My Carolina Experience: Ryan Flanagan
June 19, 2014 | Men's Lacrosse
My Carolina Experience: Ryan Flanagan
By Zoya Johnson, GoHeels.com
Editor's Note: 2011 UNC alumnus Ryan Flanagan will be suiting up for the 2014 Major League Lacrosse All-Star Game on Thursday, June 26 at Harvard Stadium in Cambridge, Mass. The MLL All-Stars will be going up against Team USA.
Ryan Flanagan is a man of many talents. He can be described as a philanthropist, an entrepreneur and a professional in every sense of the word. Most importantly, Ryan Flanagan is a Tar Heel.
Flanagan began his lacrosse career at UNC in August 2007 after graduating from a West Islip (N.Y.) High School lacrosse program that was voted the No. 1 high school team in the country by Inside Lacrosse Magazine his senior year. He came to Chapel Hill with a mindset to win and to help turn around a program that had gone 4-10 just two seasons before.
Coming in, Flanagan knew that to do so would take hard work and dedication. He more than rose to the occasion and did everything within himself to make sure when he left UNC he would be able to say he gave it his all.
By the end of his time at Carolina, Flanagan had earned many accolades. In his junior year, he was named as the co-winner of the prestigious Schmeisser Memorial Cup that is given to the nation's top defenseman. He was the first Tar Heel to win that award from the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association since 1991.
The list of collegiate honors doesn't stop there, however. Flanagan was a Tewaaraton Trophy candidate, an All-ACC honoree and he earned All-America honors as a close defenseman in multiple years.
As the team's co-captain in 2011, he won Carolina's defensive most valuable player award for the third straight year and was a semifinalist for the Wooden Citizenship Cup in the fall of 2010.
Despite all his success on the field of play, Flanagan will tell you he didn't come to UNC simply to achieve athletic success. "I knew that these were the most important academic years of my life and I wanted to put in as many hours as I could to make sure I was excelling academically."
That was another goal Flanagan delivered on, having made the Dean's List on multiple occasions and being named a USILA Scholar All-America while graduating from the Carolina Leadership Academy.
By the time Ryan Flanagan left UNC's campus it;s safe to say he had become a well-rounded individual. By embracing the university and all it had to offer, Ryan not only drew his drive from within himself but from the amazing student-athletes he was constantly surrounded by.
"When you're training, you are sitting next to athletes that are in the same situation as you. People that are balancing a very high level of academics with a clearly demanding athletic schedule and they are having success doing it. They are going on to compete for national championships, play professionally or have success in whatever career they choose," he says. "The career development program and career services helped me identify internships that I could have only dreamed of. Going into my junior year I was able to intern with Nike and then during my senior year I interned with Bank of America."
Interning for a pair of Fortune 500 companies would set Flanagan up to pursue anything he wanted.
After graduating in 2011, Ryan did just that. He was drafted to play lacrosse professionally, secured a job with Bank of America as an analyst and was hired by ESPN as an analyst and commentator.
It seems almost unbelievable that one person can do everything Flanagan does and be able to do so with such passion and talent, but Ryan can attest to the fact that it's all more than possible.
He attributes the ability to handle all of these endeavors to lessons he learned as an undergraduate. "Being a student-athlete at Carolina teaches you to juggle a demanding academic and athletic schedule. You learn how to stay organized and hit the ground running every morning to accomplish everything you need to do. Carolina set me up to handle everything I do now and I couldn't be happier.'
Going into his senior year, Flanagan was on track to graduate early. Due to the fact that lacrosse is a spring sport he decided to take the fall semester off and pursue outreach and internship opportunities.
It was then that he was able to participate in Fields of Growth, a foundation that brings opportunities to underprivileged youths through the sport of lacrosse in Uganda. Thanks to Fields of Growth, Ryan discovered his desire to promote the sport of lacrosse and to touch lives through it.
The experience with Fields of Growth and a Carolina business school background gave him the necessary knowledge needed to start his own youth lacrosse club.
That fall he established Team 24/7 Lacrosse. The club started with 40 kids, and four years later, has grown to involve what will be over a 1,000 children this year alone.
With all the success of Team 24/7 in Charlotte expansion is something that could be very feasible for Ryan's club. However, he started the venture with a passion to connect with the next generation and to help develop the children in his program as not only players but as people.
"It's very important to me to get to know the kids on and off the field, what they're doing in football, soccer and the other sports they compete in. I never want to live off Lacrosse. It's always been a passion for me and it's always been something to find comfort in."
Flanagan's aim is to keep the organization local so he and his staff can maintain a small business feel while focusing on the developmental approach they've been able maintain thus far.
With the successes that Flanagan has been able to claim while at Carolina and since leaving campus, his story could easily become a pamphlet mapping out why Carolina a great choice for any athlete who wants the most out of his college experience.
"If you're driven for success and you're driven to be a leader in every aspect of life then Carolina would be the perfect fit for you," he advises potential Tar Heels. "There's no time to slack off. The way a place like Carolina works is if you are slacking, the next person is coming in to take your spot."
Through it all, Flanagan understands the role the University played in his life. "It was such a great experience for me and it opened up so many doors, I couldn't imagine being able to do everything I do today if I had gone somewhere else."
Simply put, Ryan Flanagan's Carolina Experience is yet another testament to the kind of University Carolina is - one filled with opportunities on and off the field for anyone with the necessary drive to make things happen.