As a 14-year-old in Baltimore County, Howard Offit picked up a lacrosse stick and ignited a decades-long, award-winning career.
His prowess on the field led to winning national championships before he spent 35 years coaching lacrosse.
Offit will be inducted into the Greater Washington Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, which this year recognizes six outstanding Jewish athletes or sports professionals who have “strong ties to the Greater Washington, D.C., Jewish community,” in November.
“I think it’s an incredible honor,” Offit said, adding that he’s familiar with two of his fellow inductees. “The funny thing is, I know Matt Popeck from Israel Lacrosse; I was part of that. And Rob Ades was my camp counselor at Camp Robin Hood.”
Offit described this “full-circle moment”: “I’m connected with the people I’m being inducted with, one as [his former] camper and one as [his former] coach.”
His journey began in the suburbs of Baltimore County, where he was raised in a wood house that his family built in Greenspring Valley. Offit’s “best friend” and brother, Marc, served as the goalie for the various neighborhood sports they played as kids.
The boys’ grandfather co-founded Beth El Congregation in Baltimore after noticing that his Orthodox shul seated men and women separately.
Offit was one of maybe three Jewish students at The Boys’ Latin School of Maryland, where he attended from seventh to ninth grade. It wasn’t unusual that Offit’s peers made ignorant remarks: “I had to defend my heritage,” he recalled.
An athletic kid, Offit found refuge in organized sports such as football, basketball, wrestling and lacrosse.
When he was 14, he “fell in love” with lacrosse due to the sport’s versatility.
“I think lacrosse encompasses kind of everything of soccer, basketball and football,” Offit said. “It’s got the physicality of football. It’s got the offensive and defensive formations combined between basketball and soccer, and you have the opportunity to constantly move up and down the field.”
The young athlete loved attending Pikesville Senior High School, where he played varsity sports by 10th grade and went on to earn all-county honors the following two years.
Offit played lacrosse all four years at Johns Hopkins University. He played in four national championships, winning three consecutively, and won three straight club championships for Maryland Lacrosse Club.
Then he went national. Offit joined the United States’ 1982 Box Lacrosse Team that beat Canada in the finals. His next stop was playing in the 1996 Master World Team Games for the U.S., which won the Master World Games. An injury during that game prompted Offit’s retirement from playing.
Rather than leave the field, Offit became a college coach at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where he received the Martin Schwartz Award for leadership. He then returned to JHU to coach: “I loved college coaching; I loved everything about it.”
Offit coached his son’s lacrosse team at Landon School and his daughter’s team at Holton-Arms School, both in Bethesda.
“As a coach, I had the good fortune to be able to be around my son and my daughter during their prime growing-up times. Being able to influence them in a way that I think was positive for their development is certainly an incredible opportunity,” Offit said.
Both of his children went on to play lacrosse at the collegiate level: his son, Josh, at Duke University, and his daughter, Mikki, at the University of Florida.
He regularly went above and beyond as a coach, assigning the athletes James Kerr’s “Legacy” — a book about the world’s most successful sporting team — and bringing in guest speakers. Offit’s mantra? “Get 1% better every day.”
The coach cared about the players’ well-being in addition to their ability on the field.
“The fact remains that boys, as they are in their teenage years, really need a mentor,” Offit noted. “At 15, [boys] really need guidance outside of that family influence, and that’s what I really tried to be: that shoulder to lean on, that ear to listen and to help guide them so that they could maximize their potential.”
He recalled numerous examples of times that he’s intervened in harmful post-game conversations between a father and son.
One time, a player’s dad berated the player: “I told you it was my birthday. I wanted you to get me a goal.”
“I kind of interrupted in a nice way and said, ‘Hey, you had a great day. You had four ground balls; you had an assist. You really had a wonderful day and should be proud of what you did today: You worked hard, you hustled, you did the best you could,’” Offit recalled.
He felt the need to step in because teens are “so fragile at this time” and could decide to give up under parental pressure. Instead, Offit wants athletes to participate for the fun of the game while also working hard and developing important skill sets.
He spoke to the importance of empathy in his role.
“There’s so much noise around these kids today, especially with social media, that you really have to be attentive as a mentor, a teacher and a coach to what’s happening,” Offit said.
This approach stems largely from his Jewish values and his early experience with antisemitism.
“The biases of having a Jewish upbringing helped in that need to surround the kids,” Offit said. “The tradition of empathy and helping others is central. Judaism teaches you a lot of different lessons, and those lessons can be taught as you coach kids.”
