Matt Schairer is entering his tenth season as the Head Coach of Dean's Men's Lacrosse program. He was also promoted to Assistant Director of Athletics in the summer of 2024, overseeing gameday management for all 17 athletic programs.
Throughout the decade that he has spent at Dean, Coach Schairer has already accumulated countless accolades. In 2024, the Bulldogs became the first Dean program to reach a GNAC chamionship game. The team picked up wins in the quarterfinals and semifinals before being edged 13-12 on the road in the championship game. The Bulldogs went 13-5 overall and 7-3 in the conference.Â
The 2025 season brought similar success for the Bulldogs, beginning their season with the best start since joining the NCAA (7-0). While the Bulldogs finished the regular season with a 12-4 (6-3 GNAC) record, the team would see a heartbreaking loss in overtime in the opening round of the GNAC playoffs.
In 2022, Schairer guided the Bulldogs to a postseason appearance in the program's first full season with the Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) earning the fourth seed after a 6-4 regular season conference record. The team went 10-5 overall.Â
During the 2018 campaign, Schairer led Dean to the program's first-ever New England Collegiate Conference (NECC) championship and a stellar 10-4 overall record. Several student-athletes scooped up all-conference accolades under Schairer's watchful eye and he himself was named the NECC Coach of the Year. The Bulldogs went an impressive 8-2 at home, which included a 20-8 win over Becker College in the conference title game.
Schairer's squad fared itself pretty well in his first campaign in 2017, going 9-6 overall which had thrilling victories over Salem State and Regis College.
Prior to his time at Dean, Schairer spent two years as an assistant coach at Endicott College as well as two years as an assistant at UMass-Lowell. Â
At Endicott, Schairer was the offensive coordinator, helping to lead the Gulls to a Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC) Championship appearance while coaching two All-American attackmen. Meanwhile, with the River Hawks, Schairer helped build a brand new NCAA Division I program, working primarily on the defensive end of the field, as well as running the substitution box.
No stranger to Dean, Schairer's father, Steve, was the longtime men's lacrosse coach with the Bulldogs during the institution's junior college years and led Dean to an undefeated 15-0 season in 1995.
A standout student-athlete in his own right, Schairer spent one season at Quinnipiac University before transferring to Keene State where he enjoyed a stellar career. In his three years with the Owls, he earned Little East All-Conference (LEC) All-Conference honors three time, as well as All-New England and USILA North/South All-Star awards as a senior. A two-time captain and two-time team MVP, he graduated cum laude (3.60 GPA) with a degree in political science.
