WILLS’ LAST RIDE?


The one-time phenom, America’s goalie since 2003, hopes the next generation


ushers lacrosse into the Olympics BY MEGAN SCHNEIDER


At age 14, Devon Wills could clear the ball 50 yards up the field on the run with her non-dominant left hand. By high school, she cruised through workouts required of the U.S. and Canadian women’s national teams. But it wasn’t until she met Danielle Gallagher and Susan Stuart that Wills, a Denver native who grew up dreaming of playing Olympic ice hockey, realized lacrosse would be her life’s calling. LaxWorld, then a little-known store in a state where lacrosse was only beginning to buzz, launched a youth league in 1998. Wills divided her time between the field and the crease, but began to favor the goalie position when she encountered Gallagher, a four-time U.S. World Cup attacker who lived nearby in Steamboat Springs, and Stuart, the Colorado College coach who played goalie for both the U.S. and Canadian national teams. Gallagher and Stuart trained together. Young Wills soon joined them. “They looked at me as somebody who loved the game as much as they did,” Wills said. “They were happy to see that somebody in Colorado was also as inspired and wanted the same things that they did. I


FUEL THE JOURNEY Help Team USA in its pursuit of


a gold medal at uslacrosse.org/ donate.


USlaxmagazine.com May/June 2017 US LACROSSE MAGAZINE 35


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