Blog

“Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records” – William A. Ward

              One of my favorite quotes and something that I have been able to refer back to whenever times are tough, whether it is with injury, a tough string of losses, and all other troubles athletes experience on a daily basis. The meaning? Simple: when faced with a challenge, you have two choices. You can either both rise up and respond in a way that embraces the grind and makes you stronger or you can submit to the hardship and let the challenge defeat you, both physically and mentally. Our society never falls short to produce success stories in the athletic world that put the spotlight on athletes who are able to come back and achieve victory after suffering some sort of set back in their life. My favorite examples of this are some of the best athletes in the game today. One is Tom Brady, who many people believe is the best quarterback in the NFL and possibly the most clutch player to ever play the game. What people over look is that he was drafted 199^th in the 6^th round when he came out of Michigan and had to battle his way to even get a chance to make the team (great E60 about the whole process “The Brady 6” – recommend it to everyone).

            However, above all else, one of my favorite comeback stories, as of late, is Tiger Woods. After going through some off the field troubles with marital life back in 2009, Woods was at the forefront of an overwhelming amount of media attention for the better portion of two years. His life off the course translated into poor play on the course, with Woods going winless, let alone Major-less, for consecutive seasons. As quickly as Tiger had gained millions of fans across the world when he emerged on the PGA scene in 1996, he lost fans, endorsement deals, and credibility almost at an accelerated rate. The same people who were his biggest supporters were now his most vocal critics, which is what usually happens to athletes when they stop winning. The public court of opinion is often one of the harshest critics.

            Now, here’s a little disclaimer: I don’t agree with Tiger Woods off the field actions and, frankly, I don’t think it was anyone’s business to get involved in the first place but, given his level of stardom, he is constantly under the microscope so public interventions were to be expected. What I am going to talk about is not what he did, but how he responded from that point. Now that I got that out of the way, let’s take a look at how every athlete can learn from Woods’ experience.

            From the second his press conference ended where he addressed the issue head on, it was as if Tiger Woods flipped a switch and began the road back to where he once was. He went to rehab and did a lot of charity work to better himself while trying to get his game back and separate what was going on in his personal life from what he was trying to do on the course. While Woods was losing top sponsors such as Rolex and Buick, going through a divorce, being the subject of all sports media, the butt of jokes, and hanging onto his Nike contact by a thread, he kept his head down and kept working. He couldn’t be bothered with what everyone was saying about him because he was on a mission to achieve his goals and make a comeback. After all, as most of you know, no matter what you do in life, someone will always have something to say about it. Over the past couple of years, Tiger had sporatic wins here and there, which got the chatter going about whether he was finally back or not. All wins, however, seemed to be followed by streaky play on the course, which caused the voice of supporters to fade as they were overpowered by the voices of critics once again.

            Now, fast forward to right now and it seems like we have rewound time back to the early 2000s when Tiger was in his prime. To date, he currently has three tournament wins in this season alone and is the overwhelming favorite to win the Masters in April. He has a new relationship with Olympic Gold Medalist Skier Lindsay Vonn and seems to only be in the media for positive coverage now. He has endorsement deals coming in from top firms faster than text messages to a teenage girl’s cell phone and has made a re-emergence in commercials, something we have not seen in the past couple of years. Yes, it has happened: Eldrick Tont “Tiger” Woods is finally back. And, surely, with times reverting back to what they once were, Tiger must be cocky, arrogant, and egotistical, right? Wrong. Despite proving everyone wrong and silencing every critic, Tiger still maintains his same personality that the world fell in love with almost two decades ago.

            If you take anything away from Tiger’s comeback, it should be as a template for how all athlete’s attitudes should be when they face adversity. Here is a guy who had arguably the biggest fall from grace in recent memory; a guy who lost almost every endorsement deal he had worked so hard to get; a guy who had everyone turn against him in a blink of an eye, and he managed to embrace the struggle, the grind, the adversity, and use it as motivation to get back to where he once was instead of wallowing in the negativity surrounding him.

            Since I started with a quote, I will end with a quote but this time it is from Tiger himself. “I want to be what I’ve always wanted to be: dominant.” Well congratulations, Tiger, it seems you have returned to the Tiger of old and made Sundays exciting for us again.

            I am not a betting man, but even I would “bet the farm” that Tiger wins the Masters next week. As he has shown us time and time again, determination and the will to win gives you every tool necessary to overcome any amount of adversity you might come across, no matter how big or small.

If you were to turn on the TV four or five years ago, the only lacrosse you would see on TV (if any) was men’s division one lacrosse, usually around the time of the playoffs in May. However, not only is there much more lacrosse now on a weekly basis, but there is an impressive increase in the amount of media coverage for women’s games as well. Obviously, the number of women’s games that are shown on national television do not come close to the number of men’s games shown (or even the number of Hopkins games alone) but the fact that we have about a game every two weeks on ESPNU really points to the tremendous growth the women’s game has seen in the last decade.All that considered, I realized the other day that maybe I am not paying enough attention to the women’s side of the sport as I should be through one conversation with Kristie, who is one of two FLG Directors.

Helmets and Women’s Lacrosse: two words I thought I would never hear in the same sentence. They are so opposite that, up until earlier this week I would have told you that they could be an accurate representation of an antonym. To my surprise, however, these two words could be better friends than we, or I, thought. After talking to Kristie, I learned that there is a serious consideration by the governing board of Women’s Lacrosse to start making each player wear a helmet, in the midst of recent concussions in all contact sports across the board. For those of you who haven’t seen them, the proposed helmets would not be the same helmet as the men wear. Instead, each girl would wear a foam-like helmet that fits snuggly around the head (almost identical to the helmets coaches make soccer goalies wear when they are little).  Different teams across the country spanning all different age groups have been testing out the idea of the helmet in early scrimmages this year. To this date, there has been no final decision as to the final verdict on helmets in women’s lacrosse.

Before they embark on this whole helmet endeavor, the powers at be in women’s lacrosse should follow the example set by others who have already been dealing with the concussion issue. Case and point: Rodger Goodell aimed to tackle two key issues over the past three years in the NFL: High Hits and Concussions. So what does he do? He takes the requirements to clear a concussion test out of the hands of a team trainer and puts it in the hands of an independently contracted doctor to eliminate bias and makes them stricter. You want to clean a guy out high? That’s fine, as long as you are okay with writing a $50,000 check payable to the NFL ATTN: Finance Department and 15 yards each time you do it. The aim with both actions was to improve player safety in the best way he could think of and, for the most part, it has worked.

While fines have no place in women’s lacrosse, I think the harsher and stricter penalty guidelines would have a better effect on the game than helmets. If Goodell had invested in safer equipment (helmets, neck rolls, mouth pieces, etc.), he would have had the same problem on a scale almost ten times larger. Rather than having fewer concussions, you would still see hits that were high, blind side, or on a receiver that is completely venerable but instead of the players taking responsibility, they would just blame it on the faulty equipment. Goodell took the responsibility out of the league’s/ref’s hands and put it on the players and that is exactly what women’s lacrosse should do.

If you put girls in helmets, they are going to be less fearful of swinging at someone’s head or going for those impossible checks because in their mind, if they miss, who cares? I mean, she is wearing a helmet, right? But this mentality is what is going to lead to concussions and other head trauma that might even be worse than it is now. And if you introduce helmets into the girls game, who is to say that five or ten years down the road, someone does not want to fully outfit the girls in equipment head to toe just like the boys? Although it is tough to see now, helmets will invoke more contact in the girls’ game, not less, making it much more dangerous to play, not safer.

The more practical solution to their problem is to make the penalties harsher for checks to the head or aggressive swinging towards the head, just like football and men’s lacrosse did. The worse offenders could now get red cards, instead of yellow cards, forcing them to sit out the rest of the game and the next game as well. Just like football players don’t want to lose money and men’s lacrosse players don’t want to sit in the penalty box for more than a minute, women will start to alter the way they check and go for the ball for fear that, if they don’t, they will be penalized worse than before. The responsibility now lies directly on each girl. Yes, you are going to still have the overzealous refs calling the game tight and the loud-mouth parents having something to say about everything, but we have that now any way and I don’t think those two factors will ever be phased out of the game.

I know girl’s lacrosse gets knocked a lot for the pace of play and confusing calls but it is a great game to watch if you take the time. I’m spoiled because I get to watch some of the best lacrosse in the country coming out of Garden City. Certain sports will have issues with concussions till the end of time. Football has dealt with it, men’s lacrosse has instituted new rules, so I guess it is time for the women to find out how they are going to solve this issue. Do everyone a favor: keep the contact to a low level and get rid of this helmet idea. 

The job process is something that seems so long off for everyone, so it is a bit of a rude awakening when you get to college and you have to start to research, prepare for, and decide on a career field that you will most likely be in for the rest of your life (scary stuff). How is a freshman in college supposed to figure out the next 10 – 20 years of his life at least? Well, at least in high school, kids still have a chance to be a kid, right? Wrong. If you are a current high school lacrosse player in this decade, you now have an added pressure to deal with aside from school, parents, SATs, and growing up: the college recruiting process. Even from the time I was getting recruited to schools, the process now a days is ten times as quick as it was a couple of years ago. To put it in prospective, I attended the first sophomore day in the history of college recruiting when I was a sophomore about 4 years ago at UNC with 7 or 8 other recruits. Now, you have sophomores committing to schools without even playing a second of varsity lacrosse (and sometimes even freshman!) As crazy as the job process seems, the college recruiting process seems just as nuts. Now, college coaches are asking 15-year-old kids to decide where they want to go to college for four years, even though they aren’t going to college for another three years. As different as they seem, the college recruiting process and the job search have now become so similar that the only thing that seems to be separating the two is the time in your life at which they (usually) occur.

If you think about it, the similarity between the two processes could not be clearer. Both experiences start extremely early, just in different levels of schooling. Freshman in college are bombarded with career services meetings and advice from alums about employments while freshman in high school are swamped in deciding which coaches to contact and what recruiting camps to go to as they scramble to complete the questionnaires college coaches sent them. In fact, both processes have seemed to start earlier and earlier as time has gone on. Both searches are highly competitive and usually involve utilizing contacts either in the lacrosse program or the place of employment to “put the good word in for them” as they aspire to slip through that elusive “backdoor.” In each situation, you are required to plan extremely far into the future and decide on future aspirations are for the next 5 or 10 years over the course of just a couple of months, causing players/people to grow up fast.

Finally, the most intriguing similarity is the preparation that goes into both getting a job or getting recruited. Players/people are constantly doing whatever they can to boost their resume, people with credentials and players with athletic accolades. Everything they do has, more or less, the sole intention of getting them to “jump off the page” to college and job recruiters. In either situation, academics play a key role, leading to parents staying on top of their child always to do well in the classroom almost to a fault.

Bottom line: Even though your future seems like it is a long ways away, it always has a way of sneaking up on you without you realizing. Enjoy time with your friends and family but always be conscious that, if you want to do well in life, whether it is lacrosse or in the job force, it is going to take a lot of hardwork. So don’t let either process take you by surprise. Get on the wall, hit the books often, and remember that you can always improve on something.

Hope everyone is having a good week! First lesson learned from Super Bowl Sunday: If your team isn’t in it, it’s a lot less entertaining. I am pretty sure I had near heart attacks last year watching the Giants’ unbelievable playoff run and Super Bowl win.

 The other day Corey (Winkoff) had mentioned something interesting to me that he had heard on ESPN radio on his morning commute to the office. Trent Dilfer had said that he believed the Ravens played “beyond the Xs and Os” during their Super Bowl run.

I couldn’t agree more with Dilfer, mainly because this is a concept that applies to all sports, not just football. The Ravens had two main things going for them, in my opinion: Emotions and Confidence. Obviously, it was important for everyone on the team to send Ray Lewis out with a Super Bowl win to end his incredible 17 year career with the Ravens (say what you want about the guy but he is easily in the top 3 linebackers to ever play the game). But the overwhelmingly apparent difference between the Ravens and the 49ers in that game was the level of confidence. While the niners were lining up in illegal formations on the very first play of the game, the Ravens were calling fake field goals on 4^th and 9’s and being extremely aggressive in their play calling. Even when the 49ers scored 24 un answered points, the Ravens kept their cool, relied on their fundamentals, and got the win in the end.

All great athletes, both past and current, play well beyond what they are taught by their coaches (the Xs and Os). They fully invest themselves and their emotion in the team and allow the passion that they feel for the sport that they play to guide them to success on game day. All athletes also seem to have an un-shakable high level of confidence. They don’t let one bad play or one bad game to make them question themselves as individuals. They have full confidence in themselves and their abilities to produce on game day and help their team win. Without confidence, you’re not going to be able to take your game to the next level, period.

Go Giants,

If anyone has any good ways to stay warm with this weather, feel free to share, because I am still trying to de-frost from the whole cold thing going on outside. I thought I would use this week’s blog to talk about something interesting I heard on ESPN radio this morning. Mike Greenberg said, “football as we know it is on the brink” referring to the latest concussion issues and rule changes.

Personally, I understand the need for concussion awareness (after all, I have worn a Riddell for the past 6 years!) but football seems to be suffering because of it. Sure, its interesting to read the news about players (most of the time James Harrison) getting fined for those bone crushing hits to the head that makes us all cringe, but now it seems like all hits are becoming illegal. Time and time again this season we saw clean hits get called for 15 yarders. While player safety is and should be held to the highest standard, it seems like the sentiment among fans is that, eventually, all hitting in football is going to be illegal.

Could this be the opening lacrosse needs? Think about it. Lacrosse is one of the only sports that doesn’t discriminate against small players, like football seems to do. It has enough contact and big hits to keep people engaged but not enough hitting to raise as many concussion concerns for people to not allow their kids to play because of those concerns. It has boy and girl teams, where football doesn’t, and the pace of play is unrivaled on the field by any other sport. While I’m sad to see the change occurring in football, I’m excited for the growth of lacrosse. In the next 5 – 10 years I think the game will be as big in the Midwest and central areas of the US as it is currently in California.

Who knows, by the time some of you get to college, maybe the MLL draft will have better ratings than the NFL draft.

Just something to think about 

They are more fundamentally sound. That’s what it boils down to. When I ask people out here, coaches and players alike, how they view their east coast counterparts, the big difference they notice is that the players and teams do the little things right. They seem to move the ball around effortlessly and are able to work better as a unit.

But people recognize that there is indeed top talent out here, both individually and at the team level. West coast players can go to the east coast recruiting camps and rise to the top, surprising hotbed players and breaking stereotypes. And the premier teams from the west can go head to head with the top teams from the east, but beyond those top 3 or 4 teams per state, the depth simply isn’t there. In the conferences on the east coast, a #15 team could upset a #3 team on any given day, certainly a big win for the underdogs but not the first of its kind. This type of upset never happens on the west coast.

What kids out here lack is the exposure to the game at an early age from good coaches. While the game is exploding in places like Colorado and California and has become more and more available to young kids eager to feel the stick in their palms, it’s just not the same level of game. High school coaches continuously show frustration with incoming freshman that have terrible habits and lack a fundamental knowledge. They’ve played 3-5 years of youth lacrosse under dedicated and well-meaning fathers who have unfortunately never played the sport at a high level, if at all. Growing up in suburban Philadelphia, I had former D1 players coaching me at the youth level.

Elite brands of the game can be found in pockets out west, but there is still a long way to go before we can match the depth of the east, and people tend to recognize that pretty readily.