Summer of Crotty

Ned Crotty

By Mark Kitchin

After one of the best summers that any men’s lacrosse player has ever had, it looks like Ned Crotty is already looking to the future as well as embracing the present. Crotty seems to be combining his ability to play and his acquired business acumen in order to stay involved in the sport he loves far beyond a time when his playing days are over.

In late September, it was announced that Crotty was being hired as Sales and Marketing Manager of Trilogy Lacrosse, a Manhattan-based lacrosse business that holds camps and clinics across the country. There are New Jersey ties in this as well. The five-year old company was founded by former Princeton lacrosse players Ryan Boyle and Rob Lindsey.

 Crotty has emerged as a star and is arguably the best lacrosse players ever to come out of the Garden State. No one can deny that the lacrosse summer of 2010 could be renamed the “Summer of Crotty”.  Although he didn’t always dominate the games he played, Crotty seemed to be everywhere a lacrosse stick was raised.

 The New Vernon resident and Delbarton School graduate’s busy season started in March when Duke was preparing for their 16-4, national championship season. The 6-foot-2, 190-pound athlete was truly sensational. He led the nation in assists with 63 and was fourth in total points. His efforts were rewarded with NCAA Lacrosse’s highest honor, the Tewaaraton Trophy.

Crotty was selected by the Chicago Machine of Major League Lacrosse. He would eventually score 11 goals and 13 assists in seven games for the squad which worked as a traveling team and didn’t play a game in Chicago. He would eventually be selected as the league’s Rookie of the Year.

On July 6, he signed a multi-year endorsement deal with Brine Lacrosse for an undisclosed salary. By mid-July, he was off to Manchester, England playing for the U.S. team in the FIL World Championships. He didn’t dazzle during the tournament until it mattered most. He tallied the game’s tying and go-ahead goals in the U.S. team’s 12-10 win over Canada in the title game on July 24.

In August, the 3-time collegiate All-American earned another extremely rare honor, that of All-Atlantic Coast Conference Male Athlete of the Year. Only two men’s lacrosse players have been recognized in the 56 years the award has been given. Next Crotty was chosen by the National Lacrosse League’s Colorado Mammoth in their lacrosse draft.  He was the first pick in the second round, the 11^th pick overall and the first American college player to be chosen. As of now, he has not signed a contract yet with the indoor league team which begins its season in January.  

The summer of success probably wound up on September 13 when all the NCAA champion teams visited the White House on Champions Day. He had the honor of attending the special event which included a speech from President Obama and celebrating with his teammates one last time.

Always a team player, both at Delbarton and Duke, he finished his NCAA career with 92 goals and 147 assists. The soft spoken athlete seems to go about his business, often helping his teammates as much as himself. Wherever he goes from here, Crotty seems to be readying to make an impact in the sport of lacrosse whether that happens on the field or off.

Olympic Lacrosse by 2020? It’s Possible.

By Mark Kitchin

It’s one of those questions that fans of lacrosse can never quite understand. If synchronized swimming and team handball can become Olympic sports, why isn’t lacrosse a part of the worldwide event as well?

It’s not like the Olympics had never heard of the sport. Lacrosse was in fact contested in the 1904 and 1908 Olympics, albeit between only three countries, Canada, U.S. and England. It was also listed as an exhibition sport at several more Olympic Games.

Surely, it’s as competitive a sport as most of the events in the Olympics. It has to have a bigger following than some events which only arouse interest during the event.

Well maybe in terms of sheer numbers but not in terms of status around the globe. Although the sport does have its areas of rabid interest, there are still parts of the world that have never seen a lacrosse game. Lacrosse has made great inroads in the last decade, but on the continents of South America and Africa rarely has a stick been lifted or a goal scored.

However, that is changing and the reason Lacrosse may one day take its place again in the Olympic Games may be because of better organization within the sport on the International level. In 2006, the men’s and women’s international lacrosse entities merged into the Federation of International Lacrosse (FIL). The merger may prove to be the most important development for the sport in the last decade.

Along with fostering the growth of both the men’s and women’s games, it has put together a realistic blueprint outlining the steps needed to be taken in order to make lacrosse an Olympic sport once again.

It’s not surprising that someone with New Jersey ties is part of this endeavor. For years, Tom Hayes coached lacrosse and Rutgers University in New Brunswick. After the long time coach left the Scarlet Knights program, he got more involved on the international level and has been at the forefront of helping lacrosse move beyond the countries in which the sport already enjoys success.

The FIL currently has 25 full-fledged members and 14 associate members with footholds in many more countries. There are organizational structures in place in countries as varied as Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Finland, India and New Zealand. There has also been communications in 37 additional countries including Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Iceland, Israel, Jamaica, Jordan, Mongolia, the Philippines, Qatar, Singapore and Tibet with sports-minded individuals looking to start up the sport in their country.

There will probably be enough interest and development by next year to allow FIL officials to attend the SportAccord Conference which is being held in London, England in 2011. Among SportAccord’s goals is to recognize, assist and represent International Federations with Olympic aspirations.

Once this is achieved, the FIL may apply to the International World Games Organization for World Games membership by 2013 and eventually start asking for Olympic consideration from the International Olympic Committee by 2014.  The World Games, which is next scheduled for 2013 in Cali, Colombia, is held every four years and is always held the year after the Olympic Games. The World Games are held under the patronage of the IOC. It is basically an Olympics for sports that have a measure of worldwide recognition but are not contested in the Olympic Games. It also serves as a way for the IOC to determine the viability of future Olympic sports.

Among the 32 sports federations currently recognized by the International World Games Association, are ones that cover Bowling, Fistball, Korfball, Netball, Orienteering, Squash, Surfing, Tug of War and Water Skiing. Lacrosse had been a member of the World Games at one time but the last time the sport was contested was in 1989. Under the FIL, the timetable lists the earliest year for lacrosse to become an Olympic event is 2020 with 2024 a more realistic possibility. That’s the plan anyway.

One could hope interest in lacrosse will only snowball as more countries pick it up. Certainly it’s in the interest of lacrosse equipment manufacturers to establish relationships in different parts of the globe as well as players and coaches looking to broaden their horizons while passing on the sport knowledge to athletes of all ages from different countries. As always economics will play a role in its growth.

It can be argued that lacrosse doesn’t necessarily need Olympic recognition. Tennis and Golf survived for years without it. American football and rugby have never been part of it. Baseball and softball enjoyed Olympic status only to have it taken away, but that does not seem to have dampened their overall popularity.

However, many believe making lacrosse a global sport can only enhance the image of what many already consider a successful and entertaining pastime. It may be just another logical progression in its history. Does lacrosse belong in the Olympics? It would certainly give dedicated athletes another prize to contest and more reasons to play.

Lakers’ Cinosky helps spread Jersey style lacrosse to the tundra

By Mark Kitchin

It’s one thing for a lacrosse player to return home to coach and play in familiar surroundings where the sport has a following. It’s another for an athlete to take on the challenge of helping the sport in a different venue. That’s why lacrosse needs more people like Joe Cinosky.

Cinosky was a standout Mountain Lakes player who earned All-America honors at the University of Maryland. A talented, physical, 6-foot-3, 220-pound defenseman, he is one of the few lacrosse players making his professional mark on both the outdoor and indoor game. He was part of the Chesapeake Bayhawks crew that won the MLL Championship this past summer. In the winter he lines it up for Minnesota Swarm of the NLL.

However, more and more he’s making the Land of 1,000 Lakes his home. In the past few years he’s been coaching lacrosse in Minnesota at the high school level. This past, June he took over the job of coaching the club team at the University of Minnesota.

Coaching lacrosse in Minnesota may not be like coaching the sport in Iceland or Tibet or some far off land that thinks a lacrosse stick would be much better suited for netting fish, but it’s still an area that’s up for grabs in terms of determining the growth of a sport. There are around 70 high schools that play it on the sanctioned or club level. Cinosky may not be the Paul Bunyan of Minnesota lacrosse just yet, but if he continues in his interest there, in time his influence can loom almost as large.

There are biases against playing lacrosse that far north. Hockey dominates sports during the winter months. The spring season is a short one; most areas don’t thaw out until the middle of May so much of the work is done indoors. Most of the people that lived there don’t have a lacrosse background and have never seen the sport before much less played it. If they have seen it, it’s the professional indoor version which is a hybrid of what’s played at the college level.

That’s what makes someone like Cinosky a true ambassador of the sport. It means something for young athletes to gain access to an experienced player; someone who has played on a top-notch college and international level. An athlete that they can see competing in their own backyard, who is living in the area and seems comfortable with calling Minnesota – home.

It’s true that the sport is growing across the nation. More and more colleges are picking it up. More and more athletes from different parts of the country are picking up the sport and making it their preference. For that growth to continue, lacrosse needs its ambassadors and a few Paul Bunyan’s too.

When New Jersey had Pride

By Mark Kitchin

It’s true. You don’t realize how much you miss something until it’s gone. However, I’m having a tough time judging how much the New Jersey Pride is missed if at all.

I miss it though. For those who aren’t familiar with lacrosse on any level, the New Jersey Pride was a member of Major League Lacrosse. The Garden State had its own professional lacrosse team for eight glorious seasons. From 2001 to 2008, in the spring and summer months, some of the best lacrosse players in the world played with and against each other in front of lackluster New Jersey crowds that contained legions of kids carrying their own sticks and hungry for autographs.

The Pride were a team of nomads, playing at venues in Montclair, Bridgewater, Piscataway and the occasional jaunt to Mercer County Park throughout its history. As the season progressed the crowds always dwindled as people took their vacations, escaped to their beach houses and found other things to do rather than attend a lacrosse game.

The Pride never won a title, rarely made the league playoffs and probably never turned a profit. In 2009, the Pride disappeared with no fanfare as the MLL retracted from 10 back to six teams. The writing was on the wall long before the faltering U.S. economy dictated it. The year before the team was quietly bought out by a group tied to the league with the express purpose (depending on who you ask) of either collapsing it or finding someone with deep pockets who would move it to another part of the country.

When the team was finally disbanded there was very little mention about it at all, even by the MLL which scraped by on six teams this year (although the Chicago Machine never played a home game) and was seen on an ESPN sub network near you. It was as if the Pride never existed. It was a mirage, a dream, a figment of the imagination with sticks. All that’s left of the Pride now are souvenirs on eBay and a thankful web page.

Of course the players weren’t imaginary. I don’t know if the kids that came to the games, mostly through discounted tickets for youth teams, or as a reward for their own tournament contests, could truly appreciate the talents of a Jesse Hubbard, or Scott Urick or Adam Doneger. It’s uncertain if they could marvel at Kyle Harrison’s speed, Jay Jalbert’s toughness, Jon Hess’s pinpoint feeds or Ryan McClay’s boundless courage.

Explanations fail me as to why professional lacrosse didn’t fare better in New Jersey. The Garden State continues to grow as a hotbed for players. More high schools are picking it up all the time despite a difficult economy. Lacrosse is still a fast growing sport especially among young athletes but like soccer it seems more Americans would rather play it then watch it. Maybe the audience for the sport is still too busy doing active things and having a life and can’t be bothered to sit and watch a lacrosse game no matter how great the level of play.

New Jersey has gone through one outdoor team and one indoor team, the NLL’s New Jersey Storm and its ill-fated owner Jayson Williams. Will the Garden State get another chance? I imagine when the economy perks up again and an entrepreneur brave enough with the desire and some deep pockets gets his or her courage up lacrosse could return. Maybe then the time will be ripe and New Jersey fans will embrace lacrosse on that level.

Until that day comes there will be summers much like the last one although I did have a dejavu experience at Yurcak Field last month.

Instead of boys with lacrosse sticks I saw little girls in soccer uniforms supporting Sky Blue FC. It was about the same size as the lacrosse crowd. The girls were cheering their heroes and after the final whistle asking for autographs on a humid summer night in Piscataway. Every sport has its dreamers.

A Challenge for Munday

Former Mountain Lakes and Northwestern University lacrosse standout Lindsey Munday was recently named the seventh women’s lacrosse head coach in Mount St. Mary’s program history.

Munday has spent the last eight years at Northwestern. She won two National Championships as a player and three as an assistant coach.

For the last four years, Munday has been the top assistant on Kelly Amonte Hiller’s staff, serving as recruiting coordinator, offensive coach and helping with scouting opponents. She helped Northwestern to an 85-4 record in her four seasons as an assistant coach, including a perfect 23-0 mark in 2009. The Wildcats won the National Championship in 2007, 2008 and 2009 while advancing to the NCAA championship game in 2010.

Munday was a Tewaaraton Trophy semifinalist in 2005 and 2006, she finished her career as the program’s all-time leader in assists (128), third in points (268) and fifth in goals (140) and also holds the single-season record for points (107) and assists (54) for the 2005 campaign.

Northwestern posted a 64-12 record in her four-year playing career, including a 56-4 mark in her final three campaigns while winning the Wildcats first two National Championships in 2005 and 2006. A co-captain for 2006, Munday was named an IWLCA/US Lacrosse All-American in her final two seasons while also nabbing a spot on the All-American Lacrosse Conference first team in 2005 and 2006 after garnering second-team recognition in 2003 and 2004.

“I am extremely honored to be the next women’s lacrosse coach at Mount St. Mary’s University,” said Munday. “The Mount has a rich tradition and I am really excited to be a part of the future of Mount women’s lacrosse.”

Munday remains active as a player in lacrosse after playing with the United States in the 2009 FIL Women’s World Cup Championship team. She was named to All-World Cup team as an attacker after leading the United States with 17 goals and 20 assists for 37 points in seven games.

Fall and Winter Lacrosse Leagues

Courtesy of New Jersey Lacrosse Network

This is a list of organizations that are traditionally involved in youth and high school fall and winter lacrosse league being held in the state of New Jersey.

 

 

 

 

Nearly all of the indoor facilities listed also offer winter leagues and sponsor clinics. Many offer spring and summer activities as well. Several of them offer adult league. However, the leagues may be subject to change. Please call the respective league director or check the facility website for further information.

 

North Jersey

 

Ath-Ed Lacrosse League – various Morris County sites.

973-691-9419

www.ath-edlacrosse.com

Boys fall and winter leagues

 

TriLax

Turf City – Wayne

973-646-3400

www.trilax.com

 

 

Indoor Sports Pavilion

973-895-4007

www.indoorsportspavilion.com

Boys, girls and a beginner men’s league.

Clinics given by Patriot Lacrosse and Steps Lacrosse

 

Soccer Coliseum

Teaneck Armory

201-986-0096

www.soccercoliseum.com

Boys and men’s indoor leagues

 

Mike Springer’s Vision Lacrosse

Superdome Sport – Waldwick

201-841-5198

www.visionlacrosse.com

Indoor boys league and boys and girls clinics

 

 

 

CENTRAL JERSEY

 

Leading Edge Lacrosse

908-719-1324

www.leadingedgelacrosse.com

Fall boys outdoor league and instructional youth leagues and clinics.

 

T3 Lacrosse

908-766-4664

www.T3lacrosse.com

Girls leagues and clinics

 

Two Knights Lacrosse – Somerset

908-707-9033

www.2knightslax.com

Outdoor fall leagues for youth and high school boys. Winter indoor and outdoor leagues for youth and high school boys and high school girls.

 

The Center Circle – Rahway

732-396-9100

www.thecentercircle.com

Indoor lacrosse boys and high school girls. Also men and women’s leagues.

 

 

 

SHORE AREA

 

Good Sports USA – Wall Township

732-681-8898

www.goodsportsusa.com

Indoor fall and winter youth boys and high school boys and girls leagues.

 

 

 

SOUTH JERSEY

 

International Sports Center

Mt. Laurel – 856-273-2828

Cherry Hill – 856-428-8582

www.intsports.com

Winter indoor youth and high school boys at Cherry Hill. High school girls league in Mt. Laurel.

 

 

All-State Lacrosse – Washington Twp.

856-341-6720

www.allstatelax.com

Youth and high school boys and girls

 

 

 

Pinelands Sports – Southampton

609-859-2677

www.pinelandssports.com

Fall youth and high school boys, youth and high school girls. Boys and girls winter leagues.

 

TriLax

Peddie School – Hightstown

609-371-7000

www.trilax.com

Boys and girls leagues and clinics.

 

 

The list presented is informational in nature and is subject to change. The New Jersey Lacrosse Network does not endorse any individual league or sports facility.