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FROM THE EDITOR
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The Best Years of Your Life
Take advantage of everything high school has to offer
very popular with my peers — I loved high school.
I
Everything about it. I loved the classroom environment, because I always had teachers who challenged me to perform outside my comfort zone, but who also let me inject humor and irreverence into the learning process. We laughed at those who thought they were cool by sloughing off in class, but also at the overachievers who took themselves a little too seriously.
PUBLICATION
Managing Director of Communications Bill Rubacky Director of Communications Brian Logue Editor Matt DaSilva ( @mdasilva15) Assistant Editors Clare Lochary (
, Corey McLaughlin ( ,
Matt Forman ( Art Director Gabriella Ferraro O’Brien
Staff Writers Lucia Clark, Jac Coyne, Emily Gibson Paul Krome, Charlie Obermayer, Paul Ohanian Chris Snyder
Advertising Sales Manager Brad Tarr Chief Photographer Kevin P. Tucker Staff Photographer John Strohsacker
LaxMagazine.com Editor Corey McLaughlin
LaxMagazine.com Asst. Editor Jac Coyne (
6 LACROSSE MAGAZINE March 2012 >>
(One of my most satisfying experiences was tutoring my best friend in math so he could pass his final exam on the promise from Mr. Zumbo that we would all go to a New York Yankees game together if he did so. Watching Bernie Williams go yard for a walk-off home run against the Texas Rangers with Pete and “Zum” — also Sachem’s JV baseball coach at the time — still resonates dearly with me today.) I loved extracurricular activities. Yes, that included athletics, but everything had its place. I put down my lacrosse stick after the spring to earn a paycheck doing manual labor in the summer. (What better training is there than loading freight on and off trucks and boats for eight hours a day or erecting tents that span
’ll admit something that never made me
whole backyards?) I played varsity volleyball (get your laughs in now) in the fall and rec hoops in the winter before getting back into lacrosse the following spring. All the while, I was a saxophonist in my school’s symphonic and jazz ensembles, sometimes racing to practice or a game after bringing my gear with me to rehearsal. Our starting defense once consisted of two of us who got some good- natured ribbing for missing a Saturday practice to participate in a New York state band competition and another of us who finished ranked academically in the top 20 of our class. I loved the social
experiment that transpired that first day of school
I’ll take the band nerd hustling from rehearsal to make the opening faceoff over the lax rat who weaseled out of eighth period any day of the week and twice on Saturday.
when you walked into the cafeteria for lunch and did not know where or with whom you would sit. I loved the pressure of exams, papers and presentations almost as much as I loved the pressure of taking on an opponent’s top ball handler out of a timeout in the last minute of a lacrosse game. I loved being a peer mediator, intervening in real problems between members of our school community before they escalated. I loved the exhausted feeling after lacrosse, coming home to a cold dinner, heating it up and woofing it down for a second wind of homework. It’s laughable when people say the significance of high school lacrosse has dwindled with the advent of club and tournament lacrosse. That might be so in the eyes of college coaches who do most of their recruiting during the summer and to the ill-advised players who commit to colleges before they’ve even taken calculus. But if I were a college coach, I would make sure I saw how a kid interacted with his peers, how he played amongst and in front of them on the high school stage. I’ll take the band nerd hustling from rehearsal to make the opening faceoff over the lax rat who weaseled out of eighth period any day of the week and twice on Saturday. LM
—Matt DaSilva
mdasilva@uslacrosse.org A Publication of US Lacrosse
©JOHN STROHSACKER
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