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FROM THE EDITOR


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Locker Room Revelations


I started this column as a tirade about how I’m done with locker rooms, how what was once considered a sports writer’s most coveted territory has devolved into the lowest form of male exhibitionism. I reached this ledge at a local gym where too many middle- aged men dawdle naked as jaybirds while fiddling with their smart phones. (Really, though. Enough with the dudeity.) But then I thought about all the candid moments I’ve shared in locker rooms with lacrosse legends since joining Lacrosse Magazine in 2005. Maybe athletes are more comfortable revealing things about themselves when they are, well, revealed.


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 Graphic Design Manager Heather Wallace


Staff Writers Lucia Clark, Jac Coyne, Lane Errington, 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 May 2012>>


Team USA Working for the flagship publication of US Lacrosse, you get unprecedented access to the U.S. national teams. In 2006, I was there when Doug Shanahan and Casey Powell became fathers and when then-Duke interim coach Kevin Cassese got the news that John Danowski had been hired to save the program from its nadir. You could cut the tension with a knife as Pat McCabe prayed, Matt Striebel played cards, Ryan Curtis huddled inside his headphones, Blake Miller kissed the American flag and Nicky Polanco paced shirtless in the hall before the gold medal game. (The U.S. lost to host Canada for the first time in 28 years.)


In 2010, I got goose bumps listening to Mike Pressler


Kaley retired a year later and was inducted into the National Hall of Fame.


John Grant


Candid moments shared with lacrosse royalty


address players before the championship rematch in Manchester and watching the sunlight glisten off Brian Dougherty’s moist, bald head as he rocked back and forth in his chair before the last game of his career — a victory.


Jack Kaley It’s hard to have meaningful conversations in the glaze of victory or the self-pity of defeat. But NYIT coach Jack Kaley was different. After Kaley won his fourth NCAA title at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough in 2008 and players left to be with families, we sat in the locker room together for 40 minutes. He drew diagrams of swarming ground ball patterns, told me about a childhood accident that left him nearly blind in one eye and extolled the virtues of Division II lacrosse. I marveled at the physique of a 70-year-old man who never drank soda and was allergic to alcohol. I asked Kaley when he might retire. “When it’s no longer fun, I guess,” he said.


Maybe athletes are more comfortable revealing things about themselves when they are, well, revealed.


The best player in pro lacrosse sat disillusioned with his shirt off and a beer in his hand and talked about karma. “We fell short and we let the city down,” John Grant Jr. said after his Rochester Rattlers lost at home 15-14 to the Los Angeles Riptide in the 2007 MLL semifinals.


It was not so much what Grant said as where he said it — in a mobile trailer that had been converted into a locker room. You always hear about the humble heydays of pro sports that have grown into billion-dollar industries. As I took in Grant’s comments and our surroundings, I couldn’t help but appreciate them.


Dom Starsia Virginia coach Dom Starsia wore the look of a man who was beaten not just by another team, but also by life’s uncalculated hardships. It had only been 27 days since the Yeardley Love murder. A media circus enveloped the team.


Some wondered if Starsia’s job was in jeopardy. Others wondered if he wanted to come back. When the throng of reporters left the locker room after the Cavaliers’ 14-13 loss to Duke in the 2010 NCAA semifinals, I approached Starsia but got cut off by NCAA officials. They closed the door behind him, but not before he lifted his gaze and almost managed a smile. “Just call me,” he said. It was vintage Starsia — salt of the earth. LM


— Matt DaSilva mdasilva@uslacrosse.org A Publication of US Lacrosse


©JOHN STROHSACKER


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