May 28th, 2024 | insidelacrosse.com
Zed Williams knows a thing or two about winning championships.
From capturing the hearts of pro lacrosse fans with the images that emerged following the 2020 PLL title triumph to getting hot in the 2022 NLL playoffs to lead the Colorado Mammoth to the Cup, one thing has endured — the stick is always in his hands.
“It’s just something about those championship feelings that make everything worth it,” Williams says. “In my mind, I’ve been very lucky to win a championship in indoor and outdoor. Those feelings, those championship feelings, you always want to chase. So that’s kind of what I’m always chasing.”
Aside from his unique offensive combination of size, speed, power and physicality, what separates Williams from his peers is his appreciation for his stick; he uses a Maverik A1 shaft and Kinetik 3 head.
“My Maverik stick is always in my room by my bed,” Williams said. “To be honest, as an offensive player, your stick is kind of everything. You still need to be able to dodge, move and catch and stuff, but my thing is like I always feel like I can get my shots off but it’s always the consistency of your stick and how you’re shooting. I play lacrosse year-round, so it’s like a never-ending game of making sure your stick is always dialed in.”
Not one to pay too much attention to what gear he used or how he strung his stick in his record-setting high school career and at Virginia, Williams knows he could have been an even better player at Silver Creek (N.Y.) and as a Cavalier if he knew how to properly channel his pocket just right. When the NCAA banned the U style shooting strings, Williams adapted. But when he graduated, he was happy to reuse that style for similar whip as his 444-goal high school career.
“The stick I use now allows me to shoot around [a defender] and go backward at an accurate and high velocity level,” Williams said. “I couldn’t do that with the stick setup I had in college. That’s helped my game a lot.”
Now a Buffalo, N.Y., resident, when Williams isn’t spending quality time with his wife and two daughters during some rare off days in between NLL and PLL seasons, he’s constantly fine-tuning his pocket while practicing with his 18-year-old stepson, Noah Snyder. A senior attackman headed to Marquette next season, Snyder has been stringing Williams’ stick since Zed graduated from UVA in 2017 and has helped teach Williams the ins and outs of minor adjustments to his mesh throughout the year.
Whether it’s leaving his stick in a cooler room and his mesh isn’t as stiff as he usually likes or when it gets too stiff and has to re-break it in, Williams has mastered the feel of his preferred pocket.
“When I run my hand up the mesh and through the shooters, I can feel when it’s catching my fingers,” Williams said.
That sort of care and familiarity with his stick comes as no surprise to anyone who’s followed Williams since the 2020 PLL Championship Series, when the images of Williams on the winners’ dais with his stick still in hand resonated profoundly.
“When it comes to playoff time, it’s time to lock in because it’s do or die. So when you make it to the end, the reason you made it there is because your stick is hitting spots you didn’t know you could hit. When your adrenaline is going after getting all those reps and it’s crunch time, and you make a good move and you shoot the ball and miss it by two inches high and you need it to make the play to win the game, sometimes you make it, sometimes you don’t,” Williams said. “When you win a championship, that means you’ve made those shots. Regardless of what happened, whether it could be luck or the lacrosse gods or anything, your stick made that happen for you. By the end of the game, you’ve got that special moment in your family’s lives because of your stick. So what’s the point of just tossing it to the side?”
Maverik reached out to add Williams to their sponsored athletes and it’s been a blessing for Williams ever since.
“Once Maverik reached out to me and wanted to make me part of their [team], I just couldn’t pass it up,” Williams says, adding how appreciative he is that they go above and beyond in checking in to make sure he and is family are OK. “Once I got the stick in my hands, I’ve been using it for the past four years now and I just kind of love everything about it. It’s been awesome. It’s worked out really well for me.”
Williams has not only continued to evolve as an even more productive and efficient lacrosse player over past four years, but his relationship with his stick has evolved, as well.
“I think it’s grown a lot. Lacrosse has always been my life and, as you get older and things happen in your life, whether people pass or some stuff happens, lacrosse has always been there to help me get through things,” he says. “I just always found it as a way for me to connect with people in my life. And not only that, but it’s also brought us together. Like you’re working every day to be the best lacrosse player you could be, indoor and outdoor, no matter what position, and when lacrosse finally rewards the people in your life that have been there your whole life. It’s just something about those championship feelings that make everything worth it.”
This offseason presented Williams with some rare extra time off due to the Mammoth falling short of making the postseason after back-to-back NLL Finals appearances. Even after a grueling few calendar years filled with lacrosse, though, Williams continues to push himself in ways none of his fans could have expected.
That manifested in Williams trying out for the Buffalo Bills as a linebacker and tight end in early May. While he didn’t make it past the initial cut, that initiative showed Williams’ desire to always try new things and stay true to himself.
In the lacrosse world, that translated most memorably in his positional switch during the 2023 Men’s World Championship in San Diego playing for the Haudenosaunee Nationals. With so much offensive talent on the roster, Williams switched to close defense and more than held his own, matching up against the likes of Whipsnakes teammate and Team USA attackman Matt Rambo and others.
“I’m a very prideful person, so I always pride myself on that kind of stuff,” Williams said. “To pick up a longpole and play close defenseman and play against the best players in the world, like I was excited to do that and I wanted to do that. I wanted that challenge and it was really fun.”
One of the better parts of that experience was Williams reuniting with Lars Tiffany, who coached him during his senior year at Virginia. While Tiffany wanted Williams to play with his father’s wooden traditional longpole for the entire games, Williams didn’t want to break it and compromised to use it during the opening possessions of each contest. He did, however, very much enjoy Maverik’s Havok stick thanks to its lighter weight and ability to scoop groundballs.
While those special moments commemorating the heritage of the Creator’s Game using Tiffany’s wooden stick provided life-long memories for Williams, it’s actually a message from Tiffany during Williams’ final year at Virginia that resonates most.
“He just kind of challenged us to bring that inner kid in us, even though we’re older college men,” Williams recalls. “And that always stuck with me from that point on because I remember being a kid and playing with such enjoyment, passion and love in the yard, with my parents, my brothers. That message always stuck with me.”
Zed’s head of choice is the Maverik Kinetik 3 and here’s why he loves it.
Why do you use the Kinetik 3?
I love how it’s formed because it’s wide at the bottom but it continues to be narrow at the top. I feel like it gives me a channel for my pocket so I can get shots off anytime I want to, whether defenders are standing next to me or not.
There’s increased strength and stiffness in this head. Why is that important when you’re playing?
Especially indoors, when these guys really zip the ball at you, there’s no room for error. If your stick is flimsy and doesn’t absorb that ball, that’s the difference between catching the ball and making a play and not. I can count on my head being durable.
