Doug Testerman faced a difficult question last summer.
The lacrosse lifer, Bel Air alumnus and longtime Bobcats coach was close to leaving the role. Testerman has a son who’s old enough to play lacrosse competitively now and has dreams to coach those teams.
His dream was once to coach Bel Air. That’s been accomplished, he figured, so now is as good a time as any to step away, spend more time with family and check off another milestone.
But nagging at him to remain was a tight-knit rising senior class who believed a new coach would mean an unsatisfying end to their careers. At the heart of them, a group named “the Huggies.”
Testerman gave Ben Gaughan, Eli Hodgson and Grant Smith that nickname as freshmen. They were the only first-year players on varsity in 2022, a distinction that brought praise, sure, but also the unwanted duties of lugging around water jugs and equipment bags. The diaper brand name was the first term that came to Testerman’s mind when brainstorming what to call the youthful trio.
“We were the babies on varsity,” Smith said.
“We fought it for the first week,” Gaughan added. “And then we were like, ‘We’re just the Huggies for life.’”
Gaughan, Hodgson and Smith blossomed into three of Bel Air’s best players by their senior years. Their time at Bel Air is almost over; regional playoffs begin this week. But they knew they couldn’t go on this run without the coach who’s always been there. So they, speaking for the entire senior class, pleaded with Testerman to return. He obliged.
The months since, a season that everyone knows will be their last, have been energized by a burning desire to send each other out on top.
“I had to come back just for one more for those guys,” he said. “It’s been a huge part of my life. I love this sport, I love this county. It was something I didn’t know if I truly could walk away from. But knowing that I’m taking this group all the way through and knowing that they’re going to be successful beyond me, it’s made this decision way easier.”
Gaughan and Smith have played lacrosse together since they were 9 years old, often playing against Hodgson’s teams on the club circuit. They knew they’d eventually be teammates when they reached high school, where they fantasized about how they’d torment opposing defenses with their complementary skill sets.
But before they got significant time on the field, they were given a name that was annoying at first but they grew to love.
Soon after Testerman christened them “The Huggies,” teammates picked up on it. The coach knew it had staying power when he heard one of the three’s parents yell the nickname from the sidelines during a game. Gaughan, Hodgson and Smith wanted to push back at first. But freshmen on varsity have little say.
“We’re all captains. We’re best friends. I hang out with them five nights a week,” Gaughan said. “When I’m pissed off about lacrosse practice, they’re who I’m going to talk to about.”
They never discarded the name, even now with them being among the oldest and most experienced on the team. Their chemistry is evident. Gaughan said Hodgson and Smith deliver the most crisp passes he’s ever seen. Asked to pinpoint a play where their familiarity with each other was on display, Hodgson described a sequence in which he checked an opposing player and Smith was in perfect position to scoop the ground ball and deliver a pass to an open teammate for a score. Bel Air trailed 7-0 before that play and won the game.
This season has been a whirlwind of emotions. They say playing with those is somehow both freeing and packed with pressure.
“I would say I have significantly more pressure this year,” Smith said. “Now, it’s my last year then I’m done. Like, I’m never playing again. I want to go ball out.”
“There’s pressure in that aspect,” Gaughan agreed. “But I do also think it’s freeing to know that, especially with the three of us, when we have the ball and we’re on the field, he wants us to have the ball. It’s very freeing to know that I can go and try something and make a mistake, but as long as I fix it, he’s riding with me.”
So when Testerman considered stepping away after last season to instead coach his son, he knew he’d be leaving a potentially special group. “All right, we gotta figure something out. He needs you,” Testerman recalled his wife telling him. The three are a large reason he put that desire on hold for one more year.
The decision took a long time to arrive at, but Testerman has never wavered from the belief he made the correct one. He held a meeting with just his senior class — Huggies included — wanting them to be the first people to know he’d be back. He also made it clear they were the reason.
A resounding confidence filled the room then. Gaughan, Hodgson and Smith likened the energy to “The Last Dance,” a Netflix documentary about Michael Jordan’s last season with the Chicago Bulls.
“They’ve been with me — we were bad three years ago, we were real bad,” Testerman said. “And they came up and handled business and took some lumps and just did some things that you don’t ask a lot of freshmen to do. I had to reciprocate that.”
One day soon, Testerman will be on the sidelines of his son’s youth teams, teaching fundamentals and teamwork rather than pushing for conference and state titles. He’s eager to get there. But he also doesn’t want this season to end. Lessons he learned from leading Bel Air will still be with him. Memories from the Huggies will never go away, either.
“I have to be here for them,” Testerman said. “I have to see them all the way out.”
Have a news tip? Contact Taylor Lyons at tlyons@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/taylorjlyons.
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