Welcome To The Center Of The Lax Universe..Geographically Speaking

Alma mater so renowned

The traffic in the DC-Baltimore region is atrocious. Washington DC ranks 2nd in the nation for commuter gridlock, just falling short of LA in this auspicious category. I used to brave that I-95 corridor everyday, traveling from my palatial estate in Catonsville, MD down to my office in Chantilly, Virginia. Needless to say I was ecstatic when a friend of mine helped me land a job much closer to my home, cutting my commute to 25 minutes on a busy day. The locale of my new employer just so happens be where I grew up and attended high school. Glen Burnie, MD. Population 40,000. Latitude: 39.16 N, Longitude: 76.61 W. Basically, the center of MD, lacrosse giant of the east coast. Bring on the hate Central New York and LI.

They say you can never go home again. I never understood that phrase until I passed my old high school and slowed all 3 cylinders of my '98 C-Roll to take a long look. The school looked smaller, dirtier, and less appealing then I had remembered. They also say the more things change, the more they stay the same. A lesson I was soon to experience first hand

Arundel dominated the face-off X all afternoon

Working so close to the school I decided that I would duck out of work early one day to check out a varsity lacrosse game and see how my Alma mater was faring in the highly competitive Anne Arundel County Public School League. So picking the next beautiful day, I drove the 2.3 miles over to the school to watch my Gophers play the Arundel Wildcats. Now I knew Arundel would be very good. The Wildcats are good at most sports, not just lacrosse. I was apprehensive in choosing this game for my dramatic return to Pop Wayland Field. I walked into the stadium not expecting a victory but  remaining optimistic that my Gophers would at least give Arundel a fight.

The Gophers were getting  a steady diet of this all game

So how'd my Gophers do? Lets just say that I rolled out in the middle of the 4th quarter. Arundel Wildcats 15,  Glen Burnie Gophers 0. It could have been worse. Arundel cleared its bench in the 2nd quarter and the Gopher goalkeeper must have had 12 saves by halftime. Bless you Arundel head coach Kevin Necessary for calling off the dogs early.



How could this be? How can a high school that is roughly 20 minutes from Johns Hopkins, UMBC, Loyola, Towson, Stevenson, McDaniel, and the Lacrosse Hall of Fame be this bad? On the way home, during dinner and sitting on my couch watching South Park, I mulled this over and over. I mean this is a school with over 1800 students. There must be 15 decent lax players in there somewhere right? This is Maryland! We eat crabs, drink Natty-Boh, vote Democrat, and play lax. I was on the verge of losing sleep over this so I went online and did some research. It got even worse! Since 2007 the GBHS Varsity Lacrosse team has compiled a record of 1 Win and 38 Loses! I felt ill.

Now to be fair, back when I played we weren't much better. I believe we had 2 wins my senior year, even though we fielded five All-County players, but we never got blown out. We had seasoned players but there just weren't many of us. Like I mentioned before, we were able to find at least 15 decent players. Prior to my sophomore year we played for the A.A. County Championship. That was just before head Coach Joe Rotellini  left us and went on to coach  D3 powerhouse Salisbury. Thanks for ruining my career Rotellini!

Yeah, at this point I had seen enough

So after several hours of contemplation and about 20 minutes of trying to change the words "Glen Burnie" on my High School Diploma to read "Gilman School", it slowly started to come to me. The five reasons that their lacrosse program struggles to compete in the heart of lax country USA began to reveal themselves to me.

1. No Feeder System. The city of Glen Burnie actually contains four high schools. North County, Glen Burnie, Old Mill and Northeast (although technically in Pasadena). There is no existing little league that feeds players into Glen Burnie High School. All of the youth programs in the area feed the other schools. In contrast, there are roughly 26 little league baseball teams in the area.

2. No Junior Varsity. No feeder system equals very little interest amongst the freshmen class in getting drubbed twice a week by kids with metal sticks. I don't believe the Gophers have had a JV for at least four years now. I know for a fact they do not have a JV this year. JV is strictly for developing skills, learning the program and preparing kids for varsity. This means that the Gophers have first year lacrosse players on their varsity squad that are probably getting playing time. At least the varsity letter will help them get chicks!

3. It's an older town. Established in 1931, it's one of the oldest towns in the county. Most of the land is developed. There are few new communities being built to attract young families to the area. Also, the median age of residents in Glen Burnie is higher than the rest of the county, meaning fewer young families are raising kids in the area. That equates to fewer youth lacrosse players. The result is no need for a local youth program.

4. Urban Flight. As citizens race to leave the steady crime rates and deterioration of the inner city, towns in the rural surroundings of Baltimore such as Glen Burnie are affected. Lets face it, outside of the MIAA Schools in Baltimore City, few inner city kids are playing lacrosse. New students transferring from the inner city schools to Glen Burnie are not playing lacrosse and not bringing in a new crop of talent to the school.

5. Income. The a median annual household income for Glen Burnie residents is almost $10,000 lower then the rest of the county. Anyone that has purchased lacrosse equipment these days knows how expensive lax can be. Clinics, camps and driving your kid 30 minutes to play for a youth league can all add up. This is also why Glen Burnie sucks at Ice Hockey. Okay, that's a really bad joke.

 And this was an away game! No sign like this anywhere for GBHS

This is all theory of course. My day job, children and my own lax career impede me from researching this topic further. I doubt there is much interest in this as well outside of the Alumni and myself, but I felt the need to write about it. Plus, Tom is nagging me for new content. I'm not trying to make excuses for the school's lack of success, I'm merely attempting to shed some light on why they struggle and why I should probably give the players a break and cut the coaches some slack. They've been dealt a tough hand and the rest of the county programs are passing aces and kings to each other under the card table.


24sevenlax.com would like to send a shout out to Arundel Wildcats "Team Mom" Lisa E. for the excellent game photos that she provided. Thank you again!