The game has evolved a ton, and not all for the better. You think ski parents are over the top? Haha. Where you kid had "committed" to play college lacrosse is almost topic A in the cocktail party circuit in my town. Glad we're past that.
I'll have some obnoxious person asks me if I have heard of the sport. Hmm. The cliff notes is that My dad played through college, in the 1930's, and was a three time All-American, while being selected to ski in the 1940 Winter Olympics that were never held. He was the crappy athlete among my parents. My mom played on national teams in both field hockey and lacrosse, and was an exceptional alpine racer. Sports were a pretty big part of our family life.
My mom was a college coach from the early 40's until I was about six, 1960, when we moved to Switzerland. My brother and I never had baseball gloves and had sticks as toddlers. We both played lacrosse and skied at the NCAA level in college. We actually both played three sports. That seems like 200 years ago. One of the things that really was upsetting to us was the fact that our kids had to make a choice as to "which sport to go all in one.....at a high level" when they were 13. One generation....what a change.
My nieces ski raced, sort of through, through prep school and went on to be very, very good D1 lacrosse players. When our son begged us to let him ski year round, his lacrosse coaches {club and school} were idiots. He was a future D1 AA. Can't miss. Yeah, sure he was. Don't make this worse. He loved lacrosse, but not as much as skiing. Our daughter was a pretty exceptional lacrosse player, though middle school. Very natural.....good athlete, but for that age just better stick skills and field awareness than anybody else.....plus fastest kid on the field. Having Grandma and Mom in the picture helped, plus the older cousins. She had just been around the game since she was a toddler.
We still have a goal in the yard, and still will play catch when the kids are home. I built a 10 foot tall, 24 foot wide brick faced concrete wall in our former back yard for "wall ball." We'd joke that we wanted to have people guessing as to whether they were righties or lefties!
Our kids had wonderful experiences as ski racers, but damn, they really missed this sport, and it was pretty sad to give up watching them as parents. A lot more relaxing than watching a 15 year old racing FIS DH, and NorAms. This was before the NCAA really condoned early recruiting of 8th graders. The sport at the D1 level, outside of the Ivy League is not my cup of tea. Serious, serious business. High level D3, both genders is great. We still follow it.
Our son almost tried to play both sports in college. College lacrosse coach saw him screwing around in the field house with some lax buddies, and was all over him. It was a very good lacrosse program. It was just impossible with the calendar. Too bad. Makes me nostalgic for the old days. Man, I am getting old.
Do not want to think about our family concussion history in lacrosse, and skiing. Fingers crossed. The mens game has weeded out a LOT of the collisions that took place in decades past. Things that were routine would be a three minute non-releasable penalty today. For good reason. Women's game seems to be faster, rougher. Serious athleticism at the higher levels. I think helmets, which I agree are coming will not help things.
It's NCAA championship weekend in lacrosse, BTW. D1 men's Championship game will be played Monday.
NCAA semis are on ESPN right now. Watching Duke-Maryland. Duke up 4-0 early.
It's all streamed on NCAA.com , and some games on are on the various EPSN channels. D3 Championship game is 1PM on Sunday. Salisbury State {MD} vs Wesleyan {CT}.
The D3 game is normally a great one to watch.
Games are being played in Foxboro, MA. Home of the Patriots.
