Travis Johnson was named the first head coach of men's lacrosse at New Jersey Institute of Technology, Director of Athletics Lenny Kaplan announced in December 2013.
Johnson, who was hired to coach a start-up program, began competition in 2015 as an NCAA Division I team, concluding a 12-game inaugural varsity season. The first-ever lacrosse away game was played on February 20 at Stony Brook and the first-ever home lacrosse game featured the Highlanders hosting Quinnipiac on February 28.
He is a former player who has been coaching at the college level since the 1999-2000 academic year and most recently served as the first assistant, defensive coordinator, and recruiting coordinator at Mount St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg, MD.
Prior to Mount St. Mary's, where he has worked since 2010-11, Johnson was an assistant coach in two stints at Penn State (2004-06 and 2008-2010) and also at Stony Brook (2006 to 2008). He began his coaching career as an undergraduate of Rochester Institute of Technology and continued Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ (2001-04).
He is a 2000 graduate of RIT, where he played lacrosse and was selected by the professional Rochester Knighthawks in the 2000 National Lacrosse League draft.
Johnson has been defensive coordinator at his stops since 2001. He is an experienced recruiter, having held the title of recruiting coordinator with Stony Brook, in his second stint at Penn State, and then with Mount St. Mary's.
Johnson will be in charge of the Highlanders' 11th varsity men's team and the 19th varsity team overall for NJIT. The launch of the program was approved and Kaplan conducted a national search that resulted in the appointment of Johnson as the first coach of the Division I Highlanders.
In New Jersey, the Highlanders are the fourth Division I lacrosse program, joining Princeton, Rutgers, and Monmouth.
"We are excited to be starting lacrosse and we are excited that Travis has accepted the challenge of being our first men's lacrosse coach," said Kaplan in announcing the appointment. "He's garnered great experience, first as a student-athlete at RIT and then as a coach working in excellent academic schools with great lacrosse programs. He will help us put NJIT lacrosse on the map."
The new head coach of the Highlanders did his first coaching with the Division III programs at his alma mater and then at Stevens. From there, he entered the Division I ranks with Penn State, which made the NCAA Tournament in his first season on the staff.
After another year with the Nittany Lions, Johnson headed to Stony Brook, working as the top assistant to Rick Sowell, now the head coach at the United States Naval Academy. As recruiting coordinator, Johnson helped Sowell assemble the core of a Stony Brook squad that, in 2010, reached the NCAA Tournament and was ranked as high as sixth in the nation during the season.
Johnson went back to Penn State for the 2009 and 2010 seasons and then moved to The Mount, which won the Northeast Conference championship in 2011, his first season on the coaching staff.
"I'm very excited about this opportunity," said the first coach of NJIT men's lacrosse as he looks ahead to building a new team. "We're going to offer student-athletes a chance to get a quality education, especially in the areas of science and technology, and play Division I lacrosse at the same time.
"We're going to have to hustle from the first day. It's going to be a wild ride for the next three months for me, personally (student-athletes who will begin college in the fall of 2014 are signing National Letters of Intent this fall). We have three months to identify and attract the players who are going to form our first Division I team. We're going to look in all the areas, but we're going to hit Jersey hard and go after the talent that's in this state."
After his third year at the helm of the men’s lacrosse program, Johnson has a 2-40 overall record and the team continues to grow with each year.
As a new program the team made up of mainly freshman went 0-12 in their first varsity season.
Year two brought the Highlanders their first win on March 22, 2016 a
10-7 victory over Dartmouth in Hanover, NH.
In his third year, the Highlanders won their second game against Hampton on April 15, 2017. The team broke seven program records in the win, including goals in a game (17), assists in a game (14), points in a game (31) and face-offs won (19) and three individual records .
In 2017, Johnson’s team broke 16 program records and posted 16 more goals, seven more assists and 23 more points than 2016 competing in the same amount of games.
NJIT men’s lacrosse currently plays at Drew University’s Ranger Stadium due to the construction for the new NJIT Wellness and Events Center set to open in the fall of 2017.
