Stefan Henn never wanted to be a lacrosse coach or a teacher. He wanted to be a fighter pilot.
But, following a conversation with his three gym teachers about what his plans were after high school, he changed his mind – he’d be a gym teacher.
It was a fit for him. After all, he liked kids, he was an active person, he helped run the intramural program in high school and it’d allow him to go to an in-state school. So, why not go for it?
Thirty-nine years after that conversation, Henn is the recipient of the John Faller Memorial Award, given each season to a coach or administrator who embodies the legacy of John Faller and positively impacts youth lacrosse in Western New York.
To learn more about the award and Faller’s coaching career, click here.
“I’m overwhelmed that a group of my co-people, who know what I stand for and how I operate, nominated me for this,” Henn said. “I’m blessed and over the moon and humbled by getting this award.”
Henn established the boys’ lacrosse program at Amherst Central High School in 1994, coaching the team until he retired in 2024. He also taught physical education at the school for 33 years from 1991-2024.
He built Amherst Central into one of the top lacrosse programs in Section VI, winning Class B seven times, including six straight titles from 2001-2006, and was named Section VI Coach of the Year four times (1996, 2001, 2019, 2024). Still, he never expected to win this award.
When he heard the news, he had to shut down the treadmill he was walking on, sit down and just cry. Henn was emotional, being mentioned in the same breath as coaches he regards highly and who built lacrosse in Western New York – like Faller.
“I’m blessed to just be on this chain of people that have supposedly done something that even kind of emulates what (John Faller) is all about,” Henn said. “I’m following Gene Tundo. Like, what? I’m looking in the mirror like, ‘Are these people sure?’”
Henn introduced lacrosse at Amherst Central with an intramural program for both boys and girls. Eventually, though, he thought the school was ready for Section VI lacrosse. The boys and girls programs were up and running by spring of 1994, but it hadn’t been easy.
He had to give away his lacrosse equipment and hand out stickers, lanyards and lacrosse magazines to get kids’ attention and convince them to join. Then, even harder, he had to convince the Board of Education to get a team.
“(The Board of Education) was questioning why I wanted to start with a varsity program, because we were going to get our butt handed to us,” Henn said. “I was like, ‘Well, I know, but if I don’t start with a varsity program, then a young kid in modified has nowhere to go because there won’t be JV, so it’ll be over.’”
Modified lacrosse: A simplified version of the sport tailored toward younger and beginner players.
Working to generate interest in the program, he would drive his players to Syracuse University games in the Carrier Dome and visit area high schools on the Amherst Central’s minibus.
“I took 14 kids, probably, my first five years when it was legal,” Henn said. “I’d drive the school minibus to Syracuse so they could watch the 1990s Syracuse teams in the dome. It was incredible. We were going to West Genesee practices, Liverpool practices and games so they could actually see the real game being played.”
In its third year, the Amherst Central boys’ lacrosse team won a Section VI – Class B title in 1996, setting the stage for the program’s continued growth in the years to come.
“I wasn’t making this program to make a paycheck, I was doing it to make a lot of noise,” Henn said. “In those early years as a young coach, I didn’t care who you were or what you were about, I was there to play.”
Through it all, though, after 12 championship appearances in Section VI in Class B and C, four appearances in the New York State Lacrosse Tournament semifinals and a stint coaching the Czech National Team, none of those rank as his biggest accomplishment. That will always be the connections he made through coaching. At its core, that’s what teaching is all about – the connections you make.
“I’m still in touch with so many alumni and so many alumni parents,” Henn said. “I’ve been to bat mitzvahs and weddings and birthdays and celebrations in their life where I get phone calls like, ‘Hey coach, I just told my son this today or I told my daughter this today like you used to say.’”