>>CROSSE CULTURE
NFL draftee thanks lacrosse Travis Swanson — the 76th
overall pick in the 2014
NFL draft for the Detroit Lions — credited lacrosse for improving his agility on the football fi eld. Swanson, a center for Arkansas, previously played lacrosse for Kingwood High in Texas as a 6-foot-5, 250-pound youngster.
“He always bragged he led the league in penalties every year,” his father, Todd, told
SportingLifeArkansas.com in August 2013. Now closer to 300 pounds, Swanson started 50 consecutive games at Arkansas, tying a school record. He can play center or guard.
Kubik brought the “Sharknado” concept to Georgetown Prep and Club Blue Lacrosse long before its terrifying TV debut.
with a shark, so she basically took the image from Cy the Cyclone, reversed it, added the shark and now it’s a shark inside a twister.
What happened when you heard about the movie “Sharknado?” As soon as the company, The Asylum, announced that they were making the movie “Sharknado,” 40 people were sending me emails asking if I was going to sue them, and I said no. For at least fi ve years before they even announced it, we’ve been printing it on our stuff. Now we have it everywhere. We have fatheads. Kids have Sharknado ties and put it on prom shirts. It’s kind of a big deal. I’m not blaming [The Asylum]. I don’t think they stole my idea.
How did you apply the Sharknado concept to your teams?
I’m also the varsity wrestling coach, so I started putting it on the wrestling equipment in 2006. Then the next year, we added it to the lacrosse stuff. Some of the kids wear patches on their blazers for an old-school feel, so we also did a fake school seal. We put that on the lacrosse gear last year. The kids love it. It’s funny because if the school pays for anything, we’re not allowed to use it. But anything the kids pay for, they can put whatever they want. The swim team loves it. The diving team uses it. The soccer team uses it. It’s an unoffi cial mascot at this point. I’m trying to make it offi cial, but it’s an uphill fi ght. It’s guerrilla marketing.
— Megan Schneider A Publication of US Lacrosse
“Any time they’re running and changing direction — basketball, lacrosse, obviously we don’t get many soccer players, wrestling — anything that has to do with hand-eye coordination and balance [helps],” Arkansas offensive line coach Sam Pittman said.
NHL HAS EYES ON MONTOUR Brandon Montour, a defenseman for the Waterloo Black Hawks,
the 2014 USHL Player of the Year and one of the top 100 North American prospects for the NHL draft, will play hockey at UMass next year. He also stars in lacrosse. Montour has earned medals with Team Iroquois at the Canadian championships and won a Founders Cup with the Six Nations Rebels. He played for the Six Nations Arrows in the Ontario Junior “A” ranks. Whether he plays lacrosse this summer is up in the air. His schedule is booked with NHL pre-draft and potentially rookie camps.
Hail the ‘holy grail’ How do you determine an athlete’s success? Baseball has its stats-based sabermeterics. Now,
sports industry leaders — including lacrosse’s Paul Rabil — have turned to mental analytics. Rabil, the two-time MLL MVP, told Bloomberg News the “holy grail” for any athlete is being
able to repeat that moment you are in the zone. “Strength and conditioning, fl exibility and balance and nutrition are evolving,” said Rabil, a member of the sports advisory board at MC10, an electronic company aiming to “make humans more superhuman” with measurable biometrics during live competition. “The next logical step is mental preparation.” John Danowski, the three-time NCAA champion coach at Duke who has
his staff take personality tests, also considered the concept, but decided not to implement it. “Sometimes we just want our kids to relax and have fun,” he said. “In some ways it frightens me a little bit.”
BREAK A LEG Drew Van Acker, a former soccer and lacrosse star at Shawnee (N.J.) High, will headline the Broadway Break Thru Summer Intensive program Aug. 11-16 in Newtown, Pa. If the name doesn’t sound familiar,
Van Acker is most commonly known as Remi Delatour on Lifetime’s “Devious Maids” and Jason DiLaurentis on ABC Family’s “Pretty Little Liars.” When he was younger, Van Acker’s passion for acting — inspired by the “Stars Wars” trilogy and Robert De Niro — was put on the backburner because he knew sports were his way to college. He landed a soccer scholarship at Towson.
Whetherman’s lyrical consolation Whetherman Band lead singer Nicholas Williams earned a lacrosse scholarship to Ohio State as a freshman midfi elder in 2003. However, after tearing his ACL three times, he turned to music to vent his feelings.
Now Williams sings worldwide. Whetherman Band recently completed a four-week European tour that included stops in Germany, the Netherlands, France and Spain. Beginning July 18, Williams will tour the U.S. from Florida to California with bandmate Rachel Murray before returning to the studio to record the band’s sixth album, “Seeds for Harvest,” in late September.
July 2014 >> LACROSSE MAGAZINE 19
©ARKANSAS (TS); ©BRITTA LEWIS/WATERLOO BLACK HAWKS (BM); ©JOHN STROHSACKER (PR); ©MATHIEU YOUNG/ABC FAMILY (DVA); ©NICHOLAS WILLIAMS
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