Professional PLL
Final
Jun 2
Car
Den
Good morning. Here’s the latest from around the lacrosse world:
1. Powell Lacrosse’s tribute to Hall of Fame coach and living legend Roy Simmons Jr. continued over the weekend and concludes Wednesday. Syracuse lacrosse luminaries Liam Banks, Ric Beardsley, Pat McCabe, Jim Morrissey and Matt Palumb — as well as adversaries like Dave Pietramala, Dom Starsia and Bill Tierney — have been featured in the series.
Among the highlights:
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Palumb recalled Simmons warming him up in goal the day before he was set to start as a freshman at Army, catching him off guard with a “sidearm slider” and warning him that Army’s first shot would not be as simple as pass-and-catch. The first shot Palumb saw was nearly identical to that which Simmons threw at him. “I swear to God as he wound up, I thought of you,” Palumb said.
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Simmons reached across Syracuse-Johns Hopkins rivalry lines to send Dave Pietramala a handwritten note and a flag he found at antique show that said, “Hopkins Family Reunion 1908,” as well as to give Hopkins great John DeTomasso a framed photo of him guarding Tim Nelson, according to McCabe.
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Former longtime Carthage (N.Y.) high school coach Kirk Ventiquattro retold a Simmons favorite — a joke about the football game between the animals and insects in which a centipede came out of the woodwork to lead a massive second-half comeback. When asked where he was in the first half, the centipede answered, “I was getting my ankles taped.”
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Starsia and Tierney both harkened back to the great games their Virginia and Princeton teams played against Syracuse in the 1990s, respectively. “Coach is old-school, yet way ahead of his time,” said Tierney, now the coach at Denver. “Basic skills, yet freedom for his players. It’s taken some of us 40 years to learn what he knew 40 years ago. He loved lacrosse in such a unique way.”
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McCabe displayed the empathetic letter Simmons sent him in February of his senior year in high school after his father had died. “More than just telling me he wanted me to come to Syracuse was he wanted me to be OK,” said McCabe, who also made the case for Simmons as the greatest college coach of all-time. “If I have one game to win and I want a team to be motivated, prepared and excited, to understand the moment, I would take Roy Simmons Jr. I would put him in the locker room with any team, in any era at any time and I’d know for certain that team would come out flying.”
Simmons, 85, won 290 games and six NCAA championships in 28 years as the head coach at Syracuse. He retired after the 1998 season.
2. US Lacrosse CEO Steve Stenersen wrote about the rush to return to the field and urged tournament operators to follow the national governing body’s return-to-play recommendations while remaining vigilant about limiting the opportunities for a COVID-19 outbreak.
3. Peruvian American lacrosse player Jordan Chavez considered how his grandfather immigrated to the U.S. and paved the way for his father and him to pursue sports — the latest in the Hispanic Heritage Month series produced by US Lacrosse in partnership with Lacrosse the Nations.
WHAT WE’RE READING
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How an emotional New Jersey Nets talk sparked Joe Tsai to start a social justice initiative — and anecdotally, how Yale’s 2018 NCAA lacrosse championship inspired him to go all-in as the NBA team’s sole owner — via the New York Post.
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How an unranked recruit from Austin, Texas, became Syracuse’s first commitment from the class of 2022, via the Daily Orange.
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Why the return to sports should not be decided by money, a JHU Newsletter column by Johns Hopkins women’s lacrosse freshman Maggie Tydings.
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The tributes are pouring in for Australian lacrosse legend Sue Sofarnos, who died unexpectedly Sept. 19, via the Star Weekly.
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If early commitments from the class of 2022 are any indication, Virginia lacrosse has a bright future, writes William Smythe for the Cavalier Daily.
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How the Pietramala twins came to choose North Carolina, as Glenn Graham of the Baltimore Sun reports from interviews with Boys’ Latin coach Brian Farrell and former Johns Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala, their father.
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A 5K race honoring late St. Mary’s (Md.) and North Carolina lacrosse star Kellie Thompson came home to Annapolis, via the Capital Gazette. Thompson died because of childbirth complications in 2012.
WHAT WE’RE WATCHING
West Coast Starz’s Ben Beachem defying physics during America’s Finest Rivalry, an Adrenaline Lacrosse event in Salt Lake City, Utah.
WHAT’S ON TAP
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From the September/October edition of US Lacrosse Magazine, Phil Shore’s story on how Major League Lacrosse’s 20th season was a microcosm of the chaos and complexity of America in 2020.
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Also from the mag, Nelson Rice catches up with U.S. U20 team midfielder Brendan Grimes.