FUEL
COMMENTARY HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED
AFTER WE BEGAN TO HEAD NORTH ON ROUTE 40,
ATWATER SAID, “THE ANNUAL MEETING OF
THE LACROSSE WRITERS OF
AMERICA WILL NOW COME TO ORDER.”
ndi O’Connor introduced me to a new employee at US Lacrosse this morning. Her name is Kristy Visich. She’s going to be our new Midwest regional manager based in Minnesota. Kristy will support more than 67,000 members in the Great Lakes region, including 17,000 in Minnesota alone. Once again, I am reminded that lacrosse has exploded beyond all imaginable bounds from a time when, as a young sports writer, I began covering the game for a Baltimore newspaper. You wouldn’t believe how tiny the lacrosse world was then. Even at the highest level — like the Army-Navy game I covered in 1960 at West Point. Faceoff was at 10 o’clock on a Saturday morning. The USILA title was decided on the plains of Clinton Field, where Army still plays soccer. Hundreds — not thousands — watched from temporary stands. NCAA tournaments didn’t begin until 1971. The late Ed Atwater, of The Baltimore Morning Sun, was the driver of the West Point-bound “press corps” that weekend. Also in the car was Karl Feldner, of the former Baltimore News-American, and myself, then of The Evening Sun. After we began to head north on Route 40 — this was before there was a U.S. Interstate 95 — Atwater said, “The annual meeting of the Lacrosse Writers of America will now come to order.” We were the only ones in the country regularly covering lacrosse. The three of us sat at the scorer’s table that day. Press box? No need for one. A college’s sports information director would phone the AP and maybe a newspaper or two with the results of minor sports. My instructions from sports editor Paul Menton, who had assigned my pal Bill Costello to take telephone dictation from me when the game ended: “Don’t get to gabbing on the long distance phone with Costello.” (As I write this, Costello has just died at age 81.)
I don’t know how many college lacrosse teams there were at that time — and there were almost no women’s teams. It seemed that besides Maryland schools, there were only a handful. A few in upstate New York. A couple on Long Island. Some small colleges in Ohio. Today? The growth can take your breath away. Counting club teams, there are 1.500 college teams, men’s and women’s, in the country. US Lacrosse estimates there are 800,000 players on organized teams at all levels, many of them in Minnesota. So, Kristy Visich, welcome aboard. You are coming to work in lacrosse when the game is incredibly different from when I started. I’m sure you’ll do great things for us in Minnesota. I can’t imagine what the sport will be like when you get to the back end of your career. Enjoy.
— BILL TANTON
btanton@uslacrosse.org 16 US LACROSSE MAGAZINE February 2017
USlacrosse.org
©JOHN STROHSACKER
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