Mountain Hawk Heroes: Men's Lacrosse Alum Evan Guerrero

Every Wednesday, Lehigh Athletics, Lehigh Valley Health Network and Coordinated Health is proud to recognize a Mountain Hawk Hero - someone associated with Lehigh Athletics who is making a difference in the medical field. We continue today with men's lacrosse alum Evan Guerrero '10.

Previous Mountain Hawk Heroes
August 19: Ross Biggs (Baseball Alum)
August 12: Cynthia Izuno Macri (Soccer Alum)
August 5: Susan Westman (Rowing Student-Athlete)
July 29: Megan Hetzel (Track and Field/Cross Country Alum)
July 22: Lexi Martins (Women's Basketball Alum)
July 15: Nii Daako-Darko (Track and Field/Cross Country Alum)
July 8: Ali Linsk Butash (Softball Alum)
July 1: Kimberly Scotto-Wetzel & Jonathan Wetzel (Track and Field/Cross Country Alums)
June 24: Robert Bonow (Men's Basketball Alum)
June 17: Morgan Decker (Softball Alum)
June 10: Jim Guzzo (Former Quarterback)
June 3: Amina Affini (Women's Basketball Alum)
May 27: Natalie Krane (Women's Soccer Alum)
May 20: Tricia Klein (Women's Golf Assistant Coach)

By: Justin Lafleur, Lehigh Sports Communications

Evan Guerrero '10 entered Lehigh as a business major.

When he left, he was on the road to becoming a medical doctor.

In June, the former men's lacrosse standout finished his orthopedic surgery residency at Duke.

"After Duke, my family and I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina where I'll be doing a one-year hand and upper extremity surgery fellowship at OrthoCarolina," he said.

It's been an impressive road for Guerrero, which has included learning and working at Duke University Hospital – annually considered one of the best hospitals in the nation.

"I feel incredibly fortunate to have been able to do my residency at Duke," said Guerrero. "I didn't think I'd have any shot at it, but fortunately, it worked out. More important than being such a renowned program, it's filled with great people. It's similar to Lehigh Lacrosse with the family environment."

Even though Guerrero began as a business major, the seed had already been planted for his potential interest in medicine.

"High school was the first time I thought about it," he said. "I broke a bone in my hand and my family physician did a great job explaining things to me and involving me in decision making.

"At that point, I started taking an interest in learning about the human body and some health-related things," Guerrero continued. "At Lehigh, I was planning on trying to take some pre-med classes and was really enjoying them more than the business classes. I decided to go for pre-med and was able to make it happen."
Evan Guerrero

Guerrero saw impressive growth during his time at Lehigh, which helped him make his medical aspirations happen.

"I had gotten a bit of a late start to medicine and had better grades the second half of my Lehigh career than first, so I took an additional year – a gap year – between college and medical school," he said. "During that time, I coached high school lacrosse and was working another job. I was also studying for the MCAT (Medical College Admission Test), and was applying to schools."

Guerrero ended up at Tulane Medical School in New Orleans.

"I was there for four years and got married to my wife out there," he said. "We got our first dog and was able to match to orthopedic residency at Duke. There, we had our two kids and now, we have our second dog."

Guerrero would quickly learn the invaluable role of family support through the challenges of medical school.

"It's a stressful and time-consuming profession," said Evan. "I feel fortunate to have a very loving, understanding and encouraging wife and two kids whose smiling faces at the end of the day pretty much erases anything bad that could happen at the office."

Early on at Tulane, Guerrero was open to exploring different areas of medicine. But it felt like orthopedics (related to the bones, joints, ligaments, tendons and muscles) was inevitable.

"Playing sports all my life, it was the aspect of medicine I was most familiar with and exposed to," said Guerrero. "Having a couple minor orthopedic injuries myself, and friends and teammates having injuries, you get some familiarity with it. Once I did a rotation in orthopedics, I really enjoyed it and realized there's more to it than just sports injuries."

Guerrero grew to enjoy the straight-forward nature of orthopedic surgeons.

"If there's a broken bone, you fix it and people tend to get better and get back to a high level of activity," he said. "Whereas some of the other specialties are more managing chronic conditions and optimizing folks the best you can. But it's gratifying for me to be able to fix a problem and have people get back to doing the things they want to be doing."

Guerrero takes a similar approach to other aspects of his life.

"In general, I like to take a practical and direct approach, which is how I've always been and how my mind works," he said. "I'm an action-over-talk person for the most part, which I believe falls right in line with orthopedics."

Action slowed during this spring. Like other areas of medicine, Guerrero and his colleagues had to take a step back towards the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, which wasn't easy, but necessary.
Evan Guerrero

"For a few months, elective surgeries were not allowed," he said. "We were only doing trauma surgeries and surgeries that were urgent or emergent. Things are getting closer to normal now minus spreading things out, wearing masks and testing patients. It has changed some of the logistical aspects, especially with emergent and urgent cases.

"But we're not on the front lines in the same way as the emergency room doctors, the intensive care doctors, nurses and internal medicine," Guerrero continued. "They are definitely specialties who are carrying the load in terms of getting us through the pandemic.

"Unquestionably, hats off to them."

Hats off to Guerrero as well for all he's accomplished over the years, dating back to his time at Lehigh. On the lacrosse field, Guerrero was a multi-time All-Patriot League defenseman. In 2010, he was a team captain and USILA Scholar All-American.

When tackling problems, he displayed similar characteristics as a Mountain Hawk as he does today.

"I wasn't doing as much of the hooting and hollering, but tried to be as direct and effective a leader as I could," said Guerrero. "I also tried to learn from mistakes."

Guerrero's openness to learn and grow has led to him becoming the leader he is today.

"I know my leadership is always evolving," he said. "I'm definitely still carrying along the lessons I learned in leadership from playing lacrosse at Lehigh."

As Lehigh head coach Kevin Cassese said, "Evan has always been an extremely well-rounded young man. His work ethic was always exceptional. He was passionate about being a total student-athlete. He wanted to be great in the classroom and he wanted to be great on the field.

"Evan was great at pushing himself outside his comfort zone," Cassese continued. "He always took a lot onto his plate and his ability to manage everything on his plate helped him become a high-level leader and tremendous teammate within our Lehigh Lacrosse program."

A lot of those skills and qualities have transferred into Guerrero's life after graduation.

"It started with juggling lacrosse and academics, which included science classes with labs at night," he said. "Learning time management skills, and staying competitive with people who don't have those same commitments, definitely keeps you efficient and productive. Time gets even more limited as you go through medical school and residency."

Time is so limited because of the rigorous nature of med school. That's where another attribute learned from Lehigh Lacrosse is proving Guerrero well.

"We took – and I know they still do take – a lot of pride in trying to outwork everybody and not making excuses," he said. "I feel like with most careers, but especially medicine, it's about what you put into it. There might be a small amount of innate skill. But just like in lacrosse, if you outwork everybody else, you're going to have a lot of success."

As a collegiate student-athlete, Guerrero also went through the process of starting at the bottom as a freshman and working his way up to become an All-Patriot League honoree his final two seasons. He had to work for everything as a college lacrosse player, and now as a doctor.

"In the beginning, you're trying to be a good follower, to take direction, do what others are asking of you and do it well, on time and the right way," said Guerrero. "As you move further along, you find yourself in leadership roles where you're expected to be leading people without much formal instruction. But I feel like my time at Lehigh, learning from the coaches and leaders that came before me and the Lehigh Athletics leadership programs, has helped me to this day."

Guerrero is motivated every day to fix problems and be the best version of himself.

"In lacrosse, we had a drive to be the best," he said. "There's that same drive in medicine, and especially in surgery, where you want to master the skills and become a really good surgeon. The stakes are different than lacrosse because if you're not doing a good job, it affects people's health and lives in a big way.
Evan Guerrero

"There's even more of a motivation to put in the time and effort."

With that kind of responsibility comes enormous pressure.

"Dealing with pressure is something you learn as a student-athlete, and learn to embrace," said Guerrero. "It makes putting the time in worthwhile and the better you get, the more enjoyable it is. It's like playing a sport where once you get to a certain comfort level, despite there being pressure, you're almost at peace on the playing field.

"The same is true in the operating room."

Due in large part to characteristics learned as a Mountain Hawk – like hard work and leadership – Guerrero is certainly at peace with where he is today.

"My greatest motivating factor is doing all I can to make sure my patients have good outcomes, and I'm doing right by people," he said.

By doing what he loves as an orthopedic surgeon, Guerrero is getting his patients back doing the things they love.

And that's all the satisfaction he needs.

Lehigh University Athletics

Completed Event: Men's Lacrosse versus Colgate on April 29, 2025 , Loss , 10, to, 14

Completed Event: Men's Lacrosse versus Lafayette College on April 25, 2025 , Loss , 7, to, 12

Completed Event: Men's Lacrosse at Boston University on April 19, 2025 , Loss , 7, to, 12

Completed Event: Men's Lacrosse versus Colgate University on April 12, 2025 , Win , 12, to, 9

Completed Event: Men's Lacrosse at Holy Cross on April 5, 2025 , Win , 10, to, 6

Completed Event: Men's Lacrosse at No. 4 Princeton University on April 1, 2025 , Loss , 12, to, 17

Completed Event: Men's Lacrosse versus Loyola University Maryland on March 29, 2025 , Win , 7, to, 3

Mountain Hawk Heroes: Men's Lacrosse Alum Evan Guerrero

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