Go Hoos

I’m a Demon Deacon living in the land of the Wahoo. It’s not a new situation for me – as I recounted in another post a couple of years ago, though I’m a certified Charlottesville “townie”, I guess I’ll always bleed gold and black.

Ironically enough, a friend of ours owns the unrivaled mecca for all things U.Va. Mincer’s is a U.Va institution right up there with the Rotunda and the White Spot. My earliest memory of Mincer’s was when U.Va won the men’s ACC basketball championship in 1976, and “ACC Champion” t-shirts from the store flooded the halls of my middle school (and claimed a prize spot in my dresser drawer). It’s now thirty-odd years later, and with four kids who are as firmly ensconced in their allegiance to U.Va as I was at their age, we’ve given the store our fair share of business over the years. We therefore didn’t think twice when Mark asked us if we wanted to be in a commercial.

We showed up at the store at the appointed time, and were all given different U.Va shirts to wear. Actually, the kids got shirts – despite the muggy temperature, I was handed a heavy hooded sweatsht. Maybe it was payback for my asking if it would be OK if I wore a Wake Forest belt for the shoot!

When the time came for what the kids and I were convinced would be our quick ticket to Tinseltown, we were told to stand in a clump outside the store, and “act natural”. How do you get a 6-year-old to act natural when he has a big television camera pointed at him? We did our best, taking comfort in the assurances that they would only be using a few seconds in the commercial, if that. And then, it was over, and they were on to the next group. No one even asked for our autograph….

We were all prepared to wind up on the cutting room floor. But, we did wind up getting our 1.5 seconds of fame (upper left-hand corner):
I’m not quitting my day job, and the phone hasn’t exactly been ringing off the hook with agents wanting to sign on the next child star. But, it was fun.

So head on down to Mincer’s, or check them out online. Just don’t buy any of the “No Wake Zone” buttons!

Mr. Empathy

Despite a work day filled with meetings and deadlines, my mind last Thursday kept coming back to two more important things – passing the learner’s permit test, and making the lacrosse team. It was, of course, my 15 year old daughter and not me who was actually having to go through these trials. And, I had every confidence that she would do just fine. My thoughts, though, kept going back to 1980….

I showed up for varsity football tryouts my junior year of high school knowing that I had my work cut out for me. While I had done fine on the 9th grade team two years before, I had decided (for reasons I can’t begin to explain) against playing JV my sophomore year, so I was an unknown quantity for the coaching staff. Lacking that year of experience and visibility, and without the size, speed, or talent to make up the difference, the results were predictable. After two weeks of two-a-day practices in the steamy August heat, the head coach called me into his office, thanked me for my efforts, and told me there weren’t enough jerseys to go around.

One of those “character building” experiences, I guess.

Several months later, shortly after my 16th birthday, I arrived at the DMV to take my road test and get my license. I didn’t expect any problems. With all of the misplaced confidence typical of a 16-year old boy, my plan was to do the test, smile for my picture, tuck my newly-minted license into my wallet and hit the road.

Funny how running one little stop sign during a road test can put a crimp in one’s plans. I was one of several who was cut from the football team. I was the only one I was aware of (the only one in the history of the world, as far as I knew at the time) who failed his road test. More character building.

Fast-forward to last week. I dropped my daughter off at school on Thursday knowing that the day would have her facing both her learner’s permit test and the announcement of lacrosse “cuts”, and I knew from my own experience how she might be feeling when I picked her up after practice. Just call me Mr. Empathy. I hoped that I wouldn’t have to relate my own experiences to help her through hers.

As it turns out, my worries were misplaced. She aced the test and made the team. So, I can safely shelve the memories of my high school traumas – at least those two, anyway – for another couple of years.

Her 13 year old sister will be at the DMV before we know it.

Back to Reality

With gas prices the way they are, I’ve given more than a passing thought to finding something that gets better gas mileage than my Jeep.

Like a motorcycle.

Today, I saw an ad in Craigslist for a motorcycle from my youth - a Yamaha Enduro – and my heart skipped a beat.  Not that I actually had an Enduro as a teenager - (or any motorcycle, for that matter - I had no better luck convincing my parents than I’ve had with my wife) but many of my friends (and my younger brother – sorry, Mom) were active riders on the motocross track near our neighborhood.  (P.S. - that’s where his broken collarbone came from).  Anyway, I didn’t have an Enduro but I remembered it as a very cool bike.

Then I read on and was reminded that I’m not a teenager any more.  “This 38 year old motorcycle is in excellent condition. It is all original down to the tires.  It is a great candidate for a collector to restore.” 

The cool bike of my youth is now an antique.  Sigh.  Does the AARP magazine have a classified ad section?  Maybe I’ll find something more age-appropriate there…. 

Deacons in Hooville

“Go Deacs!”  Um, I mean, “Wahoowa!”  Wait, that’s not it, either….

So it goes whenever my hometown Cavaliers play the Demon Deacons from my alma mater.  A bona fide Charlottesville townie and U.Va faculty brat, I grew up rooting for Virginia. I have known the lyrics to The Good Old Song for as long as I can remember. If I searched hard enough through the relics of my childhood I could probably find yellowing scraps of paper bearing once-treasured autographs from the likes of Wally Walker. I well remember going to football games at now sold-old Scott Stadium in the days when Saturday afternoons would find it barely half full.

But, despite (or perhaps because of) my U.Va upbringing, when I reached the wise old age of 18 I decided that I needed to go away to school. After a passing flirtation with Sewanee, I decided to follow in the footsteps of my father (and his father, and numerous other relatives of various stripes) to Wake Forest. With that decision, my formerly orange and blue blood quickly started turning to black and gold.

Eventually though, after four years of college and another three years of law school at Wake, I wound up back in Charlottesville. Thus began my life as a Deacon in Hooville. On the whole, it’s not hard to maintain my dual allegiance. It’s not like I went to Tech, after all. Most of the time, I have no problem pulling for my hometown ‘Hoos while staying true to my Demon Deacons. But, whenever Virginia and Wake play each other, I’m at a loss. So, whenever I am fortunate enough to be able to go to a game, as I was today (thanks Mark!), I don’t know whether to break out the orange gear, or go with the black and gold. I generally wind up splitting the difference and doing both, hence today’s confused ensemble of the Wake hat and belt combined with the orange U.Va shirt.

As is clear from the photo, my kids have inherited the same conflicted loyalties, although they tend to manifest theirs in a somewhat more flamboyant fashion.  The black and gold boa over the orange U.Va shirt garnered quite a few double-takes at today’s game.  While I’m hesitant to do too much to overtly encourage the Wake Forest allegiance, as Wake’s tuition, room and board currently hovers around $44,000, I have to admit that I do take some not-so-secret pleasure in it.  As I’m a 43-year old man with this as the ring tone on my cell phone, I guess there’s no getting around the fact that my primary loyalty remains to my alma mater.

Law Practice Part III – A Foot in the Door

All I needed was a foot in the door. 

I sent a cover letter and resume to every law firm in town that maintained a litigation practice, and came up empty.  Even before it started winning its spate of #1 City/Best Place to Live awards*, Charlottesville was a very popular place to be.  That fact, together with the presence of U.Va’s law school, has long made Charlottesville a buyers’ market for law firms looking to hire associates.  For a certain would-be young associate who had not gone to U.Va, and whose law school GPA reflected the fact that he had spent more time courting his future wife than he had studying in the library, prospects were starting to look a bit bleak.

So, for the first of what would turn out to be many times during the course of my legal career, I called on a family friend from church, who also happened to be one of the most highly respected attorneys in the state.  I was not asking him for a job; I knew from prior discussions that his firm was not hiring.  What I sought was a sympathetic and knowledgable ear, and that is what I received.  He took me to lunch on the downtown mall, and after I had finished laying out my plight, he asked, “Have you tried Mr. ____’s office?”

I told him that I had not, but that I remembered the firm’s profile in the attorney directory that I had virtually memorized.  Tax.  Estate Planning.  Real Estate.  Bankruptcy.  Sorry, not interested – I wanted to be a trial lawyer.

“It’s probably not going to be the place where you want to spend your career, but his firm is sort of an institution in town, and a lot of folks start out there.  It’d give you a foot in the door, at least.” 

A foot in the door.  What was that old saying about beggars and choosers?  I got a cover letter and resume in the mail that afternoon.

I arrived for my interview with Mr. ____ on a Saturday afternoon a week or so later, not knowing what to expect.  If I had known, I’m not sure I would have gone.  The firm’s office, as with many in Charlottesville’s Court Square area, was in a 19th-century building that had originally been a house.  Unlike most of the neighboring offices, this building had not had much in the way of upkeep since it was first built.  There were spots where mortar was falling out from between crumbling bricks, and the white trim on the windows was peeling.  This turn-of-the-century building didn’t look historic – it just looked old.

I went inside, and there was Mr. ____**, sitting at one of the secretaries’ desks.  His white hair and lined face made me wonder if he had been around for as long as the building itself.  With some effort, he stood up to greet me.  Despite his age and apparent weariness, I noted a twinkle in his eye as we shook hands, and I followed him down the hallway to his office. 

Every horizontal surface - desk, filing cabinets, credenza, tables, floor, and several chairs – was covered in stacks of paper, some measuring a foot high.  Some papers were client files in manila folders, but others appeared to be loose, random documents.  It appeared to be chaos, but I would soon learn that Mr. ____ knew where everything was.***    

Our meeting was more a conversation than an interview.  He never actually offered me a job, but it was clear from the outset that I had one if I wanted it.  A few days later, I called to confirm that I would like to join his office, and gave him a suggested start date.  “That would be satisfactory,” he replied, and with that I was once again employed.

I was one of nine associates in the firm – Mr. ____ had no partners.  Two others were, like me, only a year or so out of law school.  A few more had a bit more experience, and the others seemed to have settled into life at Mr. ____’s office as a career.  I was the only putative litigator in the bunch.  The rest were focused on the firm’s specialty areas of bankruptcy, tax, estate planning, and real estate.  Given the dearth of litigation work in the office, and my year of experience working for a bankruptcy trustee in North Carolina, I quickly gravitated toward bankruptcy work.  While not the trial practice to which I aspired, bankruptcy work did at least have a courtroom aspect.  And, as I reminded myself on a frequent if not daily basis, it was a foot in the door.

Truthfully, my time with Mr. ____ was a good experience, despite his idiosyncrasies, the decrepit building, and the low pay.  Mr. _____’s idiosyncrasies were mitigated by his remarkable intelligence and his giving nature.  Even at his advanced age, he reveled in matching wits with his opponent, be it the government in a tax matter, or opposing counsel in a bankruptcy case.  He was a mild-mannered man, but he did not like to lose. 

Mr. ____’s giving nature was apparent in the legion of Charlottesville attorneys who had passed through his offices.  His informal attorney alumni association, doubtless numbering a hundred or more after 50+ years of practice, boasted judges, politicians, and many of the most high-powered lawyers in town.  He prided himself in having fostered this talent.  I, like most of the rest, was and remain grateful for the opportunity that he provided. 

The decrepit building did take some getting used to.  I remember suggesting during a firm meeting one morning that we might organize a painting day to put a fresh coat on the scuffed and dirty interior walls.  Note that I wasn’t suggesting that he hire a painter to do the job, I was suggesting that we do it ourselves.  I couldn’t tell whether he was amused or annoyed at the prospect, but the idea died on the vine.  After a while I came to realize that most of Mr. ______’s client base fell into one of two categories.  Many of them were wealthy clients who had been with him for so long that they had become inured to the shabby surroundings, while many of the rest were bankruptcy clients on the brink of financial collapse, in which case the state of their lawyer’s office was not high on their worry list. 

The low pay was the most difficult aspect of my time with Mr. ____.   I believe that he found billing clients to be the most distasteful aspect of practice.  As a result, he did not do so on a regular basis, and when he did, the rates and hours reflected on the bills were considerably lower than they should have been.  That’s all well and good, but in order for the accounts payable part of any business to function, things need to be working on the accounts receivable end.  If you don’t bill clients, then you don’t have money to pay your staff.  So, my fellow associates and I would find ourselves comparing notes on the 1st and 15th of every month – “did you get paid today?”  Often the answer was “no”, or “only a partial”.  More than once on the 2nd, 3rd, 16th or 17th day of the month, I found myself in the rather surreal position of standing in the threshhold of Mr. ____’s office door, clearing my throat, and asking when I could expect my check.  I would typically couch the request in terms of my rent or a student loan payment being due, and it would inevitably prompt an embarrassed apology and a check being cut before the day was out.          

So why did I stay?  Again, it was a foot in the door.  I was living out my goal of practicing law in Charlottesville, albeit not exactly in the way that I had envisioned.  And, I was getting significant experience.  I think Mr. _____ got a kick out of my youthful enthusiasm, and he gave me a tremendous amount of latitude and responsibility.  He made it clear from our first conversation that he was not interested in establishing a litigation practice, but he also made sure that any bankruptcy or other matter that had a hint or prospect of litigation was funneled to me.   

So, I kept slogging along.  All the while, though, I was looking for my way out, and into a litigation (and regularly paying) firm.  I began to see a light at the end of the tunnel when a litigator in another firm sponsored me for membership in the local Inn of Court, a professional organization devoted to the trial bar.  As I met and networked with local litigators I was unapologetic about my association with Mr. ____’s firm, as I had come to appreciate his talents as a lawyer, and I realized as well how many local attorneys had paid their dues with a stint in his office.  Still, I made no bones about my desire to be a trial lawyer.  And, almost a year to the day after starting with Mr. ____, I was to get that chance.                     

Be careful what you wish for.

Previous: Part II

Stay tuned for Part IV.

*One of the worst things that can happen to a city, but that’s a topic for a future post.

**To this day, I have never heard anyone other than his wife refer to Mr. _____ by his first name.

***One of the many stories about Mr. ____ recounts the time when a well-meaning young associate took advantage of one of his rare absences to clean and organize his office.  When Mr. ____ got back into town and saw that his teetering piles of paper had been culled through, systematized, and filed away, he was livid.  He couldn’t find anything. 

Law Practice Part II – Making the Move

As I approached the 1-year anniversary of my initial foray into the practice of law, it was becoming increasingly clear to me that I needed a change of venue.  It wasn’t really a reflection on my boss.  While I had hoped to receive more from him in the way of guidance and inspiration, we got along well and I respected his abilities.  I was also quite grateful to him for the opportunity with which he had provided me.

It really boiled down to the fact that I wanted to be in Charlottesville.  They call it “The Hook” for a reason.

My bride didn’t need much convincing.  She was wrapping up her second year of a judicial clerkship and was ambivalent about practicing law, so we weren’t tied to North Carolina.  I did want to continue practicing, however, so I had two hurdles to clear in order to make the Charlottesville move a reality – pass the Virginia bar exam, and find a job.

There are many ways to spend three months of one’s life that are more enjoyable than studying for the bar exam, but if you want to be a lawyer, there’s just no way around it.  The experience is certainly not something that you want to undergo more than once if you can help it.  However, I had several years left to practice in North Carolina before I would be eligible for admission to the Virginia bar by reciprocity, so I needed to take the test.

As is turned out, I actually found Virginia’s exam to be less of an ordeal than North Carolina’s.   I don’t think the Virginia exam was any easier – actually, it was probably more difficult, especially for someone like me coming in from out of state.  Virginia jurisprudence tends to keep one foot firmly planted in the 18th century, and if you didn’t go to law school in the Old Dominion, it’s quite a chore to learn the arcane terminology and procedure.  Even so, the experience of having passed one state’s exam and practiced law for a year gave me a level of confidence that I didn’t have when I was taking the North Carolina exam.  That, and the fact that I was studying on my own and without the distractions and temptations offered by my law school classmates, pulled me through and a few months later I had another fancy piece of parchment to put on my wall.

Making the move to Charlottesville was a real leap of faith, because I gave my notice in North Carolina before I had lined up a job in Virginia.  Fifteen years, four kids and a mortgage later, this seems like a terribly irresponsible if not downright foolish thing to have done.  However, it worked out.  Perhaps there’s a lesson there.

Previous: Part I

Next: Part III

Beach

Winding down our week at the beach….

Growing up, our family would vacation at North Carolina’s Outer Banks – Nags Head, Duck, Avon.  My earliest beach memories are of staying at one of the many modest oceanfront motels along Route 12.  Typically family owned, weather-worn and showing their age, these accommodations were nondescript at best – but they rated 5 stars to my little brother and me.  Come on, we were at the beach.  What’s more, we were on the beach!  What could be better than that?

I found out a few years later, when our vacation lodging changed to a pop-up Starcraft camper.  This made a good thing even better.  Not only were we at the beach, we were camping at the beach!  Sometimes, if our campsite was close enough to the ocean, we could even hear the crashing of the waves through the screen windows of the camper.  I remember walking past the fancy motor homes and hearing the hum of their air conditioners, and wondering why people would want to seal themselves off from the smell of the salt air.

These were wonderful times.  My brother and I would stay in the water as much as possible, riding the waves on our canvas rafts until our nipples were worn raw.  I suppose there was probably a television in the motel rooms, but I don’t remember watching it.  We had no tv or air conditioning in the camper, so it wasn’t much of a refuge, apart from shading us from the sun, and we weren’t interested in being shaded.  This was the 1970’s, after all, and stores sold a lot more baby oil than sun block.  We would compete to see who looked the most Indian-like at the end of the week.    

Fishing was another favorite activity, especially as I started to get a bit older.  I worked hard to emulate the studied yet casual pose of my Dad and my Granddaddy C., holding my surf rod with one hand, with the butt of the rod resting on my hip, tracing with squinting eyes the clear monofilament line as it left the tip of my rod and disappeared into the ocean past the breakers.  I learned to tell the difference between the sharp tug of a fish on the line and the gentle pull of the current against my rig.  I learned how to clean what I caught, and reveled in the morbid fascination of little kids as they would watch me go through the process of turning fish into fillet.  The year that my Dad took me deep-sea fishing and someone on the dock mistook me for a deck hand had me flying high for days.      

My brother and I would collect other prizes from the sea as well - shells, skate egg cases, jagged tails from horseshoe crabs.  One year I made a special find that stayed in my room for several years – an old liquor bottle that still had its screw-on cap.  I filled it with worn sea-glass, colorful shells and ocean water and pretended that the colorful kaleidoscope was pirate booty.

I was enamored with ocean lore in general and the legends of the Outer Banks in particular.  Tales of Blackbeard the Pirate, the mystery of the Lost Colony, and stories of the many shipwrecks that gave the Outer Banks its nickname of “Graveyard of the Atlantic” were fodder for my active imagination. I was convinced that one day I was destined to discover a shipwreck – either that or a trunk full of buried treasure.

As a teenager my beach interests began to change.  I started to spend more time eying the bikini laying three towels down from me on the beach than I did scanning the horizon for pirate ships.  I stopped wearing my old fishing hat when I learned that putting lemon juice in my hair would turn it blond and hopefully attract the interest of the aforesaid bikini.  However, my love for the beach remained constant, and I remained just as excited about opening the car window to get that first lungful of ocean air as we crossed the bridge over from the mainland as I had been as a little boy.  I was just careful not to show it.

My college beach trips were a bit different.  My fraternity (and seemingly most of the others in the southeast) would head down to Myrtle Beach for a post-exam week of … well, you know.  The highlight of the week was our Momba Suiti party, featuring plastic trash cans full of the namesake beverage.  I don’t remember what was in it other than grain alcohol and fruit punch, but I do remember the strict rule that it had to be stirred with a 9-iron.  These beach trips were fun, certainly, but featured little in the way of actual beach activities.    

The years since having left me older and hopefully somewhat wiser, things have come full circle.  We now pack up our minivan and take our own kids to vacation at the beach.  It is wonderful to relive childhood beach experiences through them.  Seeing their eyes wide with excitement after they have ridden a wave into shore, hearing them giggle as they dig up sand fiddlers and let them scuttle around in their cupped hands, watching them jump up and down as they realize that the tug on the end of their line really is a fish, and maybe a big one – these are all moments that I remember from my own childhood, and I hope that they will become fond memories for them as well.

My parents retired the Starcraft camper many years ago, and have taken to renting a beach house at at Emerald Isle.  This has allowed our kids to have the special blessing of being able to share their formative beach experiences with their Grandmama and Granddaddy, as we join them for a week every summer.   

This year, we have had an embarrassment of beach riches as we have also been able to join two other families for a week in Duck.  Three families with a total of 11 kids sharing one house could have made for a very long week, but it’s been great.  The kids have all enjoyed having non-sibling playmates, and the adults have all been easy-going and family-focused.  We are fortunate to have friends such as these.   

It may be true that a bad day at the beach is better than a good day at the office, but I wouldn’t know – I’ve never had a bad day at the beach.   

Field of Dreams or Nightmares?

When I was 9 or 10, I went out for Little League baseball.  That was more than a few years ago, and my memories of my Little League baseball career are sketchy at best – with one exception, which is indelibly burned into my brain.  It was the first day of tryouts, and I was out in right field.  I remember being deathly afraid that the batter was going to hit the ball to me.  Then that inevitable pop fly came my way.  I can still see it arcing through the air.  I got under the ball, held up my glove, and readied myself for impact.

I had impact, all right.  The ball landed squarely on the top of my head, and bounced to the ground.

Once they determined that I wasn’t injured (there is at least one advantage to being thick-headed, I guess), I was placed on a team in the developmental “farm league”.  I can remember little else about the rest of the season, apart from the fact that I eagerly anticpated its end. 

* * *

Apart from the occasional game of whiffleball at the odd picnic, I think the next time that I picked up a bat was when I joined my church softball team as a young 30-something.  The coach/captain lured me into signing on by telling me that they needed to add some speed to the team.  As a runner, I figured I could offer them that, so I went to KMart, bought a glove, and showed up for the first game.  I then realized that speed is an asset in softball only if you can (1) hit the ball so you can get on base, and/or (2) catch the ball once you have run to it.  With my skills in both respects having seen little improvement since the halcyon days of my youth when I had gotten knocked in the noggin by a pop fly, I came to dread each Friday night game.  I do not enjoy participating in activities for which I have little aptitude – especially when that activity involves an audience.  I made it through the season, and hung up my cleats.

* * *    

That was about 10 years ago.  Why am I writing about it now?  I guess I’m a slow learner.  Either that, or a glutton for punishment.  I have dusted off my KMart glove and am once again playing church league softball.  This time, however, a couple of things are different.  First, my wife is playing as well – she’s actually the one who lured me back onto the field.  How could I not play if she is?  Second, I am bound and determined to have fun with it.  I have got to stop taking life, and myself, so seriously.   

I still hope that the ball is not hit to me.  My hand-eye coordination as a 43-year-old church softballer is not much better than it was as a 9 year old Little Leaguer.  But, I hope to find that my inner critic has lightened up a bit.  We’ll see how it goes.

The Real Deal

Jennifer and I received a call tonight from the wife of a law school professor, letting us know that he had passed away earlier this week.  She spoke of his affection for us and said that since we had kept in contact (Christmas cards and the occasional email) over the years, she wanted to give us the news personally.  That was quite a gift.   

And Tom was quite a man.

He was anything but the typical law school professor, though.    

He was unpolished, for one thing.  He was wrinkled and rumpled, often looking as if he had slept in his clothes.  He was a bit loud, a bit uncouth, and more than a bit impatient with the pretentiousness that infects many a law student.  As a result, he offended as many as he attracted.        

He no longer smoked or drank, but this was on doctor’s orders and was not a matter of choice.  He hinted that he had done enough of both in the past to last a lifetime, and his body showed the effects.  I’m sure his doctors stayed on him about his diet as well – he downed soft drinks like they were water, usually going through a couple of them during the space of a given class.  And he loved to eat, as long as the food was “down home” and the servings were plentiful.  He knew every cheap diner and barbeque joint around.      

Several memories about Tom stand out, but the one that I keep coming back to is the 5K race that the law school sponsored each spring (“Race Judicata” - lawyers and Latin scholars will get the pun).  The finish line was in the law school’s parking lot, and as a fellow IL and I crossed the finish, Tom approached us and proffered a brown paper bag.  We took the bag, looked inside, and saw that it contained a six-pack of Budweiser.  It was the first beer that Tom had bought in a long time, I think, and as my friend and I popped the tops and savored the brew, Tom was clearly enjoying it vicariously with us.  I’m sure he had no idea how meaningful that gesture was.  This was our first year of law school and there were some professors who wouldn’t even deign to nod at us as we passed by them in the hallway.  Tom, though, was validating us as fellow human beings – and as the friends that we would ulimately become.

In some ways, Tom might have seemed to be a walking contradiction.  A more apt description would be multi-dimensional.  Tom showed me that it was perfectly acceptable to be able to find satisfaction in both a tightly drafted statute and in outlaw country music.  Tom was one of the most authentic people I have known – what you saw was what you got. It just depended on which side of him you happened to be looking for. 

Leveling the Field

Lacrosse, properly played, is a game of speed and finesse. However, when I was a sophomore in high school back in 1980 and first went out for my school’s lacrosse team, it quickly became clear that I had neither in abundance.  So, I became a defenseman. As such, my primary assignment was to use my 6′ long stick to keep the offensive player I was guarding under control and away from the goal. When he had the ball, my job was to knock it loose by checking (poking or slapping) his stick/hand/arm/ribs with my stick, or by planting my shoulder in his chest if he got too close. It wasn’t always pretty (in fact, it probably never was), but it was the way we played the game in Virginia’s public high schools in the late ‘70’s/early ‘80’s.

At that time, my high school was one of the very few public schools in Virginia that had lacrosse programs. Our typical season over the three years that I played would consist of a mixed record against the few other public schools and military boarding schools that had lacrosse programs, and then getting blown out by the private schools that we played. After those prep school pummellings, we used to console ourselves by noting that the private school kids had been playing lacrosse in gym class since elementary school, while most of us hadn’t even picked up a stick until we were teenagers.

 I’m happy to report that the lacrosse playing field in central Virginia has leveled considerably since then. My oldest daughter plays on her middle school’s team, my two younger daughters play in a YMCA league, and my preschooler son is very excited about playing “cross” in a summer league this summer after he turns 4. My wife (who played in college) and I aren’t pressuring them to play, but are certainly happy to see them take it as far as they can and want to. Just keep your fingers crossed that they got their lacrosse genes from their mother….