Wrong Time, But A Super Game

Up until 1970 all serious lacrosse players used wooden sticks handmade by Onondaga Indians in upstate New York. No two sticks were identical, their quality varied considerably and they broke easily. Once a piece broke, the stick was useless and had to be replaced. A new stick cost 20-some dollars. Furthermore, there was only one retail outlet anywhere that specialized in top-grade one-of-a-kind lacrosse sticks—the Bacharach Rasin Company of Baltimore. Odd as the situation was, it was not as hard on lacrossers as it would have been on golfers, say, if everyone who wanted a set of clubs had to travel to Latrobe, Pa. and talk to Arnold Palmer. About half the people in the country who had need of a lacrosse stick lived within a stone's throw of Bacharach's anyway. Most of the remaining potential customers inhabited the narrow range between Syracuse, N.Y., Charlottesville, Va. and the Atlantic Ocean. So they just bought their sticks when they were in the area to play a Maryland team. As for those who might reside in the wilderness west of the Susquehanna River, nobody much cared whether they got proper lacrosse equipment or not. What ever would they do with it?

Then three years ago two small companies began to market lacrosse sticks with flexible synthetic heads and webbing. They were cheaper, more durable and since they were standardized they could be repaired by replacing broken parts with new ones. Finally, they came in a variety of bright colors and patterns including a tie-dyed one—the Indians had stuck to basic hickory. Lacrosse purists grumbled that the new sticks were a corruption and abomination, that no self-respecting player would use them. The prediction proved false. Currently it is estimated that about 85% of the sticks in use are the synthetic jobs.

The above sampling of folklore and technological history is cited as an example of why lacrosse is often regarded as one of the most change-resistant of sports. Given this outlook, it can be deduced that anything billed as a First Annual Super Star Lacrosse Game, which was played last weekend on Johns Hopkins' Homewood Field, might be looked upon with some suspicion. For one thing, lacrosse is not played, super or otherwise, on the last Friday of September. The season lasts from the sleets of March to the first gin-and-tonic days of June.

Besides being out of season and the first of its kind, the Homewood Field happening was unusual in an artistic sense, since it brought together more talented lacrosse players than had ever before been assembled. On one side was a team selected from among the best of the current collegiate players. Opposing them were the pick of the club stickmen. (Lacrosse clubs are athletic and social organizations represented by teams made up of postcollegians as well as a few dropouts and nonmatriculators.) Among the 60 participating players were 42 All-Americas of one sort or another. Fortunately, because of the relatively provincial nature of the sport, it was not hard to get all this talent together on short notice. On the 30-man college team there were 15 players representing Maryland schools; on the club roster, 23 of the 30 stars were from Maryland teams. Most of the players had learned the game at Maryland or Long Island (N.Y.) prep schools.

As is often the case with such affairs, the lacrosse Super Bowl did not come about in response to sustained public clamor. Essentially, it was staged by the lacrosse Establishment for its own benefit. The hope was that the game would raise some of the $80,000 needed to send a U.S. team to the World Series of lacrosse next summer in Australia. (The "world" happens to involve only Australia, England, Canada and ourselves. However, a certain amount of poetic license is allowed—after all we have our baseball World Series.)

The game was the brainstorm of a 31-year-old Baltimore attorney named Joe Harlan, much of whose extra-legal energies are devoted to boosting lacrosse. Harlan's role in the Super Game has rarely been duplicated in any sort of sporting promotion. Having invented the contest, Harlan played, adequately if not brilliantly, as a defenseman in it, representing his own Carling Club. It was somewhat as if after negotiating a mutual assistance pact with Congress, Pete Rozelle had appeared as a free safety in Super Bowl VII. Harlan had the additional distinction of being the only player who was also the president of the United States Club Lacrosse Association.

"I think lacrosse is the best, fastest, most intellectual field game going," says Harlan of his sporting obsession. "The only trouble is it has been hidden away here in the East. There are too many people who want to keep it as something you play among friends, the people you went to prep school and college with. I want to see the game grow in public school systems, become popular with black athletes, be picked up all over the country."

The first annual lacrosse Super Bowl did not make many new fans simply because most of the 4,000 who showed up were already heavy addicts. However, the knowledgeable crowd seemed to feel that it got its $3 worth even though it was not possible to hype the game into a test of whether clubs or colleges played better lacrosse, or into a grudge match between individual players. A minor curiosity was that Jack Trenz, a Cornell undergraduate who led the collegians to a 15-11 win by scoring three goals and an assist, was as much a club as a college player. Having transferred to Cornell from Penn State and being therefore ineligible for intercollegiate competition, Trenz—who was the game's MVP—had occupied himself last season by playing for Long Island, the strongest of the non-Baltimore clubs.

The pregame line was that the club stars would depend on finesse, while the collegians, being a bit younger, would go to a more frenetic running style. That is more or less how things developed. The most striking difference between the overall play of the two squads was in their method of clearing. When they got their sticks on the ball the collegians tended to simply sprint with it. The clubbers, in contrast, worked up the field in more leisurely fashion, using sharp twist patterns. Backed by a tough defense that revolved around Butch Hilliard, a tall, acrobatic goalie from the Carling Club, the clubbers had the best of it in the early going, building a 3-1 lead in the first 10 minutes. Then the collegians, led by University of Maryland Midfielders Doug Schreiber, Frank Urso and Doug Radebaugh, began to outrun the club's middies and defensemen, swarming over them in fast-break, three-on-two situations. In the first five minutes of the second quarter the collegians unloaded for six quick and unanswered goals. Thereafter, though they controlled most of the face-offs and ground balls, the clubbers could not catch up to their quicker opponents.

"They outran us," said Denny Town-send, a Mt. Washington Club defense-man, "but I don't think it was any of that old-men-against-kids stuff. There is not that much difference in ages. The main thing is that this particular group of college players is probably the fastest bunch who have ever played the game. In a year or so most of them will be playing for clubs. Then, if this game is still going on, the clubs might be outrunning the college teams."