Max Wong is a dynamic attackman from the ADVNC San Francisco and NDP 2027 team committed to play at Dartmouth, starting next Fall.
Max was introduced to lacrosse at a young age by Bruce Bligh, the dad of Max’s childhood best friend, Sawyer Bligh. (Sawyer played for ADVNC alongside Max for many years, and is now one of the top rated 2028 players in the country).
Sawyer and his older brothers played lacrosse and showed Max the game for the first time. Soon, Bruce got Max’s dad to sign Max up to play rec league lacrosse for the Firehawks.
Max (#8) with one of his first Firehawks teams.
“I became super into lacrosse from the start,” said Max. “I was playing a lot of different sports back then. I played basketball and a lot of soccer. But lacrosse was just different from any other sport I had ever played. It was more fast paced and there was just something about having a stick in my hands. Learning the basics was super hard for me at first. Yet, I was very excited about learning the game.”
“At the time, the West Coast was a bit of a lacrosse desert,” said Rich Wong, Max’s dad. “But Chris Rotelli built ADVNC at the perfect time for us. He and others in the lacrosse community did everything they could to encourage kids to get excited about lacrosse. They were as inclusive as possible. The entire lacrosse community was very warm and welcoming to our family. We found an incredible group of kids and parents who have now become our lifelong friends.”
“At the time, I knew nothing about lacrosse,” said Max’s mom, Gerri Wong. “I’d drive Max and his friends to practice; they’d jump out of my minivan with their lacrosse bags that looked like body bags, excited to play! Here were these tiny seven- and eight-year-old boys carrying these enormous bags that practically dwarfed them. I remember thinking, what is this sport? Where on earth was this whole thing going to lead?”
Little did Gerri know that Max and his friends were going to soon form one of the strongest teams in the nation in his age group, and almost all of them would one day commit to top tier college programs!
But before any of that, Max made the transition from the Firehawks to ADVNC San Francisco when he was 8 years old.
“I’ve literally been playing with the same core group of kids for around 10 years now,” Max said. “All of the coaches have been super warm and welcoming. They put fun at the forefront and I’ve always admired and appreciated that.”
“I truly believe ADVNC creates a family, not just a team,” Gerri said. “We’ve shared this journey with many of these families for many years. I trust every one of them. I trust our coaches. I love these boys. We’ve grown up and learned together, and have become one big, lacrosse family.”
Soon after joining ADVNC SF, Max started playing with ADVNC NDP. His 2027 NDP team became the first team based West of the Mississippi to win the Naptown Challenge, back in 2021. And they have kept winning tournaments together, all over the country.
Max with his longtime ADVNC coach, BJ Grill.
“Having all these people that I’m super close with and who all had the same goals I did, really helped push me to get better,” Max said. “We were all competing with each other in practices and games. Everyone on that team is super good. That really spurred my growth. It really pushed me to want to get better every day. And having great, passionate coaches, especially Coach BJ Grill, for so many years has helped my development and helped me become the player I am today.”
Max said he started dreaming of playing lacrosse in college around 7th or 8th grade. “That was part of my decision on why I wanted to attend Sacred Heart Prep for high school,” Max said. “I saw all these great players who played for both SHP and ADVNC. They were all going to great colleges to play. Guys like Ian Dykes, Blake Hetherington, and Graham Kaestner. That’s where the college dream materialized for me. I thought if I could keep working hard and play for SHP and ADVNC, then maybe I could go play DI lacrosse somewhere.”
When his recruiting summer of 2025 came around, Max leaned on his ADVNC and SHP coaches for guidance. “I heard from a lot of the guys I knew that were older than me that it was a pretty stressful process,” Max said. “So I wanted to be prepared for it. I went to Coach BJ Grill (Former ADVNC NDP ‘27 Coach), Coach Will Casertano (SHP Coach & ADVNC Co-Director of College Recruiting) and Coach Chris Rotelli (SHP Head Coach & ADVNC Founder & CEO) to help me set a path and plan for me that was super easy to follow. Coach Casertano laid out an email template for me to follow and use to send out to college coaches. Then all of us talked about a list of schools that I was interested in, and figured out which ones were realistic for me. So all of that preparation took a lot of the stress and tension out of the process for me. And I really appreciate how those guys helped me in that way.”
“The work that Max did with his coaches made a huge difference for his preparation,” Rich Wong said. “So then he was able to come out, and in his first ADVNC tourney of that summer, at Primetime at Yale, he played well. Then Coach Rotelli started to tell us about specific schools that were interested in Max from there. He was lucky to be able to build some momentum off of that. But the work Max did going back to his spring high school season of 2025, really made the pivotal difference in terms of his college recruiting.”
Max with his ADVNC and Sacred Heart Prep coach, Chris Rotelli (ADVNC Founder & CEO).
When September 1st rolled around, Max was ready. “I started getting these texts from college coaches, and it was surreal. But I had already done the work with my coaches and I knew which schools I wanted to pursue and which ones were most realistic for me. Dartmouth was high on my list. I had gone to a prospect camp there earlier in the summer, and I really liked Coach Kirwan and the other coaches. When they offered me a spot, I decided to commit. I’m thinking about studying economics there. They have very rigorous academics. They also have a great lacrosse program. All of the kids on the team are tight with one another, and the coaches are great. I also really like how it's in a rural setting, and not in a city. I like the fact that it’s surrounded by nature.”
“Max committing to Dartmouth is very much a dream come true,” said Rich Wong. “We are all just incredibly appreciative of everyone with ADVNC and his high school and club coaches who have supported Max. We feel incredibly fortunate for Max to have this incredible opportunity both athletically and academically, and the quality of people at the school.”
Max is a standout attackman at Sacred Heart Prep, in Atherton, CA
With this part of the journey behind them, Gerri Wong has this advice for parents who are helping support their kids’ dreams. “Trust your coaches. And when the game starts to feel overwhelming, step away for a bit. The wins and losses matter far less than the lessons your child is learning. Focus on helping them improve a step at a time. Encourage them that they’ve got this, as in, own their process, own their dream.”
Max has this advice for young players who aspire to play in college. “Always look for ways to get better. Whether it’s shooting before and after practice, getting extra reps in, or watching film (I’m a big proponent of watching film). Also, just try and have fun with the process. Lacrosse is a fun sport to play. You just want to make sure you’re always enjoying it and falling in love with the process.”