The Craig Hall Chronicles :: Bayliss Flynn

It might be the most interesting and unique recruiting story you've ever read, how Montana soccer coach Chris Citowicki did his best to let Bayliss Flynn, a highly rated goalkeeper out of Minnesota, know that maybe pursing a spot on the Grizzlies wasn't in her best interest.

Camellia Xu was named the Big Sky Conference Goalkeeper of the Year in October 2021 as a redshirt freshman. A few weeks later, it was announced that Ashlyn Dvorak, Xu's heir apparent, had signed a National Letter of Intent. Montana was more than set at the position for years to come.

But Flynn persisted, and Citowicki kept trying to gently close the door. Move along.

"You are very talented. You have the ability to play somewhere. I would feel guilty having that many talented goalkeepers on the roster and somebody potentially not playing," he told her.

"I was honest. I felt bad. Yes, I do want you here, but I see the future and it's going to be hard for you to play right off the bat. If you have another opportunity, go take it."

You have to understand who Citowicki was talking to, because this was no ordinary goalkeeper.

Flynn played at December's High School Girls All-American Game, was 12 times named a National Standout at various ECNL events, was four times voted all-state at Edina High and, just as important, four times named all-state academic.

She pulled off the trifecta of team excellence, being on squads that reached a No. 1 national ranking at the high school level, the club level with Minnesota Thunder Academy and at the pre-professional level as a member of Minnesota Aurora FC of the USL W.

She signed to play with Aurora when she was 16 and impressed so many people with her off-field bearing as much as her on-field performance that she became the first Minnesota high school athlete to sign a Name, Image and Likeness deal.

Most college coaches would have grabbed her as soon as they could, no matter the makeup of their roster or the depth of their goalkeeper position. If they had her, another program, a potential opponent, wouldn't.

Citowicki couldn't do it, couldn't step foot on that slippery slope. He felt like his program was in a good place at goalkeeper and kept repeating it to Flynn. And the more he kept being honest with her, the more she wanted to join. And back and forth they went.

Again, you have to understand who Citowicki was talking to, because this was no ordinary recruit.

Her grandfather, Gene Lahammer, was the political reporter on the Minnesota State Capitol beat for more than three decades for the Associate Press, then later with the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

His daughter, Mary Lahammer, Bayliss' mom, followed in her dad's footsteps. She's been an award-winning political reporter and anchor for the Twin Cities' PBS station since 1998.

In other words, Bayliss Flynn's BS meter has been finely tuned since birth. "She's a tough judge of character," says Lahammer. "She was raised by a reporter, by two generations of reporters, so she sees through a sales job and mistruths and who is shooting straight.

"You have to earn her respect, and Chris did that with his honesty."

It's a story that goes back much further than that, to when Citowicki was new in the profession, living in Minnesota and coaching with Thunder Academy. He was the coach every player wanted, the one a player's eyes found even when he was coaching on a different field. He was magnetic like that.

One of those girls was Flynn. "His reputation was absolutely stellar," says Lahammer.

Three months after Xu was named the Big Sky Goalkeeper of the Year, two months after Dvorak signed her National Letter of Intent, Flynn announced she was committing to the Grizzlies as well, to be a freshman in the fall of 2023.

"They made that super clear and that's something I appreciated. I wanted coaches to be honest with me. When they told me that, that told me they are very good people and I want coaches who are very good people, so I wanted to come here," Flynn says.

It doesn't hurt that Kailey Norman was voted the Big Sky Goalkeeper of the Year in 2016, Claire Howard in the spring of 2021 and Xu the next season. If a girl has the talent, the program will bring the best out of her.

"It's the legacy of having all the good goalkeepers here that was a real draw for me," Flynn says. "I want to compete. I want to push myself. I want to be better in the end as a player and as a person."

The article could end there and it would be fine. Make Montana and Citowicki look good? Check. List some of her accomplishments and detail how Flynn became a Grizzly? Check. But it's how Flynn became Flynn that's the real story.

"I'm competitive and little too tightly wound. It wasn't easy for me on the sidelines. I was against it," says Lahammer, of her daughter's decision to start playing goalkeeper.

"As always, Bayliss was the one who spoke up and put me in my place. She just looked straight up at me and said, I'm good at it, I like it, I'm going to do it and you're going to support me. Okay! When a 10-year-old does that, you kind of have to get on board."

And away we go.

We could start with her, how she said her first word at the age of six months, started walking three months later, how her second word – granddad, no, make that GRANDDAD! – was screamed during the sermon at church, to the horror of the good Lutherans in attendance and the delight of her grandfather.

How her first sentence, inside the family car, was, I'm skeptical of you, daddy. "She was incredibly advanced and precocious. We knew from Day 1. Everything was shocking," says her mom.

But we need to go back a little more, pre-Bayliss even, to get the 2023 version of her into more complete focus.

That fierceness, that competitiveness that comes out when she steps on the soccer field, cinches up her goalkeeper gloves just right, then starts directing the team like a maestro from in front of goal, or well beyond it if the situation calls for it?

That's all mom, who was the fifth of five high-achieving, highly driven children, all of whom would graduate from college with honors. She was an all-conference runner for St. Louis Park High's cross country and track teams, a guard on the school's Class AA state championship basketball squad in 1990.

But she had no time for such things in college. She enrolled at the University of Minnesota with the goal of getting in, getting out and moving on. She had things to do, to accomplish, places to go.

"I decided to not do sports in college because I was going through college really fast, on the two- to three-year plan," she says, "so it didn't work to do athletics. I was too eager to start working."

But she still needed an outlet, something serious of course, so she picked up distance running, clocked a 3:27:06 in her first attempt at the distance at the 1994 Twin Cities Marathon, placed fourth in the 21-and-under age group, three seconds behind third, less than four minutes behind second.

Exhausted but already looking forward, she was well through the post-race aid tent when some random dude named Chad Flynn crossed the finish line with the masses, in 4:10:44.

She was wired to always be pursuing, to always be asking, what's next? What's next? How about trying to qualify for the U.S. Olympic Trials. Because a girl has got to do something with her free time and all that drive.

Just over a month after the Twin Cities Marathon, she was back at it, going for a Sunday long run around what was then known as Lake Calhoun, not far from her home in St. Louis Park. Flynn had the same idea. He laced up his shoes and departed his home in south Minneapolis.

Had their paths not intersected that day, had one of them taken a slightly different route that slowed them down by a few minutes, who knows how this all would have played out?

He said hello, picked up the pace as guys do when threatened by a superior female runner and raced away, like he was competing in that morning's New York City Marathon.

Two things came to mind for Lahammer. "He blew past me. I said, A) nobody runs faster than me and B) he's cute," she says. "I caught him and he says, 'Why aren't you in New York today?'"

She told him she had raced the month before and was training for the Olympic Trials. She learned he had raced as well. They talked health, nutrition, fitness, they discussed international travel, how she was soon on her way to England for work, how he was half-British and traveled there frequently.

When they were done talking, they had gone 12 miles together. It had felt like two. After their first date not long after, he got home, woke his parents and told them he'd just been out with his future wife. She called her parents that same night and told them she's just been out with her future husband.

Neither knew the other had made such a declaration. But if you're a Lahammer or a Flynn, you just know. "We had genetic talent for it," Lahammer says. "Both of our parents had love at first sight when they met."

She took him under his wing as a runner, introduced him to plyometrics, weight training, form drills, speed work. Soon, she could no longer keep up. He became too speedy. But not fast enough to get away from her. They married, then Bayliss arrived.

"The moment she was born, her dad looked at her and said, 'It's a girl who looks just like me.' She was literally a carbon copy, black curly hair, big blue eyes, every inch of him. Physically him and personality-wise. She has his dry wit and both are on the introverted side. I'm more extroverted," Lahammer says.

"She's naturally kind of introverted, but she's always had that duality. When she is on the field and in goal, she is the loudest person out there, just loud and authoritative. Off the field, she is just kind of quiet."

Lahammer remained in the sport by coaching in the Lakeville North Girls Basketball Association. Her daughter was in kindergarten when Flynn caught another coach's eye. Not a basketball coach but a football one.

"He was sitting on the sideline and said, 'That kid has fire like I've never seen. And those hands. I would love that kid to catch the ball for me.' He saw she had things you can't teach," Lahammer says.

She played basketball, soccer, then began running, made the Lakeville North High varsity team as a 7th grader, was the school's No. 1 runner as an 8th grader, when she broke the school's record in the mile.

She still ranks No. 3 in school history in the 800 meters (2:20.87), sixth in the 1,600 meters (5:23.13) despite moving to Edina High prior to her sophomore year.

Now there were four sports, some evenings with one practice, some with two, some with three. She wasn't going to be stopped, wasn't going to be contained by the clock on the wall, the hours in a day. Her ambition was too much, her work rate too high. She wanted all of it, then more.

Her parents got her private lessons with Alan Merrick, who was born in England and turned professional at the age of 17.

"When she was 9 or 10, he pulled us aside and said, she has all the unteachable qualities," Lahammer says. "This kid has focus and work ethic and drive like you rarely see. If she wants it, it's time for her to leave and play on the ECNL circuit."

They never had to push her, just give her options, ask what she wanted to do. "She would always say, I want to train and play at the highest level possible." Her mom thought she saw herself in her daughter, at least early on. Then it went beyond that. "She's the most intense person I know."

They knew they needed help, some guidance on how to handle their daughter, to help her reach whatever outlandish potential she had without allowing her to burn herself out before she got there.

They reached out to Lahammer's friend Carrie Tollefson, who took the path Flynn was on, winning five state cross country championships in Minnesota, eight track titles, then winning the 1997 NCAA cross country championship while running for Villanova and multiple NCAA track titles.

She competed at the 2004 Olympic Summer Games in Greece in the 1,500 meters.

"How do I handle Bayliss? I don't want to ruin her. I want this to work out for her," Lahammer asked Tollefson. "She said, a kid like that, you stay behind her, never in front of her. That was great advice.

"As ambitious as I am, my job was to support her and keep her happy, healthy and rested. I was just driving the car. She was deciding where it was going. It's been a whirlwind."

She joined Minnesota Thunder Academy – Hey, who's that one coach over there? I like him. A lot. – as a midfielder at age 9, then did her rotation through goalkeeper, the position nobody really wants to play … until that one person steps in front of goal and discovers it's all she's ever wanted.

"I just loved it. I've always been small, so I think it was shocking for my coaches at that age, but it was just perfect for me," Flynn says. "I get a huge adrenaline rush after every save. That was the draw, being the backbone of the team. You make or break a game."

Camellia Xu's mom, Vivian Zhou? She spent her daughter's games with her face buried in her hands. It was too much for her, the potential danger, her daughter putting herself in harm's way. Every mother is different. Lahammer? Once she got over her initial, No way, not goalkeeper, she's become fine with it.

"I work in live TV, so I'm not a nervous person," she says. "I was a crime reporter. It was my job to watch chaos. I don't turn away from anything."

Flynn played with current North Carolina Tar Heel Maddie Dahlien at both Edina High and with the Minnesota Thunder, learned what it was like to be the target every other team was focused on, the No. 1 team everyone else was trying to take down.

She added to the pressure, the recognition, the opportunities, the growth, the noise, when she was signed by Minnesota Aurora FC of the USL W in March 2022, a 16-year-old playing with post-collegians, collegiate players and some high-level prep athletes. She was the youngest player on the team.

She wasn't GK1. That title belonged to Sarah Fuller, who played at Vanderbilt and North Texas, and earned widespread fame by kicking an extra point for the Vanderbilt football team against Tennessee in 2020.

The first-year team, community-owned and with a front office led by women, would quickly become the USL W's crown jewel, averaging more than 5,000 fans per game at TCO Stadium and selling out the league's championship game, 6,489 strong. The team finished 13-1-1.

"It was truly the most transformative experience not just of her athletic life but her entire life," says Lahammer. "Remarkable. It was a real growth opportunity for her."

More attention: Impressed with the way Flynn handled herself at the team's uniform unveiling in front of a large crowd at the Mall of America, the team's primary sponsor, TruStone Financial, approached Flynn about being part of a marketing campaign.

"They had no idea she was 16 when they reached out to her. We had to tell them, we're not sure it's okay," says Lahammer. And it wasn't in that moment. But just days later, the Minnesota State High School League, following the NCAA's lead, would sign off on Name, Image and Likeness reform.

The more well-known NIL now applied to high school athletes. A week later, Flynn signed a deal with TruStone Financial, becoming the first high school athlete in Minnesota to take advantage of the new legislation.

Was there going to be backlash? There shouldn't have been. It was a mission-based deal, to advocate for financial literacy for young people. But in a state that worships boys high school hockey and adores boys basketball and football, Flynn had crossed the line first.

Fuller? Yeah, she knew something about public backlash. Not surprisingly, the online trolls had their way with her football breakthrough, brushing it off as nothing more than a PR stunt, basically telling her to go back where she belonged.

"She talked (Bayliss) through her NIL deal, through interviews and potential backlash. She beat the boys, ahead of football players, basketball players, hockey players. She was prepared but didn't receive much criticism at all," Lahammer says.

Flynn played up an age group with Thunder, the only girl in the club allowed to do so, which put her in front of college recruiters earlier than she would have been had she played with her peers.

Her mom was the team's recruiting manager, essentially going undercover, listening to coaches speak on the sidelines unfiltered, without the polish. She's made a career of interviewing politicians, not just interviewing them but questioning them, bringing the heat when it needs to be applied.

"She had a long, complicated recruiting process. Because she played up, most of her team got looked at and recruited earlier. The eyeballs were on her when she was 14, 15 years old," says Lahammer.

"I worked the sidelines. My job was interacting with all the coaches. I got to see people I did and didn't want my daughter to be with the next four years. It's my job to see the truth and see through spin. I got to see a lot of reality interacting with all the coaches."

When she reached out to Montana, when she heard a coach telling her the truth and not just what he thought she wanted to hear, it stood out, even though he was telling her that maybe the Grizzlies weren't the place for her, given what Citowicki had at her position.

How could she resist? And now she's here. "The level of coaching is so high. I really love the goalkeeper sessions. Everyone is so talented and (coach J. Landham) is such a good coach. I already feel myself getting better. I'd love to play, but I know I have to work hard to get there."

That won't be an issue. Her mom is at the apex of her career, the result of her own hard work, "Minnesota famous," as her daughter calls her. Lahammer can walk around Missoula unnoticed, but set her in a Cub Foods in the Twin Cities and you best got out of the way.

Lahammer went to the office with her dad when she was 2, sat down at a first-of-its-kind computer, hit a few keys, then the one that sent her story to New York. It could have been her first byline. "I was hooked early on. That's all I wanted to do," she says.

"That was the golden age of journalism. That's probably why I fell in love with it."

Chad? Let's just say Lahammer now has two kids (one at least in spirit) to chase around. He was a standout tennis player in high school but maxed out on what he could do given his 5-foot-2 frame.

Attending St. Thomas in St. Paul, he grew eight inches, became a slow, then fast marathoner, then rediscovered his love for tennis as a then-full-sized 30-year-old. Was he good enough to win some national titles over the years? You know he was. You know he did.

When the pandemic arrived and Minnesota shut down, he felt the pull of the local pickleball courts, the only thing available for someone looking to do something active, something somewhat social, the necessary break for the insurance man working remotely from home.

He was the youngest player around, by a long shot. He'd never played before. Soon he was hooked.

Here's the thing about Minnesota. While Florida and Arizona attract most of the retirees, Minnesota gets all the former hockey players and coaches who want to go somewhere the lakes freeze over hard in the winter, the sound of sharp skates on ice is like a symphony and indoor rinks never melt.

That's how Flynn found himself playing against a former hockey coach at Notre Dame on a regular basis. "This 70-year-old was just killing him at the beginning because his hand-eye coordination was amazing," says Lahammer. Then Flynn's meteoric rise matched his daughter's in the soccer world.

Amateur tournaments, then moving up a level, then another. Maybe try a professional one, picking off former college tennis all-Americans here and there. Go to Phoenix for the PPA Desert Ridge Open, come in second in the Senior division, losing only to the world's No. 1 ranked player.

With his Doc Brown hair and backwards ballcap holding it all in, looking like the coolest guy at the skatepark, he picked up sponsorships, got drafted by the Indy Drivers of the National Pickleball League.

He and his team were in Texas in June for the NPL's season-opening tournament, in Kansas and back in Texas in July. They'll be in Wichita this weekend, in San Antonio in September. Championship weekend is scheduled for mid-October in Phoenix.

Lahammer, busy enough with her own schedule, is trying to hold everything together. "He's had a good few months. He's in the best shape of his life." That was partly her doing. "He's known as one of the fastest, fittest guys on the pro tour. It's one of his claims to fame. It's funny that when I met him …"

You were faster than he was? They've run 12 marathons together, including Boston in 1996. She wants you to know: She was an official qualifier. He wasn't. He played it cool, mingled with the crowd, then snuck under the ropes and into the huge field, taking half of his wife's number, a true bandit move.

It's all part of the beauty of a life well lived. It allows for restarts, rebirths – pickleball for kicks, then pickleball all in – as the whole thing moves along.

Lahammer's daughter? She's in month No. 1 of her next thing, being a goalkeeper for the Montana Grizzlies. Asked about her academic interests, she says journalism sounds fun. She mentions her grandfather – GRANDDAD! – her mom. And wouldn't that be fun, to do what they have done?

Her mom can hardly stand it, the very idea of it. "I try not to get too excited. If you spend time with her, you know she's a tough cookie. I think if I show too much enthusiasm, it could dissuade her. But (keeping it muted) is not my personality," she says.

She'd be a natural. If anyone knows about searching for the truth, finding a voice of honesty amidst a cacophony of background noise and following it, it's Bayliss Flynn.

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