John Barnds is an outstanding midfielder from the ADVNC San Francisco and NDP 2026 team going to Princeton, starting next Fall.
John is the youngest of four kids, all of whom played lacrosse growing up. They all followed in their father Tom’s footsteps, who was a captain and All American at Princeton. John’s sister, Laura played lacrosse growing up and now plays on the Princeton DI rugby team. His older brothers Tommy and Billy were both High School All Americans at Sacred Heart Prep in Atherton, CA and both were four year lettermen at Princeton.
“Lacrosse has always been in my family,” John said. “When I was little, they would all just take me outside in the backyard and play. That’s how I learned.”
“John would put on his older brothers' gear and run around the yard with his fiddle stick, trying to keep up with them,” John’s mom, Deb Barnds remembered. “Then once he was old enough to play organized lacrosse he joined the Firehawks youth club. We spent many mornings on the turf at Woodside High School. Often, John’s brothers were on the sidelines cheering him on while also coaching him.”
Even though his family members played lacrosse, John did not have to. He wanted to. He quickly learned a passion and love for the game. “I loved to score,” John said. “That feeling of scoring and making an impact on my team is what made me fall in love with lacrosse. I just kept working at it and getting better, and I was able to keep making an impact on my team. I have the most fun when I play well, and I play my best when I’m having the most fun. Those two seem to just go together for me.”
John gives a lot of credit to his older brothers, Tommy (ADVNC ‘19) and Billy (ADVNC ‘21) for helping push him to improve. “They played a huge part in me wanting to continue pursuing the game. Watching them play at SHP and then at Princeton, I would think to myself, that’s what I want to be when I grow up. That’s what I saw myself becoming.”
(L-R) Billy, Tommy and John Barnds together at the SHP Gator Nation field.
“Having two older brothers playing lacrosse helped John develop an interest in the game earlier than he would have otherwise,” Tom Barnds said. “His brothers will often watch his Sacred Heart games online and call him up the next day for a post-game breakdown. Another benefit of having brothers that have gone through the journey is that John has seen the intense commitment it takes to play lacrosse in college. As Lacrosse Hall of Fame Coach Dom Starsia once said at an ADVNC recruiting clinic for parents, ‘If you want to play college lacrosse, there are three dials: one for lacrosse, one for academics, and one for social life. You can only have two fully turned up, and if you want to have more of one you have to have less of one of the others.’ We found that to be true.”
John started playing with ADVNC when he was a little kid. Looking back on his lacrosse journey, John credits ADVNC with helping him become the player he is today. “ADVNC is really where my development happened. That’s where I learned what it means to be on a team. Playing with ADVNC against great teams on the East Coast is how I became motivated to take my play to another level. Seeing how good all those players are made me work harder. With NDP, our team realized that we could play with top teams and top players. The highlight for me was winning the Nike Nationals this past summer with what was basically my ADVNC NDP team. After all these years of playing together on the East Coast, we finally won a big tournament. That’s a big highlight of this entire journey for me. And doing it with the guys that I have been playing with for ADVNC all these years made it that much better.”
Barnds is a standout midfielder at Sacred Heart Prep.
“When he first started, NDP was basically a Northern California team,” Deb Barnds said. “But as ADVNC has grown, NDP has also expanded into Portland, Seattle and beyond. Adding players from these regions forced everyone from the Bay Area, including John, to work to improve their games if they wanted a spot on the team and playing time once they got to tournaments. He has formed strong friendships with players from other regions and is looking forward to playing with them and against them in college.”
John credits his longtime ADVNC coach, Tim O’Brien with helping him develop over the years. “He’s stuck with me through all the ups and downs. He’s always giving me tips, and always sending me video clips from other players for me to try and work on specific skills. He’s always looking out for me during tournaments, knowing where my strengths and weaknesses lie. He put me in a position to succeed all the way through from when I was a little kid to now, and that’s helped me a lot.”
John also credits ADVNC Founder & CEO Chris Rotelli and ADVNC Director of College Recruiting Will Casertano, both of whom coach him at Sacred Heart Prep. “Coach Rotelli has been helping me since I was a little kid. Always giving me advice on how to get better. More recently, Coach Casertano has been super impactful on my offensive game. He’s always reaching out and getting me to come practice and work to get better.”
“Being coached by Coach Rotelli, who won the Tewaaraton Award as the best player in the country while he was in college, as well as Coach Tim O’Brien and Coach Josh Peck with ADVNC, helped John tremendously,” Tom Barnds said. “In addition to being great coaches of the fundamentals of lacrosse, they taught the kids life lessons including the value of hard work (Coach Rotelli says “work when no one is looking”), the importance of resilience and teamwork, learning how to bounce back from tough losses, and remembering to celebrate the wins along the way.”
When John’s college recruiting process started, he knew he wanted to pursue Princeton, but he also wanted to look at other schools who showed interest in him. “My parents were very clear that they wanted me to look at a variety of schools,” John said.
“His ADVNC coaches, Coach Rotelli, Coach Casertano and Coach O’Brien were invaluable in John’s recruiting process,” Tom Barnds said. “Starting as a freshman in high school, Coach Rotelli gave John very direct and honest feedback on what he needed to work on to play high-level Division I lacrosse, and helped map out a development plan to help him get there. As sophomore summer approached, the coaches helped identify schools where John might be a fit from an academic, skill level, playing style, and team culture standpoint. They talked to college coaches and gave the coaches honest feedback on John’s strengths and areas for development. Having been through the process before, I have come to know a number of college coaches, and they all say the same thing about Coach Rotelli: he is 100% honest with the coaches, so they have complete faith in his judgement. Coach Rotelli, Coach Casertano and Coach O’Brien helped John select the schools to visit and develop a list of pros and cons for each school before making a decision. As parents, we did our best to stay neutral and make the best decision for himself as he has to own his experience.”
After visiting several schools, John took his official visit to Princeton, a place he had been many times over the years with his family and to see his brothers play. “I really liked the team culture at Princeton,” John said. “They were very inclusive of me. I loved the coaches as well. It was unlike any other visit I went on. While I was on that visit I just decided that Princeton was the place for me. It felt like home. So I called Coach Madalon and committed right away. It was very fun, because I was still on campus, and I got to celebrate with the whole team.”
“One of the people whose advice I respect most in this world said to me, ‘You must be so proud of John with him committing to Princeton,’” Tom Barnds said. “I said, ‘Yes, we are proud of him. He studied hard and worked hard to improve his game.’ But then he cut me off and said, ‘No, you are missing the big picture. You must be proud that your youngest son wants to go to school where his older brothers played. He must really look up to them and respect them.’ The more I thought about it, the more I realized he was exactly right. This is something he will share with his siblings the rest of his life.”
One area John has worked hard on, is the strength and speed of his shot. He was recently clocked at 105 mph at the fastest shot competition, held at Blackjack Classic this past month in Las Vegas. He knows this will serve him well heading to play at Princeton.
In addition to practice, John is a big fan and student of the game. He loves watching lacrosse. In particular, he said he has watched a ton of film on Princeton legends Coulter Mackesy and Chad Palumbo, finding areas of each player’s game that he wants to emulate.
With his prep journey now nearly complete, John has this advice for young players who want to follow in his own footsteps. “Young players need to find someone to push you to go as far as you want to go. For me, in my early years, that was my brothers. They’d demand that I come shoot with them. I find that my own motivation sometimes isn’t enough. There will be times where I’m too tired and would rather do something else. But when my brothers would force me out to practice with them, that would help me a lot. It played a huge part in getting to where I am. More recently, my high school teammates, Jack Barton (ADVNC ‘25 and a current freshman at North Carolina) and Graham Kaestner (ADVNC ‘25 and current freshman at Johns Hopkins) helped push me too. In those moments where I didn’t have the right motivation, they would help motivate me. So for young players, whether it’s a coach, teammate, sibling or whoever, finding someone who will get you out there and help you improve is super important.”
“As parents, our advice to other parents going through the youth sports journey would be to try your best to be in the moment and enjoy watching your child play,” Deb Barnds said. “Celebrate the good times and embrace the relationships that you and your child form through the lacrosse journey. You will miss watching them on the field when they’re all done with their lacrosse career, it goes very quickly.”