Turner Evans will continue to be a member of the Rochester Knighthawks.
The 30-year-old signed a one-year contract to return for the 2024-25 season after serving as one of the team’s alternate captains this past year. This fall, Evans will look to return to the Flower City to again help lead the Knighthawks to what hopefully is a third straight season of playoff lacrosse. In the meantime, he’ll continue to work on his leadership skills away from Rochester back home in Peterborough, Ontario, but doing so as a dad, not a player.
Evans is the father of two. His four-year-old son (Rhys) and newly turned one-year-old daughter (Noa) are his teammates when he’s off the floor. Despite the difference in age, size, maturity, and just about everything else, Evans still finds comparisons between the teams who call him Evans and the team back home that calls him dad.
“It’s similar in the sense of you’re trying to guide people in the right direction,” he said. “You’re trying to help them make decisions that that are going to be beneficial for them. As you grow older as a player and become a veteran in the league, you learn to be someone who can give guidance to teammates to help the team. I’d say it’ll be completely different being a father to a young child and then being a father to a teenager when that comes, but hopefully I can still be able to show some guidance and help them figure out what’s best.”
Evans has had a decorated career. His next NLL game will be his 100th. He’s amassed 77 goals and 250 points over his career. He’s a former top-10 draft pick. He’s won four Mann cups back home with the Peterborough Lakers. Still, those accolades pale in comparison to being the father of Rhys and Noa.
“I would say the best day of my life was becoming a father. The responsibilities that come with that can be a lot at times, but there’s nothing better than being able to raise children and to see them grow and see them learn and become, in the case of my son already, kind of like their own little person. I don’t think there’s anything better.”
Being a parent who has to work a job probably isn’t foreign news. It’s part of life, but in the NLL, life is a bit different. Professional lacrosse players are rarely just that. Often times, they are athletes by night and some other profession by day. Some are accountants. Some are construction workers. Evans was running his own business, Nationwide Lacrosse, building school workshops across Ontario, before deciding this summer to pursue another path: being a firefighter.
“Spending time as a pro lacrosse player, actually, a lot of my teammates early on in my career and then throughout my career were firefighters. All of them were great people that I looked up to as role models. So that was initially where I got the idea of looking into becoming a firefighter and I’ve been pretty passionate about it.”
A friend of Evans and fellow NLL player Jake Withers (Halifax) both recently became firefighters for the same department. Evans compares working with other firefighters to playing on a team. The communication and camaraderie are paralleled.
Fighting fires, teaching lacrosse, playing lacrosse, and being a parent; there are several balls in the air for Evans to juggle on a daily basis. That’s where his other half comes in to keep life balanced.
“Me and Samantha (Turner’s wife) lean on each other quite a bit. She’s definitely the backbone of the household. She’s the organizer, the planner, gets everything mapped out so that I don’t really have to worry about stuff. I love living our lives together as a couple and as parents.”
It’s clear Evans loves life, and above all else, being a father. On Father’s Day weekend, however, the Peterborough native and father of two thinks about his dad rather than himself.
“I think about my dad a lot on Father’s Day. I don’t really think about myself too much on Father’s Day. It’s just another day for me. My dad passed away 10 years ago, so, I just think about him and try to dedicate the day to him. It can be an emotional day. We were really close, so I try dedicating that day to him and cherish the day that way.”
The Knighthawks are looking to foster a winning foundation, but that comes through assembling a roster of quality people, not just quality players. Evans checks off both of those boxes.
Come later this year, the hope is for Evans to have his fingerprints on the winning formula to help the ‘Hawks soar to the new heights. We’re still several months away from that.
Until then, Evans will focus on being a husband and a dad, while occasionally putting out a fire or two.
The life of a pro lacrosse player. Who would’ve thought?
