The Last Game, the Best Game: My Short Lacrosse Career

I was never much of an athlete. My desire to be good was often greater in size and spectrum than my on-field performance. Lacrosse was a sport I came to late. I didn't play my first game until my sophomore year of high school. I went to a private catholic school in a town that neighbored the one I grew up in. Prior to going there, I had never seen lacrosse. In the spring, some of my friends were bringing their sticks to school and playing catch on the thawing fields. I was curious.

Like most memorable events, my best lacrosse game happened on a day that was unremarkable. During a time when I was a living cliche. Young and in my first semester of college I had no sense of time. I thought I would live forever and that the game I was playing in was one of many and therefore not immediately notable. In the fall of 1998, I matriculated to Johnson State College in Johnson, Vermont, just northwest of Burlington. College represented the kind of freedom that is problematic for many young people and certainly was for me. Going to lacrosse practice and playing in games was the only structure I had. I know it seems strange that classes didn't serve this purpose, but I had developed a habit of skipping more than I should have.

During the fall we practiced regularly, but we were often without a coach. We were a club team and were therefore not subject to the same NCAA regulations as official teams. Our coach was a volunteer who had played at Syracuse, a legendary lacrosse powerhouse. He had moved to northern Vermont with his wife and family seeking a slower pace. He owned a farm, which we helped harvest pumpkins at that fall. I had spoken with him briefly, when I was touring schools the previous spring. He was a good man, but we never got along well. During drills at one practice he was lobbing balls to pairs who would then sprint to the ball and run it back to where they had started completing the drill. When it was my turn, I sprinted out from the start, but hung back letting my opponent scoop the ball in his stick. I immediately swung my long-pole down on my opponents stick knocking the ball out. Sprinting back to the line I decided that I would put my own finishing touch on the drill, by gently placing the ball in my coaches stick. Unimpressed with my play he simply said, "Just pass it back next time, like everybody else."

The game in question was to the last of our short fall season. It wouldn't be fair to call the team at St. Michael's a rival. They had a division II NCAA program which meant they had a structured practice regimen and were able to offer scholarships to their athlete's. Still, we viewed them as rivals. We were able to pin them as the Goliath private school that was just a short drive from our campus the blue-collar state school. To add to this, St. Michael's had been my first choice of colleges. I hadn't gotten in due to my grades not being good enough, but I had twisted my brain into wanting to show them that they had passed on a premier lacrosse talent. Which I couldn't twist my brain into thinking today.

As the game began, the jitters faded and they seemed like a good team with about a half a dozen players that seemed to have some sort of chemistry. The rest of the team was really just average or was playing that way. As a team our hopes elevated seeing that if we could hold strong against their best line and tire them out, we could hang with the other two line rotations and etch out a win.

We did just that for most of the first half. Our strategy was working well and their best line was scoreless. Unfortunately, we were tiring out as well and let them score too late goals. One on a bad clear and another where they caught our defense sleeping after one of our middies turned the ball over on a substitution.

As we drank water and rested during halftime, we said little. It would serve dramatic device to say something was stirring within us or that it was the calm before the storm, but we were just tired. We were out of shape and I know in my case, the extracurriculars associated with the first semester of college were taking their toll. Still, we had some fight left.

The first ten minutes of the second half were tense. They had several breaks where they got shots on goal, but were unable to score, thanks to solid play from our goalie. We were still down by two goals, but we were "emptying the tank" as they say and leaving it all on the field.

During the last minute of the third quarter, Dave O'Brien our talented mid-fielder who had transferred from Nazareth College scored on an isolation play, only cutting the score in half, but giving hope to our exhausted bodies.

What happened next was an example why lacrosse was a good match for my mediocre athletic skills. On two consecutive plays The St. Michael's team tried to dump the ball in our end to facilitate a line change. I just happened to spot their defenseman telegraphing the play with his eyes and with energy that was beyond me was able to cut off the dump. I ran the ball in and scored, twice. Less than a minute and ten seconds had gone by on the game clock. It really didn't take much skill or athleticism for that matter. I was in the right place at the right time. These were the only two goals I scored in my career.

The rest of the game was surreal. It seemed like it lasted for hours. It was tense. We were tired, but we were able to run out the clock for the win. I felt a high like I had never felt before and haven't felt since.

We celebrated that night as if we were NCAA champions and as if we weren't students who had other obligations, but professional athletes who had finished the regular season out strong and were now going into an off season of rest and golf time.

Less than a month later I would withdraw from Johnson State and return home to work and take the occasional class at community college. Later, I would finish my degree at Marlboro College in Marlboro, Vermont where there were serious academics and rigorous classes, but no organized athletics save for a club soccer team.

My lacrosse stick hangs in my garage and several of the laces are snapped. If I try to play catch or cradle a ball, it slips out the back.

I have no regrets though.

When I see a group of high school students playing as I drive home from work in the spring, I wonder when their last game will be? Where their sticks will end up?