From Underdog to Major League Lacrosse All-Star

Most days, Max Adler ’17 wakes up at 5 a.m. to hit the gym before heading to work. At the end of the work day, he practices lacrosse for at least 2 hours. It may sound like a grueling routine, but Adler wouldn’t have it any other way. Hard work, he says, equals a competitive advantage; and his accomplishments are proof that he’s right. By day, Adler is a financial analyst for ESPN and Disney media networks for The Walt Disney Company. Outside the office, he's also the starting midfielder and nationally known faceoff specialist for the Denver Outlaws Major League Lacrosse team.

“If you work harder than everyone else — even if they are more talented — you can bridge that talent gap and really take full advantage of it,” he says. 

Adler makes it sound easy, but he’s always been an underdog. In high school, Bentley was his top choice, but he got waitlisted. When it came time to try out for the men’s lacrosse team, head coach Jim Murphy admitted that Adler lacked background in the sport.

But Adler likes a challenge, he likes winning — and he hates losing even more.

“Once I was admitted to Bentley, trying out for lacrosse was intimidating,” recalls Adler, who had been on his high school’s wrestling team and played only one season of lacrosse. “I was going up against players who were All-American and All-State in high school, and my lack of experience showed in my stick skills. I relied on the work ethic I learned in wrestling.”

Adler says that his parents also instilled the idea that with hard work, comes success. “It was never forced; my parents would provide the resources and then leave the rest up to me.”

In his first year at Bentley, he made the varsity lacrosse team but didn’t play much. For Adler, that wasn’t good enough; he wanted the starting midfielder position and eventually All-American status. “It was ridiculous at the time,” he admits.

But the following season, he began to notice the improvements that came with each practice and made a personal commitment to practice hard that summer. By junior year he was a third team All-American and in his senior year, a second team All-American and Academic All-American. He dominated in the faceoff circle and was drafted by the Denver Outlaws professional lacrosse team.

“My first year with the Outlaws, I only played three games, but the coach liked my work ethic and promised a chance at the starting position if I performed well at the next season’s tryouts,” Adler explains. “I worked as hard as I possibly could during the off-season.”

The Outlaws traded their starting midfielder — a decision that many sports commentators questioned — and Adler stepped into the spot. But he ended up leading the team to the playoffs and a championship win. In 2019, he was named to the Major League Lacrosse All-Star Game.

Adler is a believer in giving 100 percent to every endeavor. At Bentley, he took advantage of as many resources as he could — the professors who shared their knowledge, for example, and the various academic centers — to prove his worth after being waitlisted. 

That philosophy paid off: He made President’s List first and second semesters, was an Academic All-American student-athlete during his senior year, and completed internships in mutual funds, wealth management and investment banking. 

A year after graduation, while playing for the Outlaws, Adler was recruited by Team Israel to serve as the national team’s primary faceoff specialist at the 2018 Federation of International Lacrosse World Lacrosse Championship. During the two months in Israel, his finance career also took off. A Skype interview with Nick Mesite ’04, MBA ’08, a former Bentley lacrosse player and senior director of finance for ESPN and the Disney media networks for The Walt Disney Company, landed Adler a full-time job as a financial analyst at the sports network.

“The opportunity to combine two passions — finance and sports — is a dream job,” Adler says. “I’m doing interesting work in a dynamic industry alongside people I like, and I am still able to play professional lacrosse.”

He adds, “Hard work is something that I will never regret. I don’t want to have to wonder whether I could have succeeded at something if I had tried harder.”