Why am I so sore? Because I play in the Maryland Masters Lacrosse League!

I have to admit, by the time I turned 32 I had just about had it with club lacrosse. The American Lacrosse League was overcrowded with talented players. My last few years with the Canton Lacrosse Club brought little production on the field. In between getting beat on and run down by 25 year old "dudes," I was either pounding beers or trying to bribe one of the younger attackmen for some playing time. It seemed liked every year brought a tidal wave of young punks out of grad school to eat into my already limited action. So, I did what all 32 year old lacrosse players in Maryland do - drank a lot of beer and waited to turn 35 so I could play in the Maryland Masters Lacrosse League!

Think this guy will go easy on you?

Founded in 1998, The Maryland Masters Lacrosse League (MMLL) is a highly competitive adult mens lacrosse league for players ages 35 and over. Currently comprised of 26 teams, the MMLL has over 600 participants competing in its Masters (over-35) and Grand Masters (over-45) divisions. Additionally, the MMLL is proud to boast that, among its members, are three world masters championship teams: The Geezers (Manchester England 1994), Lax World (Baltimore 1998), and Team Toyota (Perth Australia 2002).

Needless to say I was certain that by entering the Masters League I would transform my game from Paul Newman into Paul Rabil just like that. I'd be unstoppable, right? I was gonna get the ball and slice through those old farts like a hot knife through butter. I was gonna Jim Brown over all of them! I still had decent legs for on older guy and my gut was under control thanks to the geniuses at Under Armour.

Needless to say my vision of becoming MMLL rookie of the year was quickly dashed when I realized that roughly 150 of my piers had the very same idea. Before I could showcase my dominance, the league had tripled in size and became highly competitive.

The talent level in the league is so robust that I require tub time after each game to bind and mend my wounds. Do you know how hard it is to get in and out of a tub at 40? I'm amazed how many big name laxers I play against every Friday night and every year more and more top guns from my generation seem to be playing. The competitiveness is there as well. This isn't a "no contact" league and everyone seems to have their pride with them each week along with a lack of total respect for the officials. Its seems like every game is a must win and every loss will set off a string of 45 emails assessing what went wrong and where we can improve. This is great for the sport of lacrosse, the Maryland lax scene, and for a generation of players that are quickly approaching their first Social Security check. I joke of course, there won't be any Social Security in 30 years! Start savin' your money boys.

This video sums it all up for most of us.



So now I'm 42, and what am I doing these days? I'm doing what all 42 year old lacrosse players do, drink a lot of Ensure and wait to turn 45 so I can play in the Maryland Grand Masters Lacrosse League!

Check out the league site and Facebook page.

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!

ACC LAX 411

Your 2011 ACC Tournament Champs!

First, and foremost, congratulations to the Terps for beating Duke today and capturing the ACC Tournament in the Blue Devil's back yard. Maryland showed a lot of character today, clawing their way back into a game that looked to be getting away from them. That's all I wanted in my Easter basket. You can read all about that at one of the other more legitimate lax sites though. I've got a little something different to share.

As I was watching the game today, I couldn't help but be impressed by the level of play and grabbed my laptop to check out Maryland and Duke's rosters. I was curious to see where these kids were from and what high schools they attended. While browsing the rosters, I decided I wanted to see this tabular data displayed on a map. I know, I know, great minds think alike.

I'm sure you're all aware that this blog isn't my full-time job. I get up every morning and go to work for the man. A big part of my job involves helping clients to create maps from their customer databases. It helps them to stalk you when you ignore their calls and emails. Not glamorous by any stretch, but it pays the bills, most of them anyway. It's through this grind that I've picked up on things like geocoding addresses and giving said list of addresses a spatial component. I do find maps interesting and all this smoke I'm blowing is cover for being a nerd. There, I came clean, but it's not like I own 20 sided dice or anything like that.

I took about 15 minutes and grabbed the rosters of the 4 ACC schools off their respective sites, standardized the format, and ran it through a free on-line geocoding tool. The result is what you see below. It's interesting to see where each of these teams get their players and where the bulk of them hail from, at least I think so anyway. If you're inclined to browse the map, I'm sure you can figure out the navigation without any help, but I will point out the legend at the bottom of the map where you can filter the pins by each team. Click on the gray bar at the bottom to get all the pins to re-appear.

View ACC Men's Lacrosse 2011 in a full screen map

A few observations about the make up of the teams....

• 20 states and 2 Canadian provinces are represented on the teams
• Maryland leads the way with 51 players on the rosters, followed by New York with 36, and then Pennsylvania with 13 players
• The high school with the most players represented is Gilman School (Baltimore, MD) with 6, followed by Boys' Latin  (Baltimore, MD) 5, Georgetown Prep (Bethesda, MD) 5, Loyola Blakefield (Towson, MD) 5, and the following schools with 4 players each; Calvert Hall, Chaminade, Chapel Hill, Deerfield Academy, Malvern Prep, Manhasset, and Severna Park
• Of the 51 players from Maryland high schools, only 9 went to public school. 11 went to IAC schools and 30 attended MIAA schools. 1 went to boarding school out of state.

MAPS ARE FUN! Remember that people.

A Charles Street Legend Comes Down From My Wall.

219 points / 5th in Blue Jay history

Before my mother allowed me to cover my walls with partially nude bikini models and doped up rock stars that had overdosed or choked on their own vomit, my walls were covered with lacrosse posters. You see, before Lacrosse Magazine became obsessed with expanding the sport, they captivated their younger readers. What made the magazine even more special is that with every edition, the over-sized monthly included a Brine Lacrosse poster that the reader could remove and scotch tape to his or her bedroom wall. I know, I know, scotch tape? My mother wouldn't allow me to use thumb tacks and push pins were still a few years off.

I had all the greats back then, Tom Nelson, Brian Wood, Kirk Thurston, Brad Kotz, and Glenn Miles. But front and center was my full size poster of Johns Hopkins legend Jeff Cook. It was a thing of beauty and the ultimate action shot as far as posters were concerned. Cook was about to switch hands and complete a split dodge and stick one of his several goals against some poor sap from North Carolina. On second thought that sappy defensemen may have been Kevin Haus, who really wasn't a slouch, but who cares right? I seriously doubt he's one of our 51 readers.

Cook bagged 6 goals vs UNC in 1981

While on stage this past weekend blazing threw the second verse of " Manic Depression" with the über talented rock band Jason and The Butchers, I caught a glimpse of the half time report during the Hopkins-Maryland game on the big screen. The caption read "Jeff Cook dies at age 50". Bummer! Not only did I struggle to remember the next few lines of that Hendrix classic (that I happen to be completely shredding by the way), I slowly began to drift down the ever-calming seas of nostalgia. I don't hear much about the players from the 80s that inspired me to pick up the fastest game on two feet, except when their kids are playing or they pass away. I try not to forget them and if you have read any of my other posts on this blog then you've heard me mention a few of the greats. Anytime another lacrosse website or Facebook page offers up a "who is the greatest" poll, I always make sure to mention someone from the generation that took lacrosse into the modern age. In fact, I did that this morning. Someone asked who the greatest defensemen to ever pay the game was and I was shocked that I was the only person to answer Dave Pietramala. John Detomasso and Pat McCabe were nowhere to be found either. All of the other players mentioned were modern day players. I think Joel White from Syracuse received 15 votes. This is probably because 40 year old men don't dominate the lax scene on Facebook which in retrospect is probably a good thing. Now give me a second so I can change my vote to Ryan Flanagan.

Was color film available prior to 1982?

I won't go into all of Jeff Cook's impressive statistical accomplishments. You can find them all over the interweb, plus I try to avoid numbers and all things math related whenever possible. I do know that in the early 80's Cook was the complete player/superhero. He was a 3 time All-American, a 1986 Hall of Fame inductee, a US World Team member and he still ranks as one of Johns Hopkins all time point leaders. Not bad for a guy that played with a SAM. At the time of his death the cause could not be determined and quite frankly I'm not interested in finding out what it was. As far as I'm concerned I'm still that 12 year old kid with that poster on my wall, and the only thing that could have killed Jeff Cook is his own awesomeness.

What Can Brown Do For You?

The post title wrote itself

Mother nature decided to give the hippies in the Baltimore/DC metro area a beautiful day to enjoy smoking trees on 4/20. Oh, it was also a fantastic day to skip out of work early and catch a premier high school lacrosse game. Under Armour's #20 Georgetown Prep took the bus trip down down the road to #22 Landon's palatial campus for the IAC rivalry that never disappoints.

The atmosphere is exactly what I expected out of these two schools. The "Beat Prep" shirts were out in full force as were the respective student bodies. There's no love lost between these two schools and they get after it on the field almost as hard as the fans get after each other with their upper crust repartee.

Braveheart-style charge from the Landon faithful!

The Landon student body made an appearance about 2 minutes before game time as they threw fireworks and charged down the hill to the field taunting the Prep players as they ran past with daggers such as, "you suck" and "your mom drives a 3 series". Uncalled for if you ask me, but it only served to light a fire under the Prep squad.

Georgetown Prep donned their royal blue threads for this one, and they got right down to business scoring the first two goals of the game and inciting their fans in the process. Landon answered those goals and went into the half with a 3-2 lead. That was pretty much it for Prep. Landon went on to score 5 in the third to put the game out of reach.

Gribbon getting decked...trust me.

A couple of observations from someone not overly familiar with these teams. Penn State bound Bobby Gribbon is the real deal. The kid is an athlete and can get up and down the field. I think he finished with 2 goals, but credit Landon's poles for holding him to two. When he did manage to beat his guy, Landon did a great job of sliding with body. Gribbon seemingly spent half the day picking himself up off the turf. He's a tough nut though as he continued to take it right into the teeth of the defense.

Face-offs...Landon had Gribbon's number today. I'm not sure what kind of face-off guy he is normally, but not only did Landon's middies beat him, but they got in his head. If Gribbon wasn't called for at least 3 procedure calls at the face-off X, I'll eat my non-flat brim hat.

Alex Joyce

Goal keeping. Landon's goalie, junior Alex Joyce, looked like an all star today. One of the parents said he's committed to Georgetown and it looks like the Hoyas have a good one coming their way. However, Georgetown Prep and Landon's defense made it easy on him. Prep was forced into a lot of low percentage shots or no shot at all thanks to some stingy and physical defense and some lethargic offense. Prep couldn't find anyone open all day and had trouble beating their defenders. Prep's attack looked intimidated and deferred to their middies who just weren't getting it done. Credit Landon's d-middies and poles for that.

Landon was very opportunistic, patient, and efficient. They never looked to be dominating the game, but they made their possessions count without any stand outs from my perspective. #2 (Patrick Keena, I think) played a solid game and led the way despite not forcing the action. Landon took care of the ball and their sticks were as solid as you've come to expect out of this program. It's funny. With the proliferation of MCLA videos posted in various corners of the internet, I feel a renewed sense of appreciation for the lacrosse played in this area. By comparison, these kids make some of the college club squads look like over-hyped middle school teams. I guess that surprises only me.

Lastly, I was shocked to see that Georgetown Prep has a Petro-like figure stalking their sideline. I know Coach Giblin caught my attention when he ripped one of his guys a new a-hole for stepping out of the box on a flag down play-on scenario. I heard several of the Landon players' parents comment in disbelief as well. This was when the game was still a game too. He might be the nicest guy in the world and the greatest thing since sliced bread, but he gets my douche of the week award for not having any more tact than that...or at the very least, situational awareness.

Tons of pics on Facebook.

New Product Review - Lock Laces

I like to think that I know some successful people. Several of my childhood friends went on to become teachers, lawyers, and even surgeons. In speaking with them through the years I'm sure at some point we have all agreed that we wanted to invent something cool, patent it, market it, sell it, and then sit back and watch the cash start rolling in. I have a short list of inventions written down at my desk at work and since I am still sitting at that desk everyday, it's quite obvious that none of these ideas have amounted to anything lucrative. I was sure that my idea for a toilet paper book would make me millions. You know, you read the book on the toilet and then you use the paper from that same book to....well you get the idea. What I just recently discovered through the magic of Facebook is that I know a guy that actually did it. He invented something cool, patented it, marketed it, sold it and although I don't think he's banked his first million yet, he is at the very least enjoying the ride.

Eric somehow looks way younger the me

Meet Eric Jackson, owner and creator of Lock Laces, a locking elastic twist on shoe laces. That's right, shoe laces. No wait, let me rephrase that, friggin shoe laces! How can you improve on shoe laces, right? You pull them through the holes, pull them tight and then tie them. Done, get on with your life. Wrong again, he's actually improved on this age old product that dates back to 3500 BC. Let me tell you more about Eric. He and I go way back, like 2nd grade way back. Gerald Ford was President at the time. I think I've made my point. Eric is the President, CEO, and founder of Street Smart LLC. Eric started Street Smart in March of 1999 to bring his new invention to the competitive sports apparel market. Eric manages the daily operations of the company and drives the marketing, sales, and product awareness campaigns. Eric was granted a patent for his invention in February of 2000. He was featured in the May, 1999 edition of the Baltimore Business Journal. In 2002 he appeared in Inventor’s Digest and in October of 2003 he received the Micro Enterprise Council of Maryland’s “Micro Business Person of the Year” award. Lock Laces has also been featured on QVC and is a National Sponsor of The Special Olympics Healthy Athlete/Fit Feet Program.

Laces...locked

Okay, so this sounds like a lot of work to me now. When does he get to sit back and watch the cash roll in?

Now that you know a little more about the creative sort of people that I grew up around, I'm sure you have more questions about why I turned out they way I did. Some other time, please. It's time to lace these things up and put them to the test. Now I'm not talking about testing these out at some lame track event or wimpy triathlon. I'm talking about the highly competitive and brutally challenging world of over 35 club lacrosse!

To keep my friendship induced bias for Eric's product in check I made sure that I used a controlled scientific method for testing. I wore a set of Lock Laces on my right cleat and good ole' fashioned cotton laces on my left cleat. My first impression was that the locking device that allows you to avoid numerous knots wouldn't be strong enough to hold the laces in place and they would loosen during the game. That hypothesis proved incorrect. The lock held firm for 2 hours of running and the shoe never became loose at all. Another early impression was that the Lock Laces were much more forgiving on the top of my foot then the tight cotton laces. The Lock Laces flexed as I ran while retaining their snugness even at the extreme speeds that I can generate while driving to the goal. The cotton laces went from cutting off the blood in my veins in the first quarter to being some what loose by the end of the first half. The cotton laces actually burst into flames in the 3rd quarter as I chased down a defensemen during a ride. Luckily, some of Anne Arundel County's finest firefighters were there to extinguish the flames. The Lock Laces never caught fire even when I was hitting Steve Austin like speeds. I gotta admit it, by the end of the game I was totally digging the Lock Laces and I quickly changed out my left cleat to a set of Lock Laces after the game.

So I'm giving Lock Laces a thumbs up and a symbolic high five to my former classmate for improving a product that seemingly didn't need to be improved upon. Hopefully Eric will remember me and this glowing review of his product when he makes it to the top. Yes, I'm a suck up and don't forget the free schwag for the Blarney Lacrosse Club either my friend.

Around 5 bucks a pair and they come in some cool colors to boot my friends. Check out the Lock Laces site and Facebook page if you get the chance.

It was 20 Years Ago Today.....

When the phrase, "seems like yesterday" is used in the same sentence as "20 years ago" and all you can do is nod in the affirmative, you know you're officially old enough to be cast in a Dockers commercial. Be that as it may, 1991 was an especially memorable year for this guy and for many in the 410, as the kids call it now. And not just because Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch topped the Billboard charts.

Rob Shek

I'm going to gloss over the fact that I was a junior in high school and we happened to win the MD State Championship that spring of '91. No, as much as you'd probably like to hear about that, I'm focusing on the NCAA Tournament and Towson State's (not Towson University) improbable run to the National Championship game. That's right, just one year removed from Loyola's chippy title game appearance with Syracuse, TSU matched up with North Carolina in the finals. While they didn't win the game, their tourney run and final game was as impressive as Carolina's undefeated season.

That the Tigers had success in the tournament wasn't a big surprise to most in the Baltimore area. The Baltimore Sun ranked them 5th in their pre-season poll (UNC was ranked 6th). They returned 8 starters and their top 9 scorers. Guys like Lindsey Dixon, Rob Shek, Steve Kisslinger, John Blatchley, and Tony Millon headlined this talented group. They were also motivated after being left out of the tournament in 1990 despite their 11-2 record.

'91 wasn't all puppy dogs and ice cream though. Two of Towson's top players, Lindsey Dixon and Glenn Smith, started the first two games of the season on the sidelines serving a suspension for playing in the Choice Visa Lacrosse Classic fall ball event at UMBC while they were ineligible for one reason or another. During the course of the season, Towson racked up 3 losses. They did enough to get the last at-large bid though.

After squeaking into the tourney, they surprised many on their way to the title game. Unseeded Towson State, led by Carl Runk, dispatched UVA, Princeton, and Maryland before falling to UNC in the Carrier Dome. By the way, did you know Runk played football at the University of Arizona and then coached lacrosse there until he was hired by Towson. This was just after the Great Depression, so I'll excuse you for overlooking these nuggets. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

Check out WMAR of Baltimore's retrospective on the '91 Tigers.



This tourney had a couple of interesting side stories besides Towson's run. Michigan State and Rutgers also appeared in the tournament that year. That's right, the Spartans had a D1 lax program not so long ago. They were beaten soundly by Syracuse 28-7 in the '91 tourney. Michigan State folded its program just a few years later to become compliant with the dreaded Title IX. They were followed shortly thereafter by Butler University who also disbanded their D1 program in the name of gender equity.

From deep in the archive

The site of the Championships, in case you can't tell from the video, was the Carrier Dome in Syracuse. Attendance sucked, even for that time. Only 8300 fans, most of them undoubtedly from Upstate New York, opted to spend their Memorial Day Weekend in Syracuse. Compare that to over 19,000 fans at Rutgers in '90 and 13,000 fans at U Penn in '92

Towson State defeated a Princeton team that year that featured a 1st year starter on defense named David Morrow. Wikipedia Legend has it that he broke or bent 25 sticks that year and spent time in his father's metal tubing shop that summer working on developing a titanium shaft. He was successful and the following year, his titanium long pole made its debut in the NCAA tournament. He scored 2 goals that game and decided that he had a winner on his hands, or in his hands as the case may be. Morrow named his company for the mascot of his high school, Brother Rice. Warrior was officially on the lacrosse scene.

1991 was Towson University's current head coach Tony Seaman's first year at the helm of Johns Hopkins after a successful stint at UPenn. It was also the first year for Dave Klarmann as the head coach at UNC. Willie Scroggs departed the year prior and left the cupboard full as the saying goes.

All four Final 4 goalies were juco transfers. Maryland's Steve Kavovit transferred from Herkimer CC. The other three, TSU's Richard Betcher, UNC's Andy Piazza, and Syracuse's Jerry DeLorenzo all attended Nassau CC.

Hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane.