog by detailing my growing appreciation for D3 athletics, but I’ll save that for later this spring, when my first year at Stevenson comes to a conclusion.