University of Pennsylvania Athletics

Ivy League Regular-Season Championships -- 1 (2019)
Ivy League Tournament Championships -- 2 (2019, 2022)
NCAA Championship Appearances -- 2 (2019, 2022)
1 Tewaaraton Award finalist coached
1 USILA Midfielder of the Year coached
6 All-Americans coached
8 All-Ivy players coached
1 Ivy League Player of the Year coached
1 Ivy League Rookie of the Year coached

Mike Abbott joined the program in July 2018 and has coached three full seasons at Penn. Following the 2019 season, he was promoted to the position of Associate Head Coach.

Penn found success in 2023, finishing the year 7-6 and earning the second seed in the Ivy League Tournament. During the campaign, the Quakers won games against four nationally-ranked opponents—#8 Georgetown, #17 Saint Joseph's, #18 Princeton and #20 Yale—while being ranked as high as eighth in the February 20 iteration of the USILA Coaches Poll. The wins against the Hawks and Tigers came in overtime while going 4-2 in Ivy play with three straight victories to end the regular season. After leading the team in points, goals and assists, Sam Handley became a three-time consensus first-team All-American. He also earned unanimous First-team All-Ivy honors for the third time. Offensive threats Handley and M James Shipley earned two of the Quakers' seven All-Ivy nods for the year.

In 2022, the Quakers went 11-5, won another Ivy League Tournament, and advanced to the NCAA Championship quarterfinal for the second time in as many opportunities. Abbott's offense scored 205 goals, led by Gergar who had 52 which is second on Penn's single-season list. Gergar finished eighth nationally in goals per game (3.25) and was one of two offensive players to earn USILA All-America honors in 2022, along with Handley who was a Tewaaraton Award finalist and the Donald MacLaughlin Jr. Award recipient as the USILA's Division I Midfielder of the Year. Handley also was Ivy League Player of the Year, Penn's first since 1991, and was joined by Gergar and James Shiplay as offensive players who earned first or second-team All-Ivy honors. 

The 2020 season saw the Quakers go 2-3 before all 2020 Ivy League spring sports were canceled on Wednesday, March 11 due to a nationwide outbreak of coronavirus COVID-19. During the year, Penn scored victories over No. 10 Duke and Saint Joseph’s. Two of Abbott's players, Sean Lulley and Dylan Gergar, ranked in the top-25 in the country in points per game and Gergar was also 11th in the nation in goals per game (3.80).

In his first season with the Red and Blue, Abbott guided an attacking unit which set a school record with 239 goals scored. Three different players surpassed the 60-point plateau for the Quakers, led by Adam Goldner who set a new single-season scoring record with 56 goals. Four of Penn's offensive players earned USILA All-American honors, including Sam Handley who set program records for goals (35), assists (26) and points (61) by a freshman en route to becoming the first rookie in program history to earn first-team All-American honors.  
 
Abbott came to Penn after spending seven years at Colgate where he oversaw three of the eight most prolific scoring seasons in the Raiders program’s 87-year history. In 2017, Abbott’s final season on staff, Colgate scored 178 goals in 15 games, an average of 11.9 goals per game which is sixth in program history.
 
Abbott began his career at Colgate as an assistant coach prior to the 2012 season, and was promoted to Associate Head Coach following the 2015 season.
 
Colgate made two NCAA Championship appearances during Abbott’s tenure, in 2012 and 2015—the Raiders were quarterfinalists in 2012—and was Patriot League regular-season champion both of those years. The Raiders finished the 2012 season ranked No. 8 in the Nike/Inside Lacrosse media poll, and Abbott’s offense that season shattered school records in goals (236), assists (129) and points (365). After the season, Peter Baum was the Tewaaraton Award recipient as the nation’s top college lacrosse player.
 
Prior to Colgate, Abbott spent five seasons as an assistant coach at SUNY Cortland where he was the recruiting and offensive coordinator. He helped lead the Red Dragons to the 2009 NCAA championship, along with three-straight title game appearances from 2007-09 and other NCAA tourney runs that reached the semifinals in 2010 and quarterfinals in 2011.

As a player, Abbott won a Division I national championship in 2003 at Virginia before moving to Cortland, where he was a two-year member of the men's lacrosse team and tallied 114 career points (83 goals, 31 assists). He helped lead the Red Dragons to the NCAA Division III title as a senior in 2006 and twice was named first-team All-America. Abbott was the ECAC Upstate New York and SUNYAC Player of the Year as a junior, and received first-team All-ECAC and all-conference honors as a senior. He earned his bachelor's degree in kinesiology from SUNY Cortland.

Mike’s younger brother, Matt, currently plays for the Chesapeake Bayhawks of Major League Lacrosse—in fact, he is that franchise’s all-time leader in games played—and has played for the U.S. National Team. Mike’s father, Tom, was a longtime Division 1 lacrosse official and has been the NCAA's national coordinator for men's lacrosse officiating since July 2015.