Sports | 4/17/08

Media Credit: Patrick Smith Assistant men's lacrosse coach and offensive coordinator Andrew "Buggs" Combs works with his student athletes during practice at Johnny Unitas Stadium Tuesday afternoon. Combs played lacrosse at the University of Maryland College Park until spring of 2001. [Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: Patrick Smith Assistant men's lacrosse coach and offensive coordinator Andrew "Buggs" Combs watches over one-on-one drills during practice at Johnny Unitas Stadium Tuesday afternoon. [Click to enlarge]

While dozens of alumni have passed through Towson as student athletes before returning as coaches, one University product with a familiar last name did not even attend the school.

Andrew "Buggs" Combs, the 30-year-old son of Towson football head coach Gordy Combs and current offensive coordinator for the men's lacrosse team, played lacrosse for the University of Maryland, College Park after growing up on Towson's campus and being raised by Tiger athletics. He was only the second player in the history of Maryland lacrosse to score 50 goals in a season.

"My career at Maryland was great," Buggs said. "Two out of my five years we went to the final four. I didn't play until my fourth and fifth year, but I had a lot of good players in front of me. It was a good experience; I wouldn't trade my experience at Maryland for anything."

After graduation, Buggs became a volunteer assistant with Towson men's lacrosse. In 2005, Buggs was named offensive coordinator.

Buggs has come a long way, however, from his early days on campus. Gordy, who has been the head football coach for 15 years after a 19-year tenure as an assistant, frequently brought his young son along with him to football camp at Towson.

Former head lacrosse coach Carl Runk said he remembers Buggs as a child hanging around the athletic complexes. He recounted stories in which he played ball with Buggs in the Towson Center hallways and when Buggs would wear his oversized football helmet at athletic camps.

"This campus is literally his home. He has always been around. His dad took him here, and everybody knows him," Runk said.

Now, Buggs stands alongside head lacrosse coach Tony Seaman on Minnegan Field at Johnny Unitas Stadium, the same location at which his father has coached for nearly four decades.

"I think my dad has done a really unbelievable job in terms of letting me try to find my own way as a coach," Buggs said. "He definitely gives me advice, and I ask him for advice… but he kind of lets me go."

Gordy said he has cherished the chance to see his son on a daily basis after watching him transform from the popular youngster who was the universal ballboy for TU athletics into a coordinator for a lacrosse program that is annually regarded as very competitive.

"It's terrific that you can see one of your children every day," Gordy said. "Even after he graduated from Maryland, he was on his own. [But now] my office is right next to his. I get to see him on a daily basis. I think that's a positive."

While he was excited to be able to go to Maryland for a change of scenery, Buggs said that he enjoys working with so many people that raised him in an athletic lifestyle. Even after playing so well for the Terrapins, Buggs said that he has overcome his attachment to the program, allowing him to focus when Towson and Maryland clash in the spring.

"It's not as hard [to coach against Maryland] as it used to be," Buggs said. "It was much harder the first couple years when some of the guys who helped me to be successful were still there, and when I coached against guys that had a lot to do with my success."

After his college career, in addition to volunteering at Towson, Buggs was selected in the Major League Lacrosse supplemental draft by the Baltimore Bayhawks. After landing with the Rochester Rattlers, Buggs won the League's Most Improved Player award before scoring five goals in a semifinal loss to the Bayhawks. Still, he finds time to juggle that occupation along with coaching and raising a family.

Buggs has a wife, Ashley, and a 3-year-old daughter, MacKenzie.

"[MacKenzie] has kind of taken the role that I had when I was a little kid," Buggs said. "She loves coming to the women's and men's basketball games. She loves coming to women's lacrosse and she loves coming to our lacrosse games."

However, Buggs said that his wife is one of the few people in his life who doesn't always call him by his nickname.

"My dad was pretty happy to have a boy, and he used to call me his little bugaboo, and one time my sister said, 'your Buggs is upstairs,' instead of 'bugaboo,' and it just stuck. There's not many people that don't call me that."

Even his players call him "Buggs," which is representative of the relationship he has with them. At practice, Buggs stays on the sidelines, observing and correcting his offense.

Though he only shouts his advice and critiques once every few minutes, he constantly talks to whichever players are hanging around on the sideline with him at the time. He speaks with coaches, players and athletic trainers, maintaining an effective communication line with his team.

"He was very successful as a player, and he's developed as a very good lacrosse coach as well," Seaman said." I think the good part is that [the players] can identify with him quite easily because they know that he's still playing. I think he has a good deal of respect there.

"I think he's really developed his personality and his attitude and his professionalism in the way he treats players," Seamans said. I think he's developed his whole sense of coaching, and each year he gets better and better."

While the offense was relatively unimpressive early in the 2008 season, Buggs and his offensive players have found some consistency as of late, scoring 12 goals per game in the last three conference games.

"When we're not being successful," Buggs said, "I ask myself, 'Am I doing something wrong? Am I running the wrong midfields? Am I playing the right guys?'"

Still, the team will need to be playing at its best Friday night against the Villanova Wildcats. Barring an upset by either Robert Morris or Sacred Heart over Delaware, the winner of Friday's game will be the fourth seed in the CAA tournament, and the loser will be left out of postseason play.

After struggling earlier this season with precise shooting and quality ball movement without turnovers, the Tigers have turned in part to the man they call "Buggs."

"As long as they put the ball in the goal," Andrew Combs said, "I don't care what they call me."

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