Colorblind Dolphins
Black? White? Jacksonville defenseman E.J. Thurmond doesn’t see it. All he sees are green helmets.
Six of the Dolphins’ 40 players, or 15 percent, are black. The NCAA-wide average is 3.5 percent. Another player is of Cuban descent.
“I don’t see six black kids playing with 30 or so white kids,” Thurmond said. “I just see Jackonsville lacrosse.” LM’s Mark Macyk examines how Florida’s only Division I men’s team became an unlikely lacrosse melting pot at
LaxMagazine.com/BlackJax.
All-Ivy League attacker Iris Williamson scored a career-high 29 goals this season for Penn.
W ELITE
Williamson and members of the Penn team are trying to help. Every Friday in the spring, they work with the Young Quakers program that introduces Philadelphia girls to lacrosse and more. “It’s for us to be mentors for these girls, and for these girls to impact us and open our eyes to what’s happening around our greater Penn community,” Williamson said. When Penn played at Georgetown in March, Williamson was a big hit with members of the Harlem Lacrosse and Leadership program that bussed down to visit Washington, D.C. “They were so excited to meet me and hold my stick and hang out and talk,” Williamson said. “They ended up coming to our family tailgate. That was really sweet that they got to be there for a good win and spend some time with a Division I team that has a black girl on their team.”
laxmagazine.com
Coffy has six siblings, one older sister at Cornell and five younger siblings. Williamson had two older sisters that went to Ivy schools. Williamson showed an immediate love for lacrosse in fifth grade and, though she also played soccer, basketball and ran track, she envisioned early playing college lacrosse. She starred at Germantown Friends School and the club Phantastix and stuck with her Philadelphia roots when she picked Penn. Coffy, who took up lacrosse in sixth grade, didn’t consider college lacrosse an option until her junior year at The Hotchkiss School in Connecticut. She was more interested in basketball and also played soccer. “Freshman and sophomore year, I didn’t even want to play in college,” she said. “Junior and senior year, I made it my mission and here I am.”
“Joey is a great example of someone who did not play club, did not play one sport year-round and just did her thing, was a great student and a multi-sport athlete,” Graap said. “She’s come into her own in college.”
Penn coach Karin Corbett said she wishes there were more black women's lacrosse players. They're hard to find, she said, but diversity in the sport has progressed in the last decade. “There’s room for it,” Williamson said. “And it needs to happen.”
June 2016 » LACROSSE MAGAZINE 43
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