The transfer portal has become an integral part of college athletics since its inception in 2018. Players enter the portal to change schools. aim for more playing time or get closer to home. For Stanford linebacker Ricky Miezan, it was also a chance to return to lacrosse.
Once the No. 1 recruit in the class of 2018, Miezan decided to forego playing lacrosse at North Carolina and instead took a chance on hitting the gridiron out west. Now, after five years at Stanford, he’s back at No. 1: this time with the University of Virginia men’s lacrosse team.
“A lot of it came down to the fact that people don’t quite understand what five years of college football does to your body,” Miezan told For The Win. “I had such a great time out at Stanford and playing football, but it got to a point where I personally felt like I was ready to come back to lacrosse and I really wanted to come home and play for my home state.”
An Alexandria native, Miezan talked to Virginia — and only Virginia — when transferring out of Stanford.
“First and foremost it’s their winning program. They they compete every year.” Miezan said. “That’s something that’s obviously attractive, but even more so than that, it’s the culture. It’s the guys on the team.”
Under head coach Lars Tiffany, Virginia won the NCAA men’s lacrosse championship in both 2019 and 2021. They’re preseason No. 1 heading into their season opener against Michigan on Saturday, February 11, and adding the 6-foot-2, 235-pound Miezan to the midfield only helps their chances.
This might have been Tiffany’s easiest recruiting endeavor yet. Since Miezan marked his transfer as “do not contact,” that gave him the power to reach out to only programs he was interested in. Tiffany was his first call. “I would love to tell you that … I pulled out all of my 25 years plus experience as a recruiter, and it all paid off,” Coach Tiffany explained with a laugh. “But the reality is sometimes the fish just jumps in your boat. Ricky really wanted to be at UVA.”
When Miezan was a child, his mother looked into peewee football leagues for him. Because of his size, however, the people in charge wanted him to play with boys two years older than him. That was a no-go for the Miezans, instead opting for soccer and later lacrosse. Miezan excelled at both sports, but he eventually dropped soccer and focused on lacrosse. “My sophomore year, that’s when I really started to fill out, and I couldn’t really run around the soccer field for 90 minutes anymore,” Miezan said. “And I’d be getting yellow cards left and right.”
After just two seasons in high school he had become one of the best lacrosse midfielders in the country. Despite his success in lacrosse, questions of football never went away. Everyone from opposing players to referees would ask Ricky what position he played (usually the assumption was running back or linebacker).
After being convinced by friends, and then convincing his father, Miezan decided to go to the football skills day hosted by Episcopal High School. A natural athlete and hard worker, Miezan drew the attention of football scouts. His dedication in the off-season, on the field and in the classroom eventually led to an offer from Stanford, which Miezan called a “no-brainer.”
Despite showing up in Palo Alto with less experience than his teammates, Miezan quickly picked things up. Part of that was going through the reps, but the main reason he acclimated to football and the playbook was through his off-field preparation.
“He did not have as much technical expertise [or] football IQ as he would eventually have as he became more veteran, but man, he was a sponge for coaching,” said Eric Sanders, Miezan’s former position coach at Stanford. “He took control of his own coaching, so when he didn’t understand something, he would continue to question, ‘Okay, now why is that coach? I’m not totally sure on that second part you said there.’ It was wonderful.”
This has already been the case in Charlottesville over the first six weeks of practice.
Helping with that diminished rust on the lacrosse field is the fact that Miezan didn’t quit the sport cold turkey in California. While lacrosse is still very much considered the sport of New York and the mid-Atlantic, it’s spreading quickly across college athletics. Stanford fields a women’s varsity lacrosse team, and Miezan developed close friendships with players from the team.
He went to every one of their games (and they would go to his), something that meant a lot to close friend and Stanford women’s lacrosse player Mackenzie Chapman.
“He would watch all our games. He’d comment on all of our games,” Chapman said. “Women’s lacrosse out here doesn’t draw a ton of fans, so he would be like the one fan in the stands sometimes, and he’d sit there and watch our entire game. It just meant so much to us every year.”
Miezan also kept his lacrosse stick in the trunk of his car. While busy student athlete schedules kept them from being able to play a lot, it happened from time to time.
“We would take little opportunities to go out and shoot around, and we have a dedicated wall for wall ball,” Chapman said. “I know that he would go out there and play wall ball sometimes to just loosen up and relax.”
That dedication to getting on the wall — essentially just passing it to yourself — is one of the reasons the Virginia coaching staff thought he came in closer to ready than they expected. Both Tiffany and Virginia’s offensive coordinator Sean Kirwan said Miezan showed up ready to compete with less rust than anticipated. For Kirwan, Miezan adds a different dynamic to the Cavalier offense. “You just can’t knock the athleticism that he brings. It’s just different,” Kirwan said. “Yes, he adds depth to us, but the depth that he brings … we don’t have a ton of that style.”
As a midfielder with size, Miezan can be used as a dodger or a facilitator when the defense needs to slide to attempt to stop him. That’s a piece Virginia was missing last season.
Above all else, and what made this fit perfect for both sides, is the fact that Miezan is a highly-regarded and respected person off the field.
“He’s a great teammate,” said former Cardinal teammate and fellow defensive player Jonathan McGill. “He was voted captain [at Stanford] for a reason, but in terms of being a hard worker, he’s gonna legit leave everything on the line and he loves his teammates.”
As a team captain, Miezan interacted with Stanford Athletics leadership, including athletic director Bernard Muir.
“He competes in everything he does and overcame every obstacle during his career, including missing nearly two full seasons due to injury,” Muir stated via email. “More importantly than anything he’s accomplished on the field, Ricky is a tremendous leader and will be a great influence on his new teammates and a valued member of the Virginia lacrosse team.”
Tiffany told media on in early February that Miezan’s growth has been steady each day since starting practice with the team, and that he continues to shake off the rust of the time away from lacrosse to the point where he feels comfortable starting him in the season opener against Michigan.
“He’s a lot of fun to be around,” Tiffany said. “He loves the game. The spirit of the game is in him, and his teammates have already flocked to him.”
Miezan and the No. 1 Virginia men’s lacrosse team opens the 2023 season February 11 at noon against Michigan in a game that will be streamed by ACC Network Extra.
