In high school I played lacrosse. That's right. . . .watch out. We had all heard that on the east coast lacrosse was a preppie, v-kneck sweater-wearing sport. Our suspicions were confirmed when reading A Separate Peace in high school, and the richies in the story all played lacrosse. Let me tell you, though, in Texas, lacrosse is a different beast altogether. On the east coast, lacrosse is a game of skill and speed. In Texas, lacrosse is a game of skill, speed, and never-ending beat downs. You take a bunch of rag-tag guys at a 5A high school who don't want to be one of the thousands vying for a linebacker spot, and you get a lacrosse team. We all learned how to use that crazy stick to pass and catch, and the rest was details. In the east they start playing lacrosse as little kids, so when they get to high school passing and catching is second nature. In Texas, we make up for stick skills with our ability to unleash the fury on our opponents. I mean, really, who needs to know how to catch and throw when you can just beat someone until they drop the ball?
Our team didn't have a coach that worked at the school. He was a volunteer who just loved the game and wanted to be involved. I had two coaches during my high school years. The first was insane, the second was a marathoner. The first was a great motivator, with one liners like "Brandon, if that guy cuts around on you again, you fold him in half and send him home in a bag!!" The second was a little more timid, but could outdo us all. Trust me, having a marathoner as a conditioning coach is just asking for trouble. Here was a guy who, not only ran each drill with us, he could go on forever. Nothing sucks more than running two miles after practice and having your coach not break a sweat.
I played defense my last two years of high school. It was fun, mainly because it cut the field in half for me. The longest sprint I would be responsible for now was 55 yards. In a sport where the average player runs 4 miles a game, this was a big deal. Especially for someone as lazy as me. Our defense was made up of myself and a couple other guys who played for nothing more than the opportunity to be an old man and reminisce about the time they actually killed a man during a lacrosse game. One was Clint, the other was Patrick. . .I told you all that so I could tell you this.
Clint was larger than your average '4 miles a game' athlete. He had a mouth like Stern and drank more his senior year than I did all through college. He even played the tuba. . .how freakin perfect is that? Needless to say, Clint was a great guy. Him and I would ride together to away games, and he would always have one of his home speakers rigged into his truck so we could jam out on the way. I kid you not, it was a huge wooden speaker sitting in the middle of two 17 year olds flying down the highway blasting whatever 'motivational' song we could find.
Patrick was skinny, tall, and fast. He started playing lacrosse later than most of us, so his stick skills weren't all that great. But he made up for that with his psychological warfare. At the beginning of every game, he would tell the guy he was defending what a nice body he had, and go from there. I've never laughed so hard in my life. This would go on all game long, and guys would get so wierded out you could tell it affected their play.
All this is to wrap up one semi-funny event that happened at a tournament in College Station. We were staying on the second floor of a hotel where our rival high school was also staying. Bad idea. Long story short, all our scheming and plotting ended when Patrick and Clint ran out of the bathroom with cups full of something, shouting for us to open the door. So to anyone who played lacrosse for westlake high school in 1997, sorry for the cup 'o' crap on your doorstep.
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