This is the third tournament review for this summer's tournaments. This is for the Sweet Laxin' tournament in Bridgewater, New Jersey. This is my second time at Sweet Laxin'.
Sweet Laxin' does most things pretty well but has a couple bumps as well.
The tournament is spread out over various locations in the area. Some folks are put off by that but it doesn't really bother me. I am fine with spreading people around. We had plenty of parking and access was good. There was a little walk to the fields but nothing out of hand. The organizers do an excellent job of having volunteers around to direct traffic.
Unfortunately, there was a field issue at our facility. One of the fields was significantly undersized. When that happens, usually the goal is moved closer to the end line and the restraining area shrinks. The organizers instead used a full-sized restraining area that was way too close to the face-off X. Play on that field had a serious problem for every faceoff.
The play format worked well. There were pools for each dvision and A & B flights for most age groups. Teams play maybe three games on Saturday and then get seeded into Sunday's semifinals followed by finals and consols. The organizers seemed to get the pools pretty much right because Sunday's games had some absolute crackers. Win or lose, teams really like having a good competitive game or two on their way out.
The concessions were adequate if unspectacular. Unfortunately grills were not allowed.
I give the tournament a B+ overall.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Jersey Shootout Tournament Review
Trying to catch up on my tournament reviews. Next up was the Jersey Shootout in Metuchen. This was my first time at this tournament.
The Jersey Shootout is definitely a mixed bag. It probably was my least favorite tournament of the year. That probably says more about the quality of the other tournaments than this one, nevertheless it's hard to give this tournament a lot of props.
The tournament was at St. Joseph's High School and the facility causes a lot of problems. Usually, a facility that is hard to get to has a lot of parking or a facility that is easy to might have a paring shortage. This facility is both: (a) hard to get to; and (b) very short on parking. Even coming from relatively short distance and leaving plenty of time we sat in quite a bit of traffic and then had to walk quite a distance through a couple neighborhoods to get to the fields. Fortunately, once we got there, the fields were flat and in pretty good shape.
The format was twenty-five minute halves in pools and then an extra game against the corresponding place team in another pool. This is where I noticed a real problem. I recognize that there is a certain amount of guesswork involved in seeding teams, but we ended up with wildly diverging team quality. One pool was pretty much stacked with good teams; the other pool had one very strong team and three weak ones. Of course the good teams beat up on each other and a dark horse team snuck through to the final on a tie-breaker. That team got destroyed in the final and the rest of the strong bracket did a number on the rest of the weaker pool. You hope by the end of the day to get a pretty even game but that wasn't happeing this time.
No grills allowed at this venue. We brought in pizza for our team and skipped the concessions.
I'll give the tournament a B- and frankly hope to skip it next year.
The Jersey Shootout is definitely a mixed bag. It probably was my least favorite tournament of the year. That probably says more about the quality of the other tournaments than this one, nevertheless it's hard to give this tournament a lot of props.
The tournament was at St. Joseph's High School and the facility causes a lot of problems. Usually, a facility that is hard to get to has a lot of parking or a facility that is easy to might have a paring shortage. This facility is both: (a) hard to get to; and (b) very short on parking. Even coming from relatively short distance and leaving plenty of time we sat in quite a bit of traffic and then had to walk quite a distance through a couple neighborhoods to get to the fields. Fortunately, once we got there, the fields were flat and in pretty good shape.
The format was twenty-five minute halves in pools and then an extra game against the corresponding place team in another pool. This is where I noticed a real problem. I recognize that there is a certain amount of guesswork involved in seeding teams, but we ended up with wildly diverging team quality. One pool was pretty much stacked with good teams; the other pool had one very strong team and three weak ones. Of course the good teams beat up on each other and a dark horse team snuck through to the final on a tie-breaker. That team got destroyed in the final and the rest of the strong bracket did a number on the rest of the weaker pool. You hope by the end of the day to get a pretty even game but that wasn't happeing this time.
No grills allowed at this venue. We brought in pizza for our team and skipped the concessions.
I'll give the tournament a B- and frankly hope to skip it next year.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Condolences to the Swezey Family
Christian Swezey, arguably the best lacrosse reporter anywhere and all-around good guy, lost his father last week. Our thoughts and prayers to his family.
Friday, August 14, 2009
No Jail Time For Hobart Player's Death
The teammates who supplied alcohol to an underage Hobart lacrosse player will not face jail time in connection with his death:
Facing up to a year in prison, two former students at a college in upstate New York were instead sentenced to community service yesterday for providing alcohol at an off-campus party where a classmate from New Jersey died.Read the rest here.
Summit resident Warren Kimber IV, 20, who had been a sophomore at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in the Finger Lakes region, drank a staggering amount of alcohol in the hours before his death on Jan. 31, an autopsy found.
Kimber's blood alcohol level was .29 percent, more than 31/2 times the legal limit to drive. He also had the painkiller oxycodone in his system. It was the combination of drugs and alcohol that killed him, a medical examiner ruled.
Bradley Hester, 22, of Cumberland, R.I., and Matthew Smalley, 23, of Woodbridge, Va., pleaded guilty in May to a misdemeanor charge of providing alcohol to a person under 21. All three students were members of the varsity lacrosse team.
Yesterday, a judge in Geneva City, N.Y., ordered Hester and Smalley to spend 50 hours educating children about the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse. They also must undergo a drug and alcohol evaluation and follow any recommendations issued after the assessment.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
R.I.P. Peter Kohn (Updated)
Very sad news today in the lacrosse world as we hear of the passing of Peter Kohn. Inside Lacrosse has a report here. He was a legend in lacrosse and was featured in one of the best movies ever made.
If you haven't seen Keeper of the Kohn, you should. It is outstanding.
Updates: Lacrosse Magazine starts to give him his due. More here.
More from e-lacrosse.
The official word from Middlebury.
If you haven't seen Keeper of the Kohn, you should. It is outstanding.
Updates: Lacrosse Magazine starts to give him his due. More here.
More from e-lacrosse.
The official word from Middlebury.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Lehigh Laxfest Tourney Review
We hit four tournaments this summer and unfortunately the summer has been busy enough that I haven't had a chance to post reviews. So I'm going to try to get through them soon.
First up is Lehigh Laxfest. This was my second time at this tournament.
Lehigh Laxfest does a lacrosse tournament about as well as any I have seen. We had horrendous weather this year but we can't blame that on the organizers.
The facility at Lehigh is really good. Some of the fields are a little sloped but few places have so many fields available within a short walk. Obviously, the rain didn't help the conditions of the fields at all but again that cannot be helped.
Traffic is a definite problem at Lehigh though. You will sit in some traffic on the way in and the way out. There just aren't many roads in or out of the place.
I love the play format of Lehigh Laxfest. For each division, the organizers make a bracket and your opponent is based upon the result of your games thus far. Winners play winners and losers play losers so you'll be playing a team with your same record most of the day. It seems to me that they organize the teams based upon geography so that you won't be playing a neighboring team right away. The great part about this format is that by the third game or so, you are pretty much guaranteed to be playing an appropriate opponent for your team regardless of how strong or weak you are. The last two teams at 4-0 play an extra game at the end of the day for the tournament championship but almost everyone ends up at 3-1, 2-2, or 1-3.
Game format was 20-minute halves and run by horns. Excellent format. Works fine. I have one criticism which is that they went to Braveheart for overtime. I am a big fan of Lineheart instead.
The level of play was pretty high but with the tournament format any team will end up playing appropriate teams by the afternoon.
The concessions were pretty good and varied. Since grills were allowed, we did a tailgate instead. This is a big issue for me. I seriously doubt that I ever will give a tournament a grade above a B+ unless grills are allowed.
I would give the tournament an A- overall. Adopt Lineheart next year and there is a good chance this becomes an A.
First up is Lehigh Laxfest. This was my second time at this tournament.
Lehigh Laxfest does a lacrosse tournament about as well as any I have seen. We had horrendous weather this year but we can't blame that on the organizers.
The facility at Lehigh is really good. Some of the fields are a little sloped but few places have so many fields available within a short walk. Obviously, the rain didn't help the conditions of the fields at all but again that cannot be helped.
Traffic is a definite problem at Lehigh though. You will sit in some traffic on the way in and the way out. There just aren't many roads in or out of the place.
I love the play format of Lehigh Laxfest. For each division, the organizers make a bracket and your opponent is based upon the result of your games thus far. Winners play winners and losers play losers so you'll be playing a team with your same record most of the day. It seems to me that they organize the teams based upon geography so that you won't be playing a neighboring team right away. The great part about this format is that by the third game or so, you are pretty much guaranteed to be playing an appropriate opponent for your team regardless of how strong or weak you are. The last two teams at 4-0 play an extra game at the end of the day for the tournament championship but almost everyone ends up at 3-1, 2-2, or 1-3.
Game format was 20-minute halves and run by horns. Excellent format. Works fine. I have one criticism which is that they went to Braveheart for overtime. I am a big fan of Lineheart instead.
The level of play was pretty high but with the tournament format any team will end up playing appropriate teams by the afternoon.
The concessions were pretty good and varied. Since grills were allowed, we did a tailgate instead. This is a big issue for me. I seriously doubt that I ever will give a tournament a grade above a B+ unless grills are allowed.
I would give the tournament an A- overall. Adopt Lineheart next year and there is a good chance this becomes an A.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Why We Wish Youth Lacrosse Would Adopt A Single Age Standard --- And Why It's Harder Than It Seems
It's a summertime tournament. A team from Pennsylvania is playing against a team from New Jersey. The team from New Jersey is more skilled but the team from Pennsylvania is stronger and more athletic. The team from Pennsylvania wins with a relatively comfortable margin. A few years later, when we compare where the players are being recruited, the players from the team from New Jersey have better prospects than the players from the team from Pennsylvania.
So what happened?
This was the result of different states having different systems of age classification. New Jersey teams generally use a grade-based system. Pennsylvania teams generally use an age-based system. So, just to use a simple example, if a team full of sixth graders from New Jersey plays against a U-13 team from Pennsylvania based upon a January 1 cutoff, the U-13 team will be on-average sixth months older than the team from New Jersey. Why? Because New Jersey schools generally use a summer date as their birthday cutoff for school grades. At the middle-school level, as the variable ages of puberty onset wreak havoc in competitive balance and athletic development, an average of sixth months of additional maturity is huge.
So what's the solution? Ideally, the sport would adopt a single standard cutoff date and we could run every competition on an age basis. Unfortunately, picking which date to use is a challenge that surely will upset someone somewhere. Whichever date we choose, it will divide up a grade in some school district because different districts use different cutoff dates. That means that half of kids in one grade will be playing at one level and the rest at another for their entire youth sports career. Youth soccer, for example, generally uses a July 31 cutoff date. A summer cutoff date chops up grades in school districts that use a January 1 cutoff date. Hockey tends to use a January 1 cutoff date which divides up grades in schools that use a summer birthday cutoff. These divisions can be particularly difficult when we get to high school sports. When half a grade has spent their entire athletic career playing against one level of competition and the the rest played against a different level, there can be a significant effect as the athletes adjust.
To the extent that lacrosse uses an age cutoff, it usually is January 1. States like New Jersey of course simply reject the use of January 1 and adopt a grade-based system rather than having a date imposed by "outsiders" goof up the formation of their teams. Of course, if we adopt July 31, one would expect the areas in which January 1 is the typical school cutoff to reject the new age-based system as well.
As expected given what I have discussed here, I do not have a simple solution. If we are going to adopt a single date as a cutoff, I imagine that July 31 will be more appropriate in the short run because most of the lacrosse hotbed states probably use a summer date as their school grade cutoff. In the long run, however, the expansion of lacrosse will hit more states that use a January 1 cutoff and programs in those states might not appreciate the arbitrary decision from whatever handful of states that enacted the decision before lacrosse became a truly national sport.
I would be interested to hear your thoughts and what date your schools systems use wherever you live.
So what happened?
This was the result of different states having different systems of age classification. New Jersey teams generally use a grade-based system. Pennsylvania teams generally use an age-based system. So, just to use a simple example, if a team full of sixth graders from New Jersey plays against a U-13 team from Pennsylvania based upon a January 1 cutoff, the U-13 team will be on-average sixth months older than the team from New Jersey. Why? Because New Jersey schools generally use a summer date as their birthday cutoff for school grades. At the middle-school level, as the variable ages of puberty onset wreak havoc in competitive balance and athletic development, an average of sixth months of additional maturity is huge.
So what's the solution? Ideally, the sport would adopt a single standard cutoff date and we could run every competition on an age basis. Unfortunately, picking which date to use is a challenge that surely will upset someone somewhere. Whichever date we choose, it will divide up a grade in some school district because different districts use different cutoff dates. That means that half of kids in one grade will be playing at one level and the rest at another for their entire youth sports career. Youth soccer, for example, generally uses a July 31 cutoff date. A summer cutoff date chops up grades in school districts that use a January 1 cutoff date. Hockey tends to use a January 1 cutoff date which divides up grades in schools that use a summer birthday cutoff. These divisions can be particularly difficult when we get to high school sports. When half a grade has spent their entire athletic career playing against one level of competition and the the rest played against a different level, there can be a significant effect as the athletes adjust.
To the extent that lacrosse uses an age cutoff, it usually is January 1. States like New Jersey of course simply reject the use of January 1 and adopt a grade-based system rather than having a date imposed by "outsiders" goof up the formation of their teams. Of course, if we adopt July 31, one would expect the areas in which January 1 is the typical school cutoff to reject the new age-based system as well.
As expected given what I have discussed here, I do not have a simple solution. If we are going to adopt a single date as a cutoff, I imagine that July 31 will be more appropriate in the short run because most of the lacrosse hotbed states probably use a summer date as their school grade cutoff. In the long run, however, the expansion of lacrosse will hit more states that use a January 1 cutoff and programs in those states might not appreciate the arbitrary decision from whatever handful of states that enacted the decision before lacrosse became a truly national sport.
I would be interested to hear your thoughts and what date your schools systems use wherever you live.
Monday, June 8, 2009
The Many Upshots of Tierney to Denver
By now, most readers of this blog will have heard that Bill Tierney is leaving Princeton to head to the University of Denver. Let's discuss the some of many points surrounding this move.
First, why Coach Tierney left. No one with the sophistication of Bill Tierney makes a move like this for a single reason. We can start with the rumored 250,000 reasons and just put those aside for the moment. Tierney has family in that area and might be able to hire his son, Trevor, as an assistant. Coach Tierney is also 57 years old and if he ever wanted to make a move like this, there are not many years left to do so.
Let's stick on that age issue for a moment as well. Does anyone know what these numbers represent in Ivy League lacrosse: 39, 40, 41? Those are the approximate ages of Jeff Tambroni, John Tillman and Lars Tiffany. Bill Tierney found himself competing directly against three GenX coaches on the rise in his own conference. And if he looked around lacrosse Tierney would find lots of other coaches on the other side of 50 -- Pietromala, Breschi, Cassese, Toomey, Fedorjaka, Myers and Marr just to name a few. I have litle doubt that Bill Tierney was confident in his ability to compete against coaches a generation his junior. But he also probably recognized that his margin for error was decreasing with so many talented younger coaches emerging on the scene.
Going to Denver was a game-changing move. We can debate the various tribal differences between the eastern lacrosse schools, but they are virtually cookie-cutter copies when compared to Denver. Tierney now gets to engage in the college lacrosse equivalent of asymmetrical warfare at Denver. Rather than chasing the same guys from some exit off I-95, I-90 or the LIE, Tierney will be digging for the players from the rest of the lacrosse universe as an icon in the sport. It will make for a different challenge for a person who likes them.
Second, what does this mean for Princeton? Simply put, rarely does an icon move from a program and his successor finds the same level of success. The passing of the torch from Simmons to Desko is one of the few instances I can name. Either it takes the new coach a few years to get the program up to speed or it takes the program a few coaches to find the right fit. Fortunately, whoever takes over at Princeton will inherit a team that is absolutely stacked. Unfortunately, for lots of underclassmen, Princeton just went from a very known and familiar program to an unknown one.
Third, what does this mean for the rest of college lacrosse? I would focus on a couple of things. For one, Tierney's mere presence out west jump-starts the expansion and growth of the sport outside the hotbeds. There is also the inevitable reshuffling of the coaching deck. Someone will get the Dartmouth and Princeton jobs and leave two positions open that must be filled. As always, there will be a ripple effect as coaches move around.
Lastly, this should be a reminder to everyone in all college sports that any coach can decide he or she sees a greener pasture somewhere. With luck you will have the same coaches from the time that you arrive at a school until you leave, but the odds are against it.
First, why Coach Tierney left. No one with the sophistication of Bill Tierney makes a move like this for a single reason. We can start with the rumored 250,000 reasons and just put those aside for the moment. Tierney has family in that area and might be able to hire his son, Trevor, as an assistant. Coach Tierney is also 57 years old and if he ever wanted to make a move like this, there are not many years left to do so.
Let's stick on that age issue for a moment as well. Does anyone know what these numbers represent in Ivy League lacrosse: 39, 40, 41? Those are the approximate ages of Jeff Tambroni, John Tillman and Lars Tiffany. Bill Tierney found himself competing directly against three GenX coaches on the rise in his own conference. And if he looked around lacrosse Tierney would find lots of other coaches on the other side of 50 -- Pietromala, Breschi, Cassese, Toomey, Fedorjaka, Myers and Marr just to name a few. I have litle doubt that Bill Tierney was confident in his ability to compete against coaches a generation his junior. But he also probably recognized that his margin for error was decreasing with so many talented younger coaches emerging on the scene.
Going to Denver was a game-changing move. We can debate the various tribal differences between the eastern lacrosse schools, but they are virtually cookie-cutter copies when compared to Denver. Tierney now gets to engage in the college lacrosse equivalent of asymmetrical warfare at Denver. Rather than chasing the same guys from some exit off I-95, I-90 or the LIE, Tierney will be digging for the players from the rest of the lacrosse universe as an icon in the sport. It will make for a different challenge for a person who likes them.
Second, what does this mean for Princeton? Simply put, rarely does an icon move from a program and his successor finds the same level of success. The passing of the torch from Simmons to Desko is one of the few instances I can name. Either it takes the new coach a few years to get the program up to speed or it takes the program a few coaches to find the right fit. Fortunately, whoever takes over at Princeton will inherit a team that is absolutely stacked. Unfortunately, for lots of underclassmen, Princeton just went from a very known and familiar program to an unknown one.
Third, what does this mean for the rest of college lacrosse? I would focus on a couple of things. For one, Tierney's mere presence out west jump-starts the expansion and growth of the sport outside the hotbeds. There is also the inevitable reshuffling of the coaching deck. Someone will get the Dartmouth and Princeton jobs and leave two positions open that must be filled. As always, there will be a ripple effect as coaches move around.
Lastly, this should be a reminder to everyone in all college sports that any coach can decide he or she sees a greener pasture somewhere. With luck you will have the same coaches from the time that you arrive at a school until you leave, but the odds are against it.
Why I Love This Part Of The Season
Leaves are on the trees, sandals are on the feet. Class, group and state champions are being crowned. The spring lacrosse season is ending. Everyone gets to take a little mental break and assess where we are.
For the teams that achieved their goals, congratulations. There is nothing like the feeling of setting out to accomplish something, working hard at it, and achieving it. In lacrosse, that often means an equipment garage sale on the field at the end of a game. Smiles abound on sweaty faces as friends and family beam at the accomplishment. When you achieve these things, they stay with you for all time. No one can take your accomplishments away; years from now you still can look back at the day that you won your town the race.
For those who fell short of their goals, congratulations as well. I heard an expression once that failure is just a form of feedback. I know in my life I have learned a lot more from the things that didn't go as I would hoped than I have from the outright successes. Constant success is mostly a sign of not setting goals high enough. Now is a chance to look back and think about what went wrong. Did we not have enough talent? Did we use our talent poorly? Did we not work hard enough? Did we not gel as a team? Which parts of our game let us down?
In lacrosse, the end of the spring season just means that there is another couple months to play. We toss aside our school/town gear, grab our summer club gear, and apply sunscreen. I was able to check out a couple introductory meetings for summer teams recently. The players and parents meeting their new coaches and teammates is like the beginning of a second act in a play. It feels like a new beginning, but it's usually more like a mulligan in golf. Most players didn't have the spring that they wanted and hope to redeem themselves a bit in the summer. Those folks are hungry and ready for a new start. We won't forget what happened before but we might be able to focus on what we can fix this time.
I am hitting a few tournaments this summer and will post reviews afterward. If you happen to go to a tournament and want to send me some feedback, feel free. I enjoy hearing from readers and maybe we can do some guests spots.
For the teams that achieved their goals, congratulations. There is nothing like the feeling of setting out to accomplish something, working hard at it, and achieving it. In lacrosse, that often means an equipment garage sale on the field at the end of a game. Smiles abound on sweaty faces as friends and family beam at the accomplishment. When you achieve these things, they stay with you for all time. No one can take your accomplishments away; years from now you still can look back at the day that you won your town the race.
For those who fell short of their goals, congratulations as well. I heard an expression once that failure is just a form of feedback. I know in my life I have learned a lot more from the things that didn't go as I would hoped than I have from the outright successes. Constant success is mostly a sign of not setting goals high enough. Now is a chance to look back and think about what went wrong. Did we not have enough talent? Did we use our talent poorly? Did we not work hard enough? Did we not gel as a team? Which parts of our game let us down?
In lacrosse, the end of the spring season just means that there is another couple months to play. We toss aside our school/town gear, grab our summer club gear, and apply sunscreen. I was able to check out a couple introductory meetings for summer teams recently. The players and parents meeting their new coaches and teammates is like the beginning of a second act in a play. It feels like a new beginning, but it's usually more like a mulligan in golf. Most players didn't have the spring that they wanted and hope to redeem themselves a bit in the summer. Those folks are hungry and ready for a new start. We won't forget what happened before but we might be able to focus on what we can fix this time.
I am hitting a few tournaments this summer and will post reviews afterward. If you happen to go to a tournament and want to send me some feedback, feel free. I enjoy hearing from readers and maybe we can do some guests spots.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Diversity in Lacrosse -- The Road To Be More Traveled
This is an article last week in the Times Herald-Record, a newspaper from New York's Hudson Valley, talking about diversity in lacrosse. The article correctly observed that lacrosse is not as diverse as anyone would like but was casual about some of the facts that it cited. I thought about writing a post about some of my complaints about the article but I decided against it. Instead it might be better to talk about diversity in lacrosse and also in sports generally.
Here is a story from my daughter's high school English class: Her English teacher was trying make a point about the lack of diversity in many sports. The teacher started talking about how "You never see black athletes playing [insert sport here]." The teacher started with hockey but a couple hockey players in the class started rattling off names like Anson Carter, Mike Grier, and Ray Emery. She then tried with swimming but a swimmer in the class started rattling off names like Cullen Jones, Anthony Earvin, and Maritza Correia. She then went with lacrosse and the lacrosse players started talking about Kyle Harrison, John Christmas, Will Barrow and the Brattons. It wasn't that long ago that very few names would roll off the tongue when asked to name non-white athletes in those sports.
As late as the 1990 World Cup, the U.S. Men's soccer team had one or two non-white starters. These days, we start twice that many at least. Here is how we looked in 2006 before one of our World Cup games. Progress on these fronts occurring; it rarely comes as quickly as we like but it comes nevertheless.
I agree with the perspective in the article that iconic figures in the sport are unlikely to affect diversity in a sport in a lasting way. Of course, everyone wants to be able to look up and relate to the best players in a sport. But there are so many ways in which to emulate a great athlete that are beyond ethnicity. We already have a number of prominent African-American lacrosse players and have for maybe a decade now. Frankly I am unconvinced that making the sport marginally more diverse at the upper levels of the sport really attracts much diversity. After all, when a school-age kid is learning how to pick up a ground ball on a cold day in March, what does he care whether a couple of famous brothers who have a similar hue to their skin color do the same at the University of Virginia?
That young kid does care, however, whether his friends play the sport and whether his coaches are supporting his effort to learn the game. In my experience, kids like playing the sports that their friends play and where they get positive reinforcement from the adults in charge. As the parent of a lacrosse player, I have seen the full spectrum of coaching abilities from the phenomenal to the pitiful. And I know that were it not for a few encouraging words at the beginning of this journey from a head coach to a young guy living with me, the journey would have ended the same month that it started. The most we can do to promote diversity in the sport is to view every kid -- regardless of his size, strength, speed, family income, intelligence level, toughness, religion, ethnicity or God knows whatever else -- as a potential lacrosse player and future ambassador for the sport. If we continue to grow the game, it will grow in all directions and we all will better for it.
Here is a story from my daughter's high school English class: Her English teacher was trying make a point about the lack of diversity in many sports. The teacher started talking about how "You never see black athletes playing [insert sport here]." The teacher started with hockey but a couple hockey players in the class started rattling off names like Anson Carter, Mike Grier, and Ray Emery. She then tried with swimming but a swimmer in the class started rattling off names like Cullen Jones, Anthony Earvin, and Maritza Correia. She then went with lacrosse and the lacrosse players started talking about Kyle Harrison, John Christmas, Will Barrow and the Brattons. It wasn't that long ago that very few names would roll off the tongue when asked to name non-white athletes in those sports.
As late as the 1990 World Cup, the U.S. Men's soccer team had one or two non-white starters. These days, we start twice that many at least. Here is how we looked in 2006 before one of our World Cup games. Progress on these fronts occurring; it rarely comes as quickly as we like but it comes nevertheless.I agree with the perspective in the article that iconic figures in the sport are unlikely to affect diversity in a sport in a lasting way. Of course, everyone wants to be able to look up and relate to the best players in a sport. But there are so many ways in which to emulate a great athlete that are beyond ethnicity. We already have a number of prominent African-American lacrosse players and have for maybe a decade now. Frankly I am unconvinced that making the sport marginally more diverse at the upper levels of the sport really attracts much diversity. After all, when a school-age kid is learning how to pick up a ground ball on a cold day in March, what does he care whether a couple of famous brothers who have a similar hue to their skin color do the same at the University of Virginia?
That young kid does care, however, whether his friends play the sport and whether his coaches are supporting his effort to learn the game. In my experience, kids like playing the sports that their friends play and where they get positive reinforcement from the adults in charge. As the parent of a lacrosse player, I have seen the full spectrum of coaching abilities from the phenomenal to the pitiful. And I know that were it not for a few encouraging words at the beginning of this journey from a head coach to a young guy living with me, the journey would have ended the same month that it started. The most we can do to promote diversity in the sport is to view every kid -- regardless of his size, strength, speed, family income, intelligence level, toughness, religion, ethnicity or God knows whatever else -- as a potential lacrosse player and future ambassador for the sport. If we continue to grow the game, it will grow in all directions and we all will better for it.
Friday, May 29, 2009
YB: Why there won't be lacrosse in the SEC or Big XII
This is an interesting little read from Yardbarker. YB notes that the Big XII and SEC have yet to embrace soccer and therefore probably are unlikely to embrace lacrosse anytime soon. It reminded me of a passage in a book I read, How Soccer Explains the Word by Franklin Foer. In his discussion of soccer in the United States, Foer uses soccer to illustrate one of the cultural divisions here:
Soccer is, for a lack of a better term, a "foreign" sport. It was born and raised abroad. Its emigration to the United States came after it was the world's most popular sport. Its most-accomplished stars all speak with accents from faraway lands. Many of its customs, such as diving or feigning injury, are beneath contempt in our culture. Soccer is, in this country, largely a strange and an effete importation.
Lacrosse, however, could not be more American. We inherited the game from the original inhabitants of this land and developed it on these shores. Much like football, lacrosse has developed with different variations in Canada and the United States but the development is North American, not global. We are exporting the game as we did with basketball, a game invented by a Canadian and that reached maturity here before exportation. Lacrosse players wear helmets like football players, carry sticks like hockey players, use the footwork of basketball players, and have the eye-hand coordination of baseball players. Although the game has its odd rules and customs, lacrosse does not seem foreign to a casual American observer. The voices of the high priests of the sport, be they from Maryland, New York, Canada or wherever else, cannot be mistaken for those from the heartland, but also are clearly from this continent. Immigrants are not better at lacrosse than the natives unless you happen to be an immigrant from a place like Long Island. Lacrosse is a quintessentially American game
This is not to say that we should expect schools in the Big XII and SEC to pick up lacrosse anytime soon. Many schools are facing Title IX burdens and picking up limited revenue sports is not a priority for most institutions. A lack of desire for sports that will be a drain on an athletic department's coffers is doubtless a prominent reason. But we should not expect that lacrosse will face all of the same obstacles that soccer has in this country.
That said, lacrosse should look to follow the growth model of soccer for inclusion in Division I schools. We do not need major football powers to embrace lacrosse in order for the sport to be legitimate. We simply need more Division I schools to be fully funded programs. Whether those schools play football as well is immaterial to lacrosse's growth. Any school that plays Division I soccer is likely to have facilities suitable for lacrosse. Thus the sport will grow as opportunities arise for people to play it at a high level regardless of whether those opportunities occur at sports that also play big-time football.
Pundits have employed many devices to sum up America's cultural divisions. During the 1980s, they talked about the "culture war" -- the battle over textbooks, abortion, prayer in school, affirmative action, and funding of the arts. This war pitted conservative defenders of tradition and morality against liberal defenders of modernity and pluralism. More recently this debate has been described as the split between "red and blue America" -- the two colors used to distinguish partisan preference in maps charting presidential election voting. But another explanatory device has yet to penetrate political science departments and the national desks of newspapers. There is exists an important cleavage between the parts of the country that have adopted soccer as its pastime and the places that haven't. And this distinction lays bare an underrated source of American cultural cleavage: globalization.As a huge soccer fan and a huge lacrosse fan who has spent almost his entire life in blue states, I do not carry the cultural barriers that prevent people from embracing an unfamiliar sport. There is, however, an important distinction to be made between soccer and lacrosse.
Soccer is, for a lack of a better term, a "foreign" sport. It was born and raised abroad. Its emigration to the United States came after it was the world's most popular sport. Its most-accomplished stars all speak with accents from faraway lands. Many of its customs, such as diving or feigning injury, are beneath contempt in our culture. Soccer is, in this country, largely a strange and an effete importation.
Lacrosse, however, could not be more American. We inherited the game from the original inhabitants of this land and developed it on these shores. Much like football, lacrosse has developed with different variations in Canada and the United States but the development is North American, not global. We are exporting the game as we did with basketball, a game invented by a Canadian and that reached maturity here before exportation. Lacrosse players wear helmets like football players, carry sticks like hockey players, use the footwork of basketball players, and have the eye-hand coordination of baseball players. Although the game has its odd rules and customs, lacrosse does not seem foreign to a casual American observer. The voices of the high priests of the sport, be they from Maryland, New York, Canada or wherever else, cannot be mistaken for those from the heartland, but also are clearly from this continent. Immigrants are not better at lacrosse than the natives unless you happen to be an immigrant from a place like Long Island. Lacrosse is a quintessentially American game
This is not to say that we should expect schools in the Big XII and SEC to pick up lacrosse anytime soon. Many schools are facing Title IX burdens and picking up limited revenue sports is not a priority for most institutions. A lack of desire for sports that will be a drain on an athletic department's coffers is doubtless a prominent reason. But we should not expect that lacrosse will face all of the same obstacles that soccer has in this country.
That said, lacrosse should look to follow the growth model of soccer for inclusion in Division I schools. We do not need major football powers to embrace lacrosse in order for the sport to be legitimate. We simply need more Division I schools to be fully funded programs. Whether those schools play football as well is immaterial to lacrosse's growth. Any school that plays Division I soccer is likely to have facilities suitable for lacrosse. Thus the sport will grow as opportunities arise for people to play it at a high level regardless of whether those opportunities occur at sports that also play big-time football.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Should the Goal Have Counted? I Don't Think So
Probably everyone who reads this blog saw the end of the national championship game today. With four seconds left to go in the game and Syracuse trailing 9-8, Syracuse attackman Kenny Nims caught a deflected pass and jumped in the air as he threw the ball into the net. He ended up landing in the crease. The goal counted and Syracuse ended up winning in overtime.
Should the goal have counted? It's the Gary Gait Rule.
Here is the rule. Rule 4, Section 9(m) states that a goal does not count: "If an attacking player deliberately leaves his feet by jumping or diving and his momentum carries him into the crease area, regardless of whether he lands in the crease before or after the ball enters the goal."
Cornell might have a legitimate complaint.
Should the goal have counted? It's the Gary Gait Rule.
Here is the rule. Rule 4, Section 9(m) states that a goal does not count: "If an attacking player deliberately leaves his feet by jumping or diving and his momentum carries him into the crease area, regardless of whether he lands in the crease before or after the ball enters the goal."
Cornell might have a legitimate complaint.
Why Does CBS College Sports Sabotage Its Own Broadcasts?
So I was at a barbecue yesterday afternoon and missed the Division II final. Fortunately, I was awake this morning and thought I might catch the replay on CBS College Sports during breakfast. A few minutes into the broadcast, the crawl along the bottom announced the result of the game I just started watching! "Well, that saved me a couple hours I guess." *Click* Off went the TV. I mowed the lawn early and watched some soccer later instead of the lacrosse game. Why does CBS College Sports have so much trouble keeping quiet about the result of a game when they are broadcasting it on delay? The network made the same mistake during the UNC-Notre Dame game a few months ago.
Friday, May 22, 2009
All-American Lists Are Out
LaxPower has all of them here.
I wish they included specialist middies as well. I would be fine with 3 attack, 3 offensive middies, 1 SSM, 1 LSM, 3 close D and a GK per team. I would like to know whom people think are the best defensive middies, not just the best scorers. Not everyone likes the specialization of lacrosse but it's silly to deny that specialization exists.
I wish they included specialist middies as well. I would be fine with 3 attack, 3 offensive middies, 1 SSM, 1 LSM, 3 close D and a GK per team. I would like to know whom people think are the best defensive middies, not just the best scorers. Not everyone likes the specialization of lacrosse but it's silly to deny that specialization exists.
IL: 2009 Final Four Trip With Duke
I really enjoy Peyton Williams' work. He combines his photography with descriptions of the experience of being there. Here is a nice installment from his trip to Foxborough with Duke this weekend.
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