From The Heart: Stauffer's Bonnies Journey Leads From Player To Head Coach

The 'From The Heart' feature series takes an in-depth look at St. Bonaventure student-athletes and coaches. Named for the beloved Merton's Heart that overlooks campus, this series tells the stories of Bonnies athletic programs on and off the field. Click here for previous installments in the series.

When LeighAnn Stauffer first stepped onto the campus of St. Bonaventure University as a high school recruit meeting with the women’s lacrosse coaching staff, she never thought she would one day be taking the program into her own hands as the head coach.

As it turns out, that is exactly the path that Stauffer’s lacrosse journey led her down. A 2017 graduate and five-year member of the St. Bonaventure women’s lacrosse program, she returned to take the head coaching role in June of 2022 at just 28 years old.

“I was fully confident in my abilities, but I think there was still the fact that I was 28 years old. There aren’t many coaches that are in their 20’s coaching at the Division I level. So I think there were a couple hesitations on my end,” Stauffer said. “But then, of course, I got back to campus and saw familiar faces. Looking at them and hearing what they wanted out of their program and what changes they wanted to see, I think it was a very easy yes for me.” 

Her introduction to the Bonnies came in the fall of 2013 when she joined the team as a freshman student-athlete.

Stauffer proved to be a threat in the midfield early, earning Atlantic 10 All-Conference Second Team honors as a sophomore. In her first two seasons combined, she played in 30 games and scored 43 total goals. She registered 32 of those goals as a sophomore to lead the team, also recording a team-high 51 draw controls.

Stauffer backed her early success with a second consecutive A-10 All-Conference Second Team selection as a junior after once again leading the team with 30 goals while scoring in 15 out of 17 total contests. 

Unfortunately, a torn ACL in her senior year kept her off the field for the majority of the 2016 season. A fifth-year return to game action was also shortened by injury, this time a torn meniscus. 

“Obviously it didn't really end up the way that I wanted to, because I did get injured for a second time during my fifth year. But I think in that fifth year, I figured out a lot about myself, and I honestly think getting injured made me see the game from a different perspective,” Stauffer said. “Ultimately, I don't know if I would be here today if I didn't have that.”

After graduating from St. Bonaventure with five seasons of experience and a new outlook on the game, Stauffer got her first break into the coaching world with a graduate assistant position at Division II Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. After just one year in the role, she was promoted to head coach.

Despite productive years leading Edinboro, Stauffer was on the move again just two years later, this time back to a familiar conference. Her reunion with the Atlantic 10 came in the form of an assistant coaching and recruiting coordinator position at George Washington University.

“I wanted to get back to Division I,” Stauffer said. “I learned a lot in my first coaching experience, and I was like, I think I can take this to the next level. George Washington was a great option for me to get back into the A-10 and back at the Division I level.”

While spending the 2021 and 2022 seasons on staff with GW, Stauffer became aware of a potential opportunity to return to Western New York through the vacant Bonaventure head coaching position. 

“I wasn't perfect all the time and I’m still not, but through being able to have all of that responsibility and the freedom to fail at certain things, I learned a lot,” Stauffer said. “I learned a lot of game management, timeout management and even just the X's and O's pieces of it.”

When SBU opened the search for a new head coach in the summer of 2022, Stauffer was high on the call sheet.

“I was kind of debating on where I wanted to go next or honestly, what I wanted to do,” Stauffer said. “And then, funny enough, I got an email from Bonaventure saying ‘Hope you're doing well, our head coaching position is open. Let's get you back to campus and you can see what we've put into our lacrosse program.'”

“I think at that point, I had said if they offer me the job, then I'm going to take it,” the now fourth-year Bona’s head coach said. “I have an opportunity to come back and leave it better than I found it in a different way where I'm not necessarily on the field playing, but I have control over the situation and whether or not we do well. I think that's arguably been the most rewarding thing because I knew I was going to have a big task on my hands.”

In Stauffer’s first season at the helm in 2023, she helped orchestrate an immediate turnaround for the program, leading the team back to the A-10 Tournament. The Bonnies won six games, adding five victories to the previous season’s total for a mark that the program had not reached since 2013, her first season as a student-athlete. The Bonnies finished 4-5 in conference play, snapping an A-10 winless drought that stretched back to 2017, her final season as a student-athlete. Following the year, she was named the Atlantic 10 Co-Coach of the Year.

The progress only continued the following year as the Bonnies improved to an 8-9 record with key conference wins over La Salle, Duquesne, VCU and her former team, George Washington. The team collected four more conference wins, just narrowly missing out on the A-10 Tournament on the final day of the season.

The Bonnies flourished in 2025, a year in which the Brown and White earned a 10-8 overall record while going 6-4 in conference play. The squad’s work paid off for a No. 5 seed in the Atlantic 10 Tournament where the Bonnies put a scare into perennial conference contender Richmond before eventually falling 11-8.

Now entering her fourth season as head coach of the Bonnies in 2026, Stauffer has built a winning atmosphere, and the team looks toward a run at the conference title.

“Definitely the most rewarding thing is seeing the players happy, playing a sport that they love. I think that was lacking when I was here (as a player),” Stauffer said. “Being able to connect with them on a human level sometimes gets lost in coaching, because I'm constantly telling them what to do. I can take them out to the field, tell them what to do, be hard on them and expect more out of them. But then, they're the same group of girls that are going to come into my office and just hang out with me for the day because they have free time.”

Along with physical ability, strategical prowess and relationship-building, Stauffer puts an emphasis on the mental side of the game when training her team.

“Sometimes their confidence can get diminished in a lot of different ways, but I value being able to constantly remind them that they are good athletes and most importantly are good people,” Stauffer said. “We’ve been trying to get that translated into games, which has progressively gotten better over the years. You can give them all the pieces to the puzzle, and then it's kind of up to them in their brain what they're going to do with it. But I think we've tried to give them more and more over the years to make them believe that they can compete for a championship.”

With that steadfast belief and motivation, the Bonnies are on the rise and poised for another season of improvement, one which Stauffer hopes will bring the next step toward an A-10 title. No matter the on-field result, she feels gratitude for each and every day that she gets to lead her alma mater.

“I am very grateful to be here coaching on a field that I played on,” Stauffer said. “I'm hoping that I'm changing a couple of lives, giving them a different perspective on life or teaching them something outside of lacrosse. It’s been extremely rewarding on top of the success that we've had. I'm just hoping to keep going forward.”