FOR HIS ENTIRE LIFE, Brendan Cannon has been surrounded by coaches.

His father, Michael, began coaching Brendan’s youth teams when he was in kindergarten.

His brother, Peter (COL ’06), was a star at Georgetown and still doles out a bit of brotherly advice from time to time.

His high school coach, John Nostrant, lives just a block away from Cannon’s boyhood home, and the two talk now more than ever.

His coach here at Georgetown, Dave Urick, is one of the smartest, warmest and most decorated coaches in the history of college lacrosse.

But with his senior season about to begin, Brendan Cannon turned to another legendary coach for some final nuggets of wisdom.

A few weeks ago, as he wandered into Urick’s office, he stumbled upon an autobiography written by Bobby Knight. He’s had it ever since. Cannon lists Knight among the people from whom he draws inspiration. Urick says he sees similarities in the personalities of Cannon and the genius, if mercurial, Knight.

Still, in getting Cannon to where he is today – the reigning ECAC offensive player of the year and a likely all-American – it has been the other coaches in his life who have been most influential. Each has had a hand in instilling the competitiveness, toughness and love of the game that has made Cannon one of the most successful men’s lacrosse players in Hoya history.

ONE OF THE BENEFITS of coaching his son Peter’s third-grade lacrosse team was that every so often, Michael Cannon could put his youngest son, Brendan, out on the field as well.

Just a scrawny kindergartener at the time, Brendan wasn’t the most productive player on the team, but he got a feel for the game at a particularly young age.

Saturday mornings, Brendan and Peter would wake up and get their sticks and a bucket of balls ready to go. Then they’d start bugging their father, who was usually drinking his morning coffee and reading the newspaper, to walk with them to Haverford College to play lacrosse. He always went along.

When Brendan and Peter weren’t playing on the same team, they’d be playing against one another. Their dad attributes much of their athletic success to those early battles.

“They were very competitive in a way that was generally friendly, but not always friendly,” he says. “But it was a very constant dynamic of playing together, sometimes playing hard. They really for the most part got along and it really helped both of them in the athletic department.”

Peter Cannon remembers playing all sorts of games out in the yard with his little brother. Sometimes, a fight would break out and their mother, Susan, would be forced to break it up.

“Pete used to beat me up a lot when I was little,” Brendan says.

ichael Cannon coached his sons until middle school, when they began playing for school teams. He recalls Peter being the more coachable son, while Brendan was a little more stubborn.

Once, Michael Cannon recalls, Brendan was playing goalie and wasn’t happy with the way his father was coaching the team. He threw his stick on the ground and walked off the field.

“He had his own style,” Michael says.

When Brendan reached high school, he and his brother began playing together once again.

“Pete was always a lunch pail guy, he worked harder than any guy I’ve ever coached, and Brendan had more God-given talent,” says their high school coach, John Nostrant. “Pete definitely set the bar high for Brendan and he was a typical older brother and pushed him pretty hard, as did I. But it was a good, healthy relationship – it’s a great family.”

ichael Cannon says that the respect that his sons had for each other while suiting up for the Haverford School was apparent on and off the field.

“There is something to be said for looking at your brother and being on the same team,” Brendan says. “You are always part of a family on the team, but when you have an actual sibling; it’s a pretty cool feeling. I can’t really describe it.”

Right before the playoffs during the season in which Peter was a junior and Brendan a freshman, Peter tore cartilage in his knee and was sidelined indefinitely. He remembers arriving at the field before the team’s first playoff game and seeing Brendan proudly donning his older brother’s jersey.

“I remember seeing him run out on the field and seeing his balls-out nature,” Peter says. “His feistiness out there, his ability to hang with kids that age was really uncanny.”

After Peter left for Georgetown, the brothers remained close. Brendan remembers visiting his brother on the Hilltop – his first trip to Georgetown – early in his Peter’s college career.

“We were out with a couple of his buddies at a Henle party and some girl didn’t let me in and I got a migraine headache anyway so we ordered Dominos and went back,” Brendan says. “It wasn’t the greatest first experience, but I came back a few times and started to like the place more and more.”

Even as he kept coming back, though, Brendan was never a lock to attend Georgetown. He checked out four other schools at the start of his senior year of high school, and with his visits complete, he was unsure of where to go.

“They always tell you after your official visits . when you take your visits then you’ll know,” he says. “I didn’t really know and then it clicked when I said `I’m going to school with my brother and going to school to play for Coach Urick.'”

Yet again, the Cannon brothers suited up for the same team. When Brendan arrived on the Hilltop, he was a 17-year-old freshman unable to lift one rep of the team’s 185-pound weights test. But that didn’t stop him from having a steady inaugural season.

Peter, a junior, led the team in scoring with 22 goals and nine assists, while Brendan, a freshman, was fifth with 15 goals and eight assists. The next season, it was Brendan who led the team in points with 46 (14 goals, 32 assists), while Peter dropped to fourth (12 goals, 10 assists).

In each of those seasons, the Hoyas reached the NCAA quarterfinals. The Cannons attribute much of the success they achieved together to the brotherly bonds that other teammates cannot forge.

“There is that comfort level that you don’t have with the other guys on the team,” Brendan says. “You know at the end of the day you’re still brothers and you have to go eat at the same dinner table at Christmas and Thanksgiving so you know there’s certainly things that were said between the two of us that we’d probably hold back with people that aren’t your brothers.”

Watching his children team up in college was beyond what he experienced when the brothers were in high school, says Michael Cannon.

“There is more pressure [in college] and the level of play is definitely higher, so in a way it’s more exciting and gratifying to see them doing that together,” he says.

Even though Peter has graduated, Brendan still reaches out to his older brother for advice. Peter, who works for Biomet prosthetics in Baltimore, only missed two of the Hoyas’ games last season. At the end of last season, the brothers played together at a club tournament in Ocean City, Md.

Brendan, in recent years, has looked increasingly to Nostrant for guidance.

“He’s reached out to me more in the last year and a half than he has in any other capacity,” Nostrant says. “He wants to do well, he really wants Georgetown to get to the next level. . I think he’s grown up – he’s young for his class. He’s just a driven kid. He’s just a fiery competitor.”

INDEED, THOSE WHO know Brendan Cannon best, family or not, paint a picture of a fiercely independent and driven competitor.

“He’s not afraid to make plays, the ball is in his stick a lot, so he’s in a position where he is going to make some mistakes,” Urick says. “I will tell you when it’s on the ground, he’s around it and he’s as tough a kid as we’ve had at that position.”

“He’s fearless. I say that without hesitating. He is intimidated by nothing. Tougher than shit. For his size, he doesn’t care who is covering him,” echoes Nostrant. “That’s his biggest attribute, and I would take that any time. When he steps on the field . there is no one that is more competitive than he is.”

Urick stresses that with Cannon, you must evaluate his play based on the bottom line. While at least once a game he will do something that makes his coaches and teammates cringe (or worse), he will usually make up for it with two or three spectacular plays that help to win the game.

“He’ll sometimes get so frustrated or so annoyed with himself, he’ll just chase some guy down and take a real dumb penalty,” Urick says. “He doesn’t make good decisions all the time, but trust me, he’s heard about it from me more than once. But what I respect about him is he knows when he’s done that. He freely admits it”

Says Nostrant: “He is a gambler, he takes risks, he makes some mistakes, but he makes many more plays than he makes mistakes. I wouldn’t want to play him in poker.”

To Brendan’s father, that relentlessness is one of the strongest parts of his game.

“I was just watching a while ago a replay of the last regular season game of Peter’s senior year,” Michael Cannon says, “and there was one play where they were riding and he must have gone after three different guys on the ride and they finally dislodged the ball and they got possession again. The way he rides is as exciting as anything.”

Urick attributes Cannon’s competitive streak to his mother, a sentiment that without being prompted to do so, Nostrant agreed with.

“I can’t disagree with those two,” Michael Cannon says with a hearty laugh.He also says that part of his son’s toughness comes from his Irish blood.

Brendan’s competitiveness is contagious. While he is not a team captain (something which makes many of those with whom he is close bristle), his leadership is apparent nonetheless.

“It’s very obvious to every member of the Georgetown lacrosse team that Brendan is the leader of the team,” Peter says. “He relates to every single member of that team unlike anyone else. If some freshman has a problem, has an issue with school, athletics, a family matter, Brendan is the person they seek. In the course of the game if things aren’t going well, people will look to Brendan to carry team and put the team on his back as he has done.”

Nostrant first noticed the Hoya star athlete’s ability to lead during Brendan’s senior season at the Haverford School, and he says it is something he continues to see today.

“You don’t need a label to lead. You can lead by example,” Nostrant says. “He’s never been one to hide behind anything. If he makes a mistake, he steps up to the plate and he takes ownership. I saw this his senior year here and I’ve seen it [at Georgetown.]”

Despite Brendan’s unparalleled competitiveness and fearlessness, he remains strikingly unprepossessing. In an interview in the sports information office in McDonough Gymnasium, Brendan wore nondescript sweatpants and a generic white t-shirt. He spoke of his past accomplishments, while munching on some discarded pizza crusts, with surprising nonchalance. Individual statistics seem to mean nothing to him. And even though he is one of the best lacrosse players in the country, with Brendan Cannon, all of the typical (and probably unfair) “laxer” stereotypes can be thrown out the window.

John Pfordresher, an English professor at Georgetown, has known the attacker since he was born. Pfordresher’s mother is Brendan’s maternal grandfather’s cousin. Using analytical skills befitting an English teacher, he has noticed the contrasts in Cannon’s personality.

“Brendan can transfix you with his generous smile,” Pfordresher says. “He attends to other people, listening intently, responding to not only what they are saying but how they are being. . If for some people being competitive means being self-regarding and indifferent to others, Brendan is the exact opposite. The same thing goes for his open curiosity about the world. He has a broad interest in travel, other cultures, learning both in and out of the classroom, and is anything but the stereotypical `jock.'”

FOR ANY COMPETITOR, the ultimate goal is a national championship. In each of his first three seasons on the Hilltop, Cannon’s Hoyas have fallen three wins short. With one chance left, he will be singularly focused on bringing home a title this season.

“I think what everyone wants to accomplish – coaches, players, staff included – is winning a national championship,” he says. “I think it’s a goal that is realistic for us. . We’re not resting on our laurels, we haven’t done anything that great in the past that is going to allow us to relax and get complacent going into the season.”

Adds Peter, who left Georgetown without that elusive title: “I think that Brendan is the captain on the field in the course of the game, and he will look to bring the team to the Final Four.”

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