Members of the Souderton boys’ lacrosse coach share their remembrances of coach Mark Cornes, who passed away unexpectedly on May 22 (https://www.williamsbergeykoffel.com/obituary/mark-cornes) (Photos provided by Souderton boys’ lax) Photos of Souderton seniors and Souderton team courtesy of Tommy Meehan Photography (https://tommymeehan.com)
Ty Quintois had made the decision to forego playing lacrosse this spring to focus on soccer. Souderton coach Mark Cornes had a better idea.
“He called me and said, ‘We need you. Just come to practice one week,’” Quintois said. “Keep in mind, this is right before the season started – maybe a week before our first scrimmage.
“He said, ‘Come to practice for a week, and we’ll try and work it out.’ I went to practice and started to like it a little bit. I played and I ended up having a good season and I had fun.”
Quintois, a sophomore, became a contributor in the midfield for the Indians and acknowledged he wouldn’t have played lacrosse if he hadn’t received the phone call from Cornes.
“That meant a lot,” he said. “Coach told me to just trust the process because at first I wasn’t playing a lot, and he’s like – ‘Just keep working and working, you’ll get a lot of playing time.’ Towards the end of the year I was playing a lot, and it was because I kept working at every practice like he told me.”
Cornes was part of Souderton’s lacrosse program for just two years and lost his first season to the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, there was no mistaking he made an impact.
“Coach was just a guy – he wasn’t really a loud talker at practice,” senior Kobi Bui said. “He didn’t really want to yell things. He was more of a one-on-one guy who pulled you off to the side and talked to you and would tell you what you were doing really well and tell you what you needed to improve on.
“I just loved and will remember him always being there for us in the moments we were down, and he always knew how to say the right thing at the right time. He always had something really motivational to say and something powerful to say that we can hold with us for the rest of our lives.”
Listening to the players tell it, Cornes had a special brand of humor.
“Coach had his way with different players - he had something funny to say to each and every one of us,” Bui said. “He was a fun guy all the time.”
“He was a character,” Jamison McDivitt said. “He knew how to get all the boys fired up and appealed to our sense of humor. It could be a little silly sometimes, but he always knew how to get us all fired up.”
McDivitt pointed to Cornes’ optimistic attitude as a trait he will always remember.
“He always had a positive outlook in everything,” McDivitt said. “Anything negative that was brought towards him, he would rebound from it like it didn’t really matter. He always looked at the positive side of everything, which is something I’ll try and carry on in my own life. It’s definitely a good mindset to have. It’s something all people should strive to have like him.”
“What I’m going to remember is how he believed in everyone who came through the program, no matter if they were jayvee or varsity,” sophomore Tyson Bui said. “Obviously, he was the varsity coach, but he went to every jayvee game, and I know he was giving input to every single one of them. He believed in everyone.
“Every day he would come up and talk to me and tell me how much he believed in me. After the last game when we lost to Unionville, he put his arms around me and told me how much he believed in me and how I’m going to have a great season next year. I’ll never forget how much he believed in every single one on the team.”
Cornes, according to senior captain Tommy Goshow, stressed the importance of being a lacrosse ‘family.’
“He was the type of coach that just wanted everyone to be together in everything we did,” Goshow said. “Everything we did was for each other, and it created a bond with us that is unexplainable.
“He helped to shape us into the family and the brotherhood that we are today, and that’s something that I think will be carried on in Souderton lacrosse for years to come.”
Cornes stepped into a unique situation, taking over the helm last year for coach Mark Princehorn – now the lacrosse coach and athletic director at Lansdale Catholic.
“I’m not going to lie - it was a little rough for a while because he was stepping in for a head coach that was so loved and had so much success for so many years,” McDivitt said. “Everybody loved Princehorn. Princehorn was a guy you could relate to, and Cornes stepped in and he wasn’t that guy right away.
“He gained a lot of respect from me over time with just how he adapted to becoming that head coach role. You could tell he was putting in the work to make sure he motivated us. His motivational speeches got so much better as the season went on, and he was definitely putting in work to wanting to appeal to us because that’s not really how it was at first.
“At first, he kind of just stepped in and expected to have the respect of most of the players which wasn’t really the case. It was definitely a tough role to step into, but by the end of this season – what we accomplished this year. He greatly exceeded all expectations that we had for him.”
Cornes made a point to make sure his players appreciated their opportunities.
“In the beginning of the year he’d always say- aren’t we lucky to be playing during COVID because not everybody got the opportunity to play during COVID to start the season,” sophomore Tyson Bui said. “I’ll never forget that because it meant more than aren’t we lucky to play lacrosse at the time. It’s like – aren’t we lucky to have everything that we have. We’re lucky that we have food on the table all the time. We’re lucky that we can go to school every day. We’re just more lucky than we believe, and we’re really grateful. That’s the thing – he taught us things even though he wasn’t meaning to and that’s what a great coach does.”
Those weren’t the only lessons Cornes taught his players.
“I think one ability to be a really good coach is to let your athletes take leadership,” Tyson Bui said. “Sometimes coaches want to be a dictator and want to control everything, but he was not a super controlling coach.
“He just let the players take leadership and that will really help me later in life, just being able to be a leader. He didn’t just throw me out there. He guided me into the leadership and I’ll never forget that. I’m really thankful for that.”
The Souderton lacrosse family has had its share of adversity, but the tough times have only brought the players closer together, serving as motivation for a future they believe is bright.
“I don’t think anyone will take anything for granted at this point, especially with everything happened with COVID in the year prior,” McDivitt said. “We said last year that we’re not going to take anything for granted, especially now. We’ve had a few losses in the Souderton lacrosse family with the loss of (senior captain) Manny Puente’s father the year prior as well.
“We’re just all motivated. All of us – we could take the field right now and everybody would play their hearts out for coach and that’s going to carry over this entire offseason, and I’m scared for whatever team has to play us the first game of the season next year. There’s a saying Princehorn would say – the truest test of a person’s character is how they deal with adversity. Souderton lacrosse has definitely had a lot of adversity over the past two seasons, and I think we’ve definitely overcome it, for the most part. We still have a long ways to go to become one of the top programs in the district, but we’re definitely taking steps in the right direction.”
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