The hiring of Michael Spin­ner as the new women’s lacrosse coach goes down as a historic one for Pace University.

Spinner is a former Pace ath­lete, a former goalie for the men’s lacrosse team from 1996-1999, and comes in as the department’s first ever women’s lacrosse coach, something that he considers to be a dream come true.

“It’s an honor to be able to come back to Pace and be a part of the program that is being built here,” said Spinner, who has also had experience working as an As­sistant Director of Athletics and Sports Information Director with Mount Saint Vincent College, as well as being the Director of Ath­letics at Albertus Magnus Col­lege.

“I’ve been working in col­lege athletics for about 14 years and it’s always been a dream of mine to come back to Pace and work with an athletic program that meant so much to me during my time here as a student athlete,” Spinner said. “So of course, when this opportunity presented itself, I had to pounce. I am very fortunate to be here.”

Although Spinner has had various positions in the world of college athletics, coaching has always been his passion and he brings that passion and enthu­siasm with him as he begins to look for players for the women’s lacrosse program, which is sched­uled to begin its season for spring of 2015.

“I already started looking at players that we can recruit. Ex­ternally, we are looking at several high school seniors that are com­ing in,” Spinner said. “We’re also looking to see if any current Pace students had played lacrosse in high school and would be inter­ested in joining the program.”

Spinner has helped lead other lacrosse programs to new heights. After helping lead the Mount Saint Vincent team to the 2005 and 2006 Skyline Conference, as well as the ECAC Metro Semifi­nals, he sees endless potential for the new Pace program.

“I’ve never worked at a place with as much upside as Pace,” Spinner said. “I played for a championship team back in ’96, and I think that over the next few years our program has the chance to become one of the top teams in our division.”

Having built a strong relation­ship with his former coach and co-worker coach Dan Mulhol­land, Spinner hopes that he too can have a positive impact on his athlete’s lives.

“Mulholland was probably one of the biggest influences in my life, he was actually the best man at my wedding,” said Spin­ner, who worked with Mulholland at Mahanttanville College as an assistant coach in 2000. “He was my role model and that is what I hope to bring to my student ath­letes as we begin this program. I want to have an impact in their life.”

Having just been hired, there is still one thing Spinner would like to receive as he begins his career at Pace.

“I would like to have an e-mail address, because I still haven’t gotten one,” said Spinner, jok­ingly.