Six years ago, Emerson College was a completely different school—it was untouched by the COVID-19 pandemic, Little Building was pre-remodel, Lee Pelton was still president of the college, and an entirely different generation of Emersonians walked down Boylston—a lot has changed.
Emerson men’s lacrosse team had two players, Peirce Eldredge and Malcolm McGrath, last season that started in 2019. The duo became “sixth years” due to redshirt rules—the cancellation of the 2020 season gave them two added years of eligibility, which they took while earning a graduate degree at Emerson.
Jiwon Kim, Emerson men’s lacrosse alum and current production associate with NFL films, depicted the sixth-year experience in his new documentary, “Six Years to May.” The documentary was filmed last spring with a watch party in the fall that launched the players’ new NIL deal with Dave’s Hot Chicken. It is now available for anyone to watch on the team’s Youtube channel.
“This is one of the few schools in the country [where] a project like this could take place without hiring an outside organization,” head coach Matthew Colombini said about the film. “It was a unique experience to have someone film and mic us up over the final two months of the season and showcase every aspect of our program.”
Kim also used his redshirted COVID years while in graduate school at Emerson, so he knew how unique the sixth-year experience was. He said he wanted to capture that for the two sixth-years on the team last season, and thought an experimental documentary was the perfect way to do it.
“I thought it was just really cool how well you get to know someone over the span of six years,” Kim said in an interview with The Beacon. “I think what makes the film valuable is that it touches two kinds of generations of Emerson lacrosse.”
Kim luckily existed in one of those generations of Emerson men’s lacrosse as his last year on the team was 2023. He had played with everyone on the 2023-2024 roster, except the new first-year students.
Because he lives and works in Philadelphia, filming games and practices was challenging. Kim would often come to Boston for the weekend, stay on old teammates’ couches, and travel back for work on Monday.
During the shooting process, players past and present helped out on and off camera. Defenders Landon Segal and Owen Lotti were cinematographers, and Daniel Terry ’17 narrated the film.
The first part of the documentary highlights the second half of the spring 2024 season, starting with the Lions’ 14-9 win over Widener on March 12. Kim framed the film with footage from the games, including music to set the tone and radio calls from players of the team. Commentary from the game itself from assistant coaches Austin Franklin and Austin Fournier is intertwined.
The excitement from this win is then juxtaposed in their next game, where Emerson lost to Wheaton College for the first time since 2019. Colombini previously coached at Wheaton before coming to Emerson, and Kim uses old footage and interviews with Colombini, Eldredge, and McGrath to document the emotions behind this loss.
In between the March 16 loss to Wheaton and the March 23 historic win over Springfield, Kim took a pause in the documentary to highlight former player and current assistant coach Franklin’s 2022 NIL deal with Archie’s New York Deli.
The second half of the documentary takes an emotional turn, showing a few of the player’s injuries, including Eldredge, the team’s captain, who incurred an ankle injury, and junior midfielder Grady Behrhorst’s concussion that ended his season.
“A lot of the work I put into this game was for the guys in the room,” Behrhorst shared in an interview in the documentary after he told the team he couldn’t play. “We wear Emerson. I’m wearing that for the rest of my life. The fact that I played sports at Emerson … I will wear that the rest of my life.”
The next game Kim highlighted in the documentary was the Dan Hollis memorial game. Hollis started his Emerson lacrosse journey with Eldredge and McGrath before his death in the fall of 2019. The men’s lacrosse team continues to honor his legacy through supporting the Daniel J. Hollis Foundation and allowing the “practice player of the week” to wear his no. 27 practice jersey.
“I think the ideas, culturally, behind being a good teammate, paired with honoring him as a person, are really important for the group,” Eldredge said in an interview with The Beacon. “Especially now that they’re in a place where nobody left on the team knew him, it’s a little bit of a shift.”
The biggest honor to Hollis the team presents year after year is the “Daniel Hollis Teammate Award,” which Behrhorst won last season.
“I don’t really feel like I did much to get it,” Behrhorst said in the film. “It’s just showing up everyday, really. That’s kind of all it is.”
After a few losses in April against Salve Regina, Babson, and MIT, Emerson still had a chance at the playoffs if they won against Coast Guard. Kim built the documentary’s tension through radio calls from players, a tense half-time talk from Colombini, and a last-minute goal in overtime for a Lion’s win.
Kim’s depiction of the last game of the 2024 season, where Emerson fell 8-10 against Clark, teetered between upbeat and tense. For Eldredge and McGrath, this loss meant an end to their six-year journey with Emerson lacrosse.
“It was disappointing, but it was absolutely a step in the right direction,” McGrath said in the film. “[I’m going to remember] the friendships, growing up and finding myself, and being a part of something bigger than myself.”
The full documentary is available in two parts online. Part one dropped on Feb. 11 ahead of the home opener 7-8 loss against Wentworth and part two went live Wednesday evening.
“I think the film is a thank you to Emerson lacrosse,” Kim said. “That was a large part of my life. By the time I left, it was six years of my 24 years of life; a quarter of my life at that point. I think that’s why it means a lot to me.”
