First off, thanks to everyone for their amazing response to last week’s newsletter about potentially starting an instruction-based club team. I really expected a lot of, “You’re a poseur!” comments, but that’s because I have no idea how to take a compliment.
So, how do I follow that up? With an update? With a deeper dive into creating a New Hampshire developmental box lacrosse team? (I live 4 miles from a hockey facility with an outdoor dry rink - which is exactly the same setup where I was introduced to the game...although my rink is now a Buffalo Wild Wings, because both commerce and trash dipping sauces will always win.)
I love the movie “High Fidelity”. I have watched it a dozen times and got something new each time. Yes, the main character is toxic, “the book is better”, and there is a streaming series remake that has a less problematic story - but there is one line that always sticks out. Sometimes it hits me like a child’s toy hammer, sometimes it cuts me deep like a scythe.
Rob, the main character, invites a friend (ostensibly his employee) into his home. He has piles and piles of records strewn about his apartment. He declares that he is reorganizing his record collection. It’s not chronological...not alphabetical…
Rob (played by John Cusack) smiles a wry dickish smile and says, “Autobiographical.”
As a collector of things myself I often wondered how I could ever do this with my comics (too many in storage), shoes (sold to fund my need to eat food during the leanest stages of the pandemic), or even lacrosse gear (donated to my hometown years ago).
I don’t have anything to collect now. Well. Except you. Thanks again for subscribing, feel free to become a paid subscriber if you’re so able. Wars come and go, but my soldiers stay eternal.
This is my personal Mount Rushmore of lacrosse players. Yours will be different because this, again, is autobiographical. These are the players that have influenced me in all areas of lacrosse. Whether it was imitating their plays myself in the backyard, writing/learning/analyzing about their impact on the game, or my own personal interactions with them - this is my Mount Rushmore of lacrosse players.
Casey Powell
I met Casey Powell when I was 19, injured af (sports hernia/torn groin - highly recommended), and helping to coach my high school a year removed from graduating. I rode a bus out to a small school called Saint Thomas near the New Hampshire seacoast with the entire team. Pretty much none of them wanted to be there to watch some dude they had never heard of (this is the dark days before social media) but I legitimately did not care.
I set this up for me.
Casey Powell was my first lacrosse idol. Sure, Mark Millon taught me how to play wall ball and Bill Tierney taught me how to play defense, but only through DVD’s. I never saw a college game in person at that point. Just magazine articles and TV. So, when I got a chance to meet Casey Powell and see that he was a real person, I jumped at it. It may have been the first time I actually organized anything for anyone, much less 22 high school kids and a reluctant bus driver.
So, what did I do when I met Mr. Powell besides get him to sign a poster that I still hang in every room I’ve ever lived in?
“Who is the best defender you have ever played against?”
Because 19-year old Kyle is a contrarian little bitch.
He laughed and did the thing he does when someone asks him that question about goalies and he says, well I just put the ball where the goalie isn’t. I pressed him. He reluctantly named Princeton’s Christian Cook, who had recently held him to a low point total. I almost threw up and then sat down.
You don’t need another paragraph about how amazing Casey Powell is at playing the game of lacrosse. You already know.
Kyle Harrison
The second goat, but also the one that taught me how to appreciate greatness is Mr. Harrison. Allegedly, I once wrote that he was “ass” in an article, but this article has never been presented to me nor would such a term have been published by anyone I have ever worked for in a professional capacity. Maybe I said it, but I don’t know when or why I would - Oh.
Right.
The LXM thing.
You see, children, there was once a concept known as LXM that was a combination lacrosse all-star game and concert festival...thing. It robbed Major League Lacrosse of several key players at their apex, including Kyle Harrison and Joe Walters, among others. I hated it. Not because I thought it was stupid, but because it took those players away from the highest level of competition available at the time - seriously, before you even start, don’t say international or box lacrosse to me as a refutation because I have an 8-foot hoop in the driveway and I will dunk on your face - and hurt the league. This was, obviously, before I knew how the MLL was run by Draconian laws adjudicated by lazy ne’er do wells.
But it didn’t matter, I was mad. How DARE these guys leave pro lacrosse when it needed them the most? How DARE they start their own venture to compete against an organization that was, at best, a house of cards?
In case you were wondering, it’s irony that is 20/20 - not hindsight.
But before all that and after all that I was the biggest Kyle Harrison fan. You love him for his ability to shake defenders out of their cleats, but I love him because he always did what he had to in order to help his team win. Whether it was taking a face-off, playing defense, dishing the ball in transition, or selling out for a key GB - Kyle Harrison did that. He is that guy. That player. That consummate teammate.
I haven't watched his last game yet. I don’t want to cry by myself.
Of all the guys on this list, Kyle Harrison is the only one that I got to know as a person. And, man, I’ve got to tell you as good a player as he was...he’s an even better human.
Jay Jalbert
People always ask me how I got into covering pro lacrosse. Major League Lacrosse (ironically? ironically.) began as a traveling roadshow of games in different cities. PEOPLE DON’T FORGET. Ahem. Sorry. One of the byproducts of this endeavor was a highlight tape of all the games that you could only buy at lacrosse stores. I wore out my first copy of this tape. I ruined the tracking on the second copy because I rewound and rewatched this one play like it was the pivotal scene in “Wild Things”.
That play was Jay Jalbert collecting a loose ball in front of the net with his left hand. He then runs behind the net, stops for half a second then drives to his right, only to rocket his body completely horizontally from behind the goal to stuff the ball into the gap by the nearside pipe. Now by today’s standards, that’s like maybe a top 10 play. Maybe. But back then? Heart-stopping excitement.
Jalbert, like Kyle Harrison, was great because he could do everything on the field. Unlike Harrison, he also did it in box lacrosse. (But Kyle took face-offs, which technically makes him more well-rounded - I’m just saying). Jalbert isn’t in here on a technicality - this isn’t a “favorite player” list. This is a list of guys that did incredible things and made them look incredibly easy. No better player exemplifies that than Jalbert.
Paul Rabil
Let me tell you about the first time I interviewed Paul Rabil.
I had to physically go to the Boston Cannons office and be monitored as I asked him questions. On the friggin’ phone. Is that crazy? Absolutely. But people forget two things:
Rabil had more hype than any rookie before him. Maybe ever. Everyone wanted to talk to this dude.
I was the most notorious writer in lacrosse at this time. Everyone hated me. John Jiloty was sorting my hate mail like an IRS employee sorts deductions. Sorry not sorry, Johnny boy. You’re welcome for the clicks.
The interview was pretty standard until I asked him about his rep for talking smack on the field. The horror in the PR director’s eyes when I slipped this question in at the end...let me tell you - I learned that day that fear has a smell, and it is intoxicating. Rabil laughed and answered it diplomatically with “I don’t talk until I’m talked to.” Which I remember thinking was such a perfect answer that served both of our purposes.
Let me be clear with this - Rabes and I - we’re not friends. I’ve been on his good side. I’ve been on his bad side. I have no idea which one I’m on at the moment and I don’t really care. Paul is every bit the Paul you see in the public eye. Whether it’s his TV appearances or posts on social media - but he’s also more than that. The dude is complex. He’s been many things to many people. Often he’s a punching bag for people in lacrosse that talk out the side of their mouths and/or want to raise their clout rating. Which is gutless.
But...for me, he’s still the man that brought another championship to Boston and was - IS - the best offensive player of his generation. I don’t want him on that mountain; I need him on that mountain.
Who is on your Lacrosse Mount Rushmore?