Getting to LaX

This last Saturday I attended what appeared to be the culminating event of CougNation Fantasy Camp. The Coug faithful, dressed in Western Viking Blue, donned pads and helmets and spent a couple of hours chasing men in purple Husky jerseys around a football field, beating them up with metal sticks.

There were refs on the field, but they were worse than any Pac 10 refs I've ever seen. Ignoramuses on the sidelines (self included) tried yelling out helpful observations, like, "Number Six just tripped a guy!" and "Over the back! Shooting two?" and "Sir! Assault with a deadly weapon on the twenty yard line!" and "Hey! That man just punched his opponent and left him for dead!" And about twenty minutes into the game, we discovered that they DID have yellow flags in their pockets. But despite all our hints, they did not USE the flags OR their whistles (if they had them) to stop the violence.

By this time, of course you have realized that I was attending neither a Husky Slam Fest nor a crime in progress, but a collegiate lacrosse game. And I was clearly an alien in a strange land. Nothing looked right. Lacrosse has always seemed like a finesse game to me--little ball, little nets, tossing and catching, keep away kind of thing. That whole finesse idea went right out the window during the first sixty seconds of the game. The ref dropped the ball on the ground and as soon as a player scooped it up, all other players began whacking him furiously about the legs and torso as if he had stolen the ball rather than merely acquiring possession.

Turns out the Iroquois were not kidding when they invented the game and called it "Little Brother of War." And the coaches are not kidding when they say that even seven year olds playing the game need more pads than a football player--arm pads! Wrist pads! Shoulder pads! Chest pads! Shoulder BLADE pads! Back pads! Finger pads! Plus a full face helmet, mouth guard, and chin guard. After all, in football you only get to use your bare hands. In lacrosse, they give you a stick. And to the amazement of the uneducated spectators at Saturday's match, they REALLY DO tell you to whack away!

Fortunately Alex's friend arrived about half time with his Dad in tow, and the Dad explained a few things to me. "What I love about this game," he said, "is that the coaches absolutely respect the origins of the game. This is our heritage, our oldest game, and disrespect is absolutely not tolerated, in any form. I really love that cheap hits are just not tolerated, just not allowed. If they refs see a cheap hit, that's an automatic penalty, and on the second one, you get tossed."

I deeply appreciated his sorting that out, although I was not then or ever able to distinguish a cheap hit from all the other hits (To the chest! To the legs! Up and over the shoulders! One earth shaking smash flattened the ball carrier and sent the ball out of bounds. The ball was then awarded to the aggressor and play continued.) One thing I did sort out: the object for spectators is to keep an eye on the ball, as the players are so busy whaling away at each other that the little thing often falls out of the "crosse" and gets "loste." At that moment, all in-the-know spectators cry out, as a man, "ball down!" and the players stop hitting each other long enough to find the ball, scoop it up, and carry on with the carnage.

Alex fell in love with this game at the age of six when he saw a pair of toy lacrosse sticks in JoAnn Fabric and Crafts (hmmm...another black eye for crafts). He saw those sticks and he just HAD to have them. He worked six weeks for them. He has been determined to play the game ever since. And he loves it. Well, what boy wouldn't? Here are your pads. Here's your helmet. Here's your stick. Now go to it, buddy!

But Saturday's bloodbath gave me pause. Out here on the West Coast, lacrosse is our own cherished blend of native origin and East Coast Prep, irresistibly snooty yet earthy, the ultimate Volvo mom club sport. That image lured me in. But it didn't convince me to stay.

I only came to peace with lacrosse by recalling a game I know much better. Sometime late Saturday night, I realized that the maiming of the ball carrier would seem perfectly legal in a game of American football. Beat him up? Try to strip the ball? Shove him down? Step on his face? Kick him out of bounds? All perfectly legal. This is just football without the psychotic football dads. Oh, and everybody has to run around a lot more. And did I mention that if you have to be on defense, they try to soften the blow by giving you a stick roughly the length of a transom pole? If play gets held up on the other end of the field, you can amuse yourself by fiddling around with the angle on the stadium lights (if so equipped).

All fine now. Play on. Except I may try to steer Timmy toward swimming...