The Ballad of the Rat Boy Shortie
Every great team has one. If you're not sure who it is...it's you. You are the rat boy.
One of the reasons that lacrosse is so great is because players of any size can find a way to contribute. This weekend I was at a recruiting tournament and saw a little person with silky smooth hands sniping corners for a 2024 travel team. If you have the skill and the will, you’ll find a way to contribute to this game.
But…what if you have the will, but you don’t have any skill? What if you also don’t have a lot of size or power? What if you have the stick skills of a fifth-grader? Well, then your fate is tied to two paths: the backup backup goalkeeper or a rat boy shortie. (As you age up, a third trail magically appears with a sign written in Chick-fil-A sauce that reads “sixth defenseman”, but that’s not what this article is about.)
If you’re a big guy, you choose option A (then C) most of the time because it’s the most logical step in your progression. It’s how you get to see the field. Plus, every team needs another goalie. You’re covered.
For the smaller individuals, the track and soccer converts - even a few stray basketball crossovers - your best bet to get on the field is to learn how to be a rat. Forget getting your jersey dirty in a game; rats finish every practice with dirt-caked equipment. If they’re on turf, they go home and dump a never-ending cascade of rubber pellets out of their cleats. They get yelled at for going “too hard” in practice. These dudes make teams based on one thing and one thing only: Hustle.
Now, the ability to hustle is a skill in and of itself.
(This notion is trademarked by Patrick McEwen).
People will disagree with this. They will say that you’re born with a tendency to work hard. No. You’re not. You’re told to do that and you either listen or you don’t. “Hustle” is the combination of effort and instruction without interruption. Every time your coach turns to you and asks you to do something and you say, “I know. I was doing ____. I saw ______. There was a guy there. I couldn’t get there. He was in my way.”
Et cetera, Et cetera.
Rat boys don’t question or whine. Rat boys nod and execute.
Sidebar: Don’t ever say “I know” to your coach when he’s explaining something to you. You’re not Han Solo and you didn’t know. Otherwise, your coach wouldn’t be instructing you. It’s disrespectful. Stop doing it.
I should explain this better - traditionally, rat boys are short stick defensive midfielders because we don’t know what else to call them. They don’t have to be particularly good at playing one on one defense. Or even helping on defense. They just need to go 100% every time they are on the field. They hurtle into groundball scrums. They dive for runouts on errant shots. They always sprint to the box when they have to come off the field. They always run back to the hole to kill a break.
Over time, the rattus-puer develops the stick skills and the positional know-how to contribute on offense. Or they actually learn how to play defense and become indispensable in six-on-six sets where you need a stop, or even man-down defense.
The saddest thing is that once they get those roles, their rattiness usually fades. They get complacent. They won their spot. They’re getting recognition. They’re not just on the wing for face-offs anymore.
You see, rat boys don’t stay rat boys forever.
I bet when you first started reading, you thought that this was a pejorative stab at SSDMs. It’s not. It’s an appreciation for their proto-form. Because a team full of rat boys will always get you farther than a team full of whiny, entitled brats who only care about precise eyeblack application and how sick their tilt is.
Lacrosse needs more rat boys.