PISCATAWAY, NJ – Rutgers Men’s Lacrosse has announced the addition of Drake Porter to the coaching staff. In his role as assistant coach, Porter will work with the team’s specialists, including goalies and faceoff players, and assist with all day-to-day operations of the program.
Porter comes to the Scarlet Knights from Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, where he served as the team’s defensive coordinator and goaltending coach since 2022. Porter coached the team’s defensive group and goalies while also working with the team’s clearing, transition, riding and man-down units. With Porter on the team, Messiah qualified for his first conference semifinals since 2019, with three defensemen named to the All-Conference team, and he also coached the conference’s Rookie of the Year. Under Porter’s coaching, the Falcons improved from 8-10 in 2022 to double-digit wins in each of the past seasons, going 23-13 overall over the past two years. Porter contributed to a dramatic improvement in the team’s goals-against average, save percentage and clearance percentage.
Porter also served as the Director of High School Boys Development at Goaliesmith, working with some of the best high school and college goalies. Porter led film sessions, ran drills, and coached these goalies’ technique while also working at camps across the country and mentoring high school goalies in recruiting.
From 2021 to 2022, Porter served as a goaltending coach and defensive assistant at Loyola Blakefield, a private school in Towson, Maryland, where he was responsible for goaltending development and transition concepts for the entire team.
A native of Ontario, Canada, Porter played college lacrosse at Syracuse University. An excellent college player, Porter played for the Orange from 2017-2021. In his final season, he was a team captain and a Senior CLASS Award finalist. Porter was named to the Tewaaraton Award Watch List in 2021, a Second Team All-American and Scholar All-American in 2020, and an All-ACC selection in 2019. The goaltender finished his career with a 53% save percentage and an 11.6 goals-against average. Porter was the starting goaltender for three seasons, twice leading the ACC in save percentage and winning the school’s Soladay Award in 2021.
Porter played professionally with the New York Atlas in 2023. He appeared in three games between the regular season and the Champ Series and made 25 saves. He was a member of Team Canada’s U-19 silver medal team and World Games gold medal team in 2022 and also participated in the Fall Classic scrimmages from 2019-2023.
He graduated from Syracuse’s Newhouse School of Public Communications in 2020, was twice named to the Dean’s List, and was a member of the ACC Academic Honor Roll and All-Academic team. He earned his master’s degree in higher education with a concentration in athletic leadership from Messiah.
