He is a three-time winner of the F. Morris Touchstone Award as the NCAA men's lacrosse coach of the year, earning the honor in 1993, 2010, and 2013.
Born in Bronxville, New York,[1] Danowski attended East Meadow High School and played lacrosse from 1969 to 1972, helping his team win the county championship twice.
[5] In 2006, as the Duke lacrosse case played out, the university's head coach, Mike Pressler, was forced to resign after being in the position for 16 seasons.
[1] In 2008, Duke entered the NCAA Tournament as the top-seeded team, only to lose again to Johns Hopkins, this time in the national semifinals.
[13] Danowski won his first national championship as a head coach in the 2010 season, his fourth at Duke, in which the team posted a record of 16–4.
[4] In the title game, Duke defeated Notre Dame in overtime, scoring the winning goal five seconds after the start of the extra period.
[16] Inside Lacrosse's Geoff Shannon described Danowski's 2011 performance as among "his most impressive yet in terms of pure coaching acumen", as his team was relatively inexperienced and he opted to make two freshmen starters early in the year.
[20] The Blue Devils made the semifinals of the NCAA Tournament for the seventh straight year, and a 16–14 victory over Cornell gave them a spot in the national championship game.
[23] The 2014 Blue Devils went 17–3 and reached the program's eighth consecutive NCAA Tournament Final Four and fourth national championship game during Danowski's tenure as coach.
[24] After earlier NCAA Tournament victories over Air Force and Johns Hopkins, Duke faced Notre Dame for the championship.
[1] The Blue Devils' attempt to win a third straight national title ended in the first round of the 2015 NCAA Tournament, as Ohio State defeated the fifth-seeded Duke team 16–11.
[27] The 2016 Blue Devils advanced no farther in the NCAA Tournament that the previous year's team, falling to Loyola in the opening round.
Duke lost a two-goal lead in the last minute, and a 13–12 defeat in double overtime left the team one win short of a second straight NCAA title game.
[37] The program returned to the event in 2023 as the number one seed, defeating Penn State 16–15 in overtime to reach the national championship game.
A goal with one second remaining by Tom Schreiber proved the margin of victory in a 9–8 win that gave Danowski's U.S. team the world championship.
[43] One of his sons is former Duke lacrosse player Matt Danowski, who was named to the USILA All-American first team three times and is an assistant coach for the Blue Devils.