I was reading blog comments on Inside Lacrosse, and came across this gem (see the second comment). Here a commenter discusses a young 1960 Naval Academy lacrosse team.  What an amazing story this is:

As a foremost authority on the history of lacrosse, allow me to point out what happened in the spring of 1960 when a young Navy team, led by captains Greg Becker and Stu Besch, came back from 15 goals down in the national semifinal game versus Harvard [I think he meant Hopkins here]. Navy’s goalie from the previous year, a portly hard-drinking plebe named Walt Wasileff, was shipped off to Korea, where he lost a foot and part of his hand after an explosion on the deck of his aircraft carrier. He was replaced by a young Lou Rawls (yes, that Lou Rawls, soul singer and star of many telethons), but unfortunately for Lou, Hopkins had no sympathy and poured in 13 first half goals as revenge for Wasileff’s shutting them out for the first time ever a year before.

At half time, trailing 13-0, the Navy players were already thinking of going home for a few weeks, checking up on mom and dad, and then heading off to war. Lacrosse seemed less and less important as the reality of war began to hit home. Five of their teammates from the 1957 team never came home from the war, and nobody was sure Wasileff would ever come home either. Last the team had heard, Walt was touch and go, clinging to life.

So when they heard a familiar voice growing nearer, in full sprint from the parking lot, already dressed in a uniform from the year before (a white one, and not Navy’s road blues), the Navy men thought they were seeing a ghost. After a lot of hugs and handshakes, Walt asked Low Rawls if he would mind coming out of the game. Lou calmly took off his jersey, handed it to Walt and said “You’ll need this…brother.”

Walt was carried into the goal, much to the amazement of Hopkins and their faithful fans. The first shot on Walt went in, and the second one trickled through his legs. “Zoinks!” he exclaimed. “That’s the last goal you ever every score against me Hopkins!!”

And he was right. Navy scored once. Then again, And again and again and again. With the score 15-14 Hopkins, and only fifteen seconds left, all hope seemed lost for the Navy men. But upon winning the face-off, Walt limped into the offensive zone with his big goalie stick, took a pass from Becker, then a deep breath, and fired a laser shot at the Hopkins goal. Ping! Ping! Off two goalposts and into the net!! In overtime, Navy attacker Besch scored a goal to give the Middies the victory in a game nobody will ever forget.

Wow.

Update: May 15, 208 - 6:00pm

Another commenter has cast doubts on the statements made by the previous commenters.  They assert the following:

* There were no playoffs back then so I don’t know where semifinals come from.
* Freshmen were not eligible back then, so a plebe goalie [Wasileff] could not have played in 1959.
* Navy beat Hopkins 15-7 in 1960. Possible that we were up 7-0 I guess, but seems unlikely.
* There’s nobody in the Navy all-time roster named Walt Wasileff.

Hmm; so maybe the storybook story is not true after-all. 

[From Mids on a Mission comments.  Inside Lacrosse Blog]

Pointing out the elephant in the room

So… there is an elephant in the room that I have not pointed out yet, so let me get the hardest part and say that UNC did loose in the first round of the NCAA tournament, upset by Navy at Fetzer Field. Given that it was my alma mater, it was obviously hard to take.  That said, the NCAA tournament is a cruel mistress. Only one of the sixteen teams that enter exit happily. An exit in the first round isn’t much easier than an exit in the last game. Given that a loss means an end of the season, loosing in the tournament in an abrupt way to end your season. 

Even though the season is over, I’m going to still be working on the project. No, not in the Hillary Clinton never-say-never sense, but because, hey, I have a lot more time on my hands after the loss. So I’ll be doing some minor stuff with the guys who are around for the summer. But I’ll also sifting through literally thousands of photos that I took over this last year to pull out the cream of the crop. It’s going to be a huge labor of love. Too bad I can’t train that pink elephant to edit and caption all the photos I have. 

Saturday I’ll be flying to Ithaca with the Duke team for their game against Ohio State hosted by Cornell University in the NCAA quarterfinals. I went with them last year and had a great time, so I’m looking forward to this experience. I was worried if I would be the persona non grata as the UNC guy, but instead I had a very welcoming and pleasant experience with them last year. 

But stay tuned; more is to come out on the UNC project. I’ve been working on some photos to highlight stick stringing as well as the canines in some of the players lives. Those two posts, among others I hope, I will be on Inside Lacrosse. 

Zach Greer

Nope, this isn’t an in-depth article on Zach Greer.  Instead, just wanted to post this photo that I really digged. I’m not sure why I like this photo so much, but here are a few reasons. First, the cloud formation worked out perfectly. The contrast of the blue sky with the green grass also looks great. Second, the lighting is near perfect. The sun was not high up in the sky, and thus no hard shadows were cast except a little under his eyes. Third, I like the depth the photo has. Starting in the back, the background in out-of-focus (OOF). Then, his face is in focus, but his left hand, closest to the camera, is OOF. So the OOF background and foreground, with an in focus center part of the photo add something special to the photo. This was done with a wide angle lens and I was probably about only 18 inches from him when I took this photo. One benefit of working at a school frequently is you get to know the players. While I’m comfortable taking a photo like this of someone like Zach that I know or one of the UNC players, I wouldn’t be as comfortable doing this with a player I didn’t know, or more importantly with a player who didn’t know me, beforehand. It requires getting really close to pull of. Finally, the left hand looks larger than the face, giving the illusion that the viewer is very close rather than looking from a distance.

I am kicking myself, kicking myself, kicking myself for not doing something like this with one of the UNC players. Oh well. I will probably use this idea in the future if I ever so an outdoor portrait with a player.

Attackman Zach Greer broke the NCAA all-time goals record

First, I wanted to send a congratulations to Duke senior Zach Greer.  Last weekend, he broke a 28 record to become that all-time leading goal scorer in the NCAA.  The previous record was 193 goals by NC State’s Stan Cockerton (yup, the Wolfpack used to have varsity lacrosse; I wish they would get it back!).  If you’re a Duke hater and say that the only reason he broke the reason was because he had a fifth year, then you don’t have your facts straight.  He is actually only in his fourth year, and when you consider that he broke this record after missing many of the 2006 games because of the scandal, his record breaking performance is even more impressive. 

Sadly, I did not know which goal exactly would be his record-breaker.  So, when he scored it, I was on the other side of the field and completly missed getting a photo of the moment.  I was with Duke University photographer Jon Gardiner, and we both let out a collective sigh when we realized what we had missed.  (actually I muttered a few four-letter words).  But anyways, congrats to Zach for a remarkable career. 

I have the photos up from the Duke lacrosse vs. St. Johns game.  Here is the link:

Duke Lacrosse vs. St. Johns Photo Gallery

Wow, things have been busy.  I’ve been taking more photos than I’ve had time to post them.  There are a lot of things that I still need to post.   Stay tuned for the following to eventually be posted:

• UNC Lax vs. Hoftstra
• UNC Lax vs. Duke @ ACCs
• Duke Lax vs. St. Johns

Here is a link to my latest post on the Inside Lacrosse blogs.  It covers all of last week: From practice to game day against Hofstra.  I omitted things that I learned, because all of these are pretty much inside jokes that only the guys will get.  That, and I only learned two things.  So here goes, drum roll please:

Things I learned:

• Milton Lyles needs to use two hands.
• Shane Walterhoefer and Sean Burke are messing up my creativity and photography.

I updated my gallery of some of my favorite lacrosse photos.  This gallery is a work on progress and I’ve really neglected updating it.

I deleted a good number of the photos as well.  I was posting some photos because they contained some of the greats of lacrosse like Brodie Merrill, and less because the photos were good.  So I had a “Come to Jesus” meeting with myself, and hit the delete key a few times.  Here is my updated gallery of lacrosse favorites.

Shane Walterhoefer was masterful at faceoff.

Photos are now posted from when UNC played Ohio State at Boy’s Latin in Baltimore. Note that I only put around 15 photos in the gallery, but there are actually hunderd’s from the game. If you want to see everything, I put up a link that will probably expire in a month where you can view all the photos.

BTW, you are probably wondering why the heck make a gallery with only 15 photos when I have almost 300 to show? Well, it is standard industry practice. Making a gallery of every single photo is overkill. If you want to find a photo of a certain athlete, the best way is to go to the search page of my site, and search for the athletes last name. Or to see everything of UNC lacrosse you can search for “UNC Lacrosse” or “Duke Lacrosse” for the boys in Durham. (note, don’t use quotes.)

Vote for Fletch (photo by Jeff Camarati/UNC)

Show some love for the ACC or your favorite school by voting for seniors for the 2008 Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award. Below are the contestants, and where they stand as of 1pm ET on 4/16.  You get 3 votes and can vote once per day.  I obviously voted for Fletcher Gregory at UNC for my first pick.  I was showing some love for Brad Ross but now that he is ahead, I have to be a UNC partisan and not vote for Duke.  My 2nd pick was for the man, the legend, Paul Rabil at Hopkins.  After that, I was neutral for my third vote.

—>> VOTE HERE for Fletcher <<—

Coach Olmert gives Mike B. Burns a pep talk before heading out to the field.

Like cheetahs, they sat waiting, drooling.  The hunger gnawed at their senses, making them only more acutely aware of the next potential meal that could come their way. Then, finally, in the distance, they spot their prey.   They stare it down with a icy gaze, ready to pounce, looking away only to see if the others spot the same prey.  This is survival of the fittest.  Actually, its the support staff waiting for chicken to come out of the kitchen after the first batch was devoured by the players.

Coach Haus treated the players and staff to a great meal at a restaurant.  The food was great, but by the time the support staff (that includes me) got up to get our food, the chicken had been picked clean.  So we sat staring at the kitchen waiting for the waiter to bring out the latest batch of chicken.  When we saw him come out finally with the chicken, we pounced on him like cheetahs in the Sahara.

To serious matters, we lost a tough game to Ohio State 11-14 that was played at Boys Latin High School in Baltimore, Maryland, and which incidentally is the alma mater of faceoff man Shane Walterhoefer.  The Heels were up by one at halftime, but a strong 3rd quarter helped seal the win for the Buckeyes. Walterhoefer was able to conjure up good spirits from his old home field, winning 23 of 26 faceoffs.

Things I learned this weekend:

• The freshmen have bad tastes in movies (”Goonies” seriously?).  Chun-Man Fong (aka “C”) saved the day on the bus with “Transformers”.
• Mike Chires has “thunder thighs” (his words).
• Coach Lattimore has amazing balance and can make his way down the bus without touching the floor.
• The bathrooms is some buses are better ventilated in some than others.
• Milton needs an alarm clock.
• Sean Burke will walk half an hour for Chili’s.
• C is a tape-tearing master.
• Sean Delaney values his bubble baths.
• Kevin Piegare can’t match shoes.
• Coach Olmert shouldn’t be trusted with lemonade around electronics.  People with mustard shouldn’t be trusted around Coach Olmert
• Some security guards at apartment building in Maryland can be um, unfriendly (I can think of an anatomical term to describe them, but I’m trying to censor myself).
• I am the master at finding the light switches on our charter buses.  Like Emmit Kellar said, a career in bus driving may be in my future.
• Most importantly, I learned to NOT TOUCH THE GATORADE’S that are under the bus.