Harvard men’s lacrosse coach Chris Wojcik ’96 was not surprised when his team selected rising-senior defenseman Jason Gonos to lead the Crimson as its sole captain for the 2013 season.

“The coaches are not involved in picking captains,” Wojcik said. “But I think the team chose him because he is an outstanding person, he is immensely passionate about lacrosse, and he cares deeply about his teammates. He was the person they wanted to lead them in practice and on the field.”

Having a solo captain is somewhat unusual for a lacrosse team. Typically a team will field two or three captains, and Harvard had not had a solo captain since 2000.

TOP CLASS

This year, when the NCAA lacrosse finalists for the Senior CLASS Award were announced on April 3, Wojcik was again unsurprised to find his senior leader listed among the ten players chosen.

The award, which stands for Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in School, “honors the attributes of NCAA Division I senior student-athletes in four areas: community, classroom, character, and competition,” according to its website.

Finalists and award recipients are chosen through a combination of voting by NCAA Division I coaches, the media, and fans. Supporters can now vote for their favorite candidates by going to the Senior Class Award website until May 13.

“It is definitely a great honor and a very humbling experience,” Gonos said. “The credit really goes to everyone in my life who helped me along the way.”

ON THE FIELD

Gonos came to Harvard out of St. Mary’s Parish high school in Annapolis, Maryland. The No. 52 recruit in the country was looking to start right away for the Crimson.

“In the fall of my freshman year, I had slowly worked my way into the top three or four defensemen after playing in practice and in fall scrimmages,” Gonos said. “But I sustained an injury in our last fall team event which put me out of training all winter.”

“That injury was really disappointing,” he added. “I had probably gotten into the starting lineup before it happened, but I lost all that after the injury.”

Despite not starting initially for Harvard, Gonos did manage to earn some playing time in each game, which he used to try to earn a starting spot.

It didn’t take long. After only four games, the freshman started for the first time of his career against Colgate, and has been a fixture on the Crimson’s defense ever since.

In all but one of Harvard’s games since then, a senior-night in which Wojcik started all of the seniors for the first play, Gonos has suited up as a starter.

Over the course of his career, Gonos has gone through a metamorphosis, according to his coach, from the quiet but talented player who arrived on campus in 2009.

“I started coaching [Harvard] when Jason was a sophomore,” Wojcik said. “He was a starter then, but kind of a quiet, hard-working guy who would just do everything he could to do his job. Since then, I think he has really opened up and become much more of a vocal leader.”

This was a challenging but necessary transformation, according to Gonos.

“I’m a pretty quiet person,” he said. “And as a freshman, you’re very focused on yourself and trying to do everything you can to get yourself ready to help out the team. As a senior, I’ve learned that it’s not just about how you can get yourself ready to contribute. You’re responsible for getting everybody else on the team better too. I’ve tried to become more vocal and find more ways to get the freshmen involved in the game to make the whole team better, from the bottom to the top.”

One of the biggest challenges for the captain has been leading a team that relies heavily on its youth to win games.

The Crimson managed to land the nation’s fourth-best recruiting class this year, highlighted by the second- and fourth- highest ranked recruits in the country: defenseman Robert Duvnjak and attackman Devin Dwyer.

Both have excelled this year, as Dwyer leads the team in points and Duvnjak leads it in forced turnovers.

“Over the summer Jason sent out a letter to all of us,” Duvnjak said. “He explained what it was going to be like being on the team and really just tried to welcome all of us freshman in. I didn’t really know what was going on, but he sort of showed me around and taught me a lot. Jason is a great leader both for me personally and for the team.”

Coming into the season, expectations were high for both Gonos and his team. Gonos was named a preseason honorable mention All-American and has since helped Harvard’s defense hold opponents to 9.67 goals per game. The defender even scored his first career goal in the Crimson’s second game against Holy Cross.

“We have a new defensive system this year,” Gonos said. “But it’s one that we did my freshman year. A big thing for us has been trying to teach it to the younger guys, through watching film and working on our own outside of the scheduled practice with the coaches. We’ve been trying to get it to the point where it is more reacting rather than thinking, and that takes a lot of work.”

So far, Harvard is 6-6 overall and 2-2 in the Ivy League, a conference that boasts four teams ranked in the nation’s top 20.

“We have so many great leaders and players, and I knew I could rely on each and every one of them,” Gonos said.

“While I knew that I had a lot of responsibility as captain and I embraced that, it hasn’t been just me stepping up and leading this team, everyone has done their part.”

OFF THE FIELD

Lacrosse is not the only thing that characterizes the student-athletes chosen as finalists for the Senior CLASS Award. The award also recognizes players who excel in the classroom and in public service.

As a captain, Gonos has led his team in participating in multiple charity events in order to give back to the community.

This year, Harvard participated in the Mustache Madness program, a fundraiser that raises money for the HEADstrong Foundation, a lacrosse-oriented charity dedicated to blood cancer patients and survivors. Gonos and his teammates helped raise $6,979, the second most of any team in the country.

“Unfortunately, I’m kind of known for my inability to grow much facial hair,” Gonos joked. “So I personally wasn’t able to get much of a mustache, but our team got a lot of donations and it was awesome to help generate so much money for a great cause.”

Gonos also participated in a program called Metro Lacrosse that strives to teach inner-city Boston kids more about the game and help them with their academics at the same time.

“Our team has been involved with the program all four years that I’ve been here,” Gonos said. “I tutored a middle school student weekly…and this fall, we hosted camps for the kids and we provided them with gear. That was really important, because the gear is really the main thing that stops a lot of inner-city kids from playing lacrosse because it is so expensive. Our goal was to provide the kids with the gear and then help teach them the fundamentals of the sport.”

Gonos also participated in community service back in Maryland, helping out with a homeless aid group called Happy Helpers, and volunteer coaching for a youth lacrosse team.

In the classroom, Gonos has earned a 3.5 GPA. He will graduate this summer with a concentration in economics and a secondary in computer science.

According to Duvnjak, Gonos has been a helpful academic resource for his teammates.

“Jason really helps us all out,” Duvnjak said. “He is one of the smartest players on the team, and he does a great job helping all of us. As a freshman, you come in, maybe not quite ready for the academics of a place like Harvard, but he is always there to help you out if you have a question about a class or really anything at all.”