Making The Best Better

At Maryland, student-athletes don’t just use their NIL opportunities to better themselves, they use them to better the community and their sports.

Men’s lacrosse player Ajax Zappitello is a prime example of that. His NIL partnership with First Class Lacrosse allows him to provide instruction to the next generation of players, both virtually and in-person.

First Class Lacrosse provides in-person and online training tools for players and coaches to be successful on and off the field. Their tagline is, “We make the best better”!

Zappitello sat down for a Q&A with umterps.com about the partnership.

How did you first get involved with First Class Lacrosse?

I originally saw that (former teammate) Brett Makar was an athlete with them last year. And then heading into my senior year, I realized that I wanted to take advantage of NIL and do my own thing with it because I hadn’t really done a lot with that stuff at that point. So I reached out to them and told them I was really interested in partnering with them. It was founded by Deemer Class and then Matt Dunn, who used to play at Maryland, got heavily involved soon after and I just had great conversations with them about it. 

What excited you the most about the partnership?

First Class Lacrosse is all about teaching the game of lacrosse to others, both online and in-person. Coaching is definitely something I see myself doing in the future and this is an awesome way to get started with it. 

How rewarding has it been to know you’re helping teach the sport to other people from all different places and backgrounds?

It’s been very cool, especially being a kid from Oregon where lacrosse isn’t the most popular sport all the time. But the lacrosse community is  a pretty tight-knit community in general, especially at that level, so it’s been really cool to be a part of and to hopefully be making a difference. I hope I’m there for any player who needs questions answered. I’ve enjoyed being able to show all my experiences from the last 10 or so years playing lacrosse, and especially the last four years I’ve played at Maryland.

Did you reach out to Brett Makar for advice during this process?  

Yeah, I reached out to him to ask about his experiences and he had nothing but great things to say. He was super-high on both Deemer and Dunn and it made it that much easier for me to know that this was something I wanted to do.

What’s been your favorite drill to showcase through First Class Lacrosse?

The most recent one they posted was just me doing the three-step drop and one-step drop. It’s something I use literally everyday when I go out on the field. And I talk about it in the video about how important approaches are. It’s cool because it’s such an easy drill and I think it shows people it’s not necessarily rocket science. All you need is to work on simple things and it can turn you into a really solid player.