Whichever brilliant wordsmith coined the adage “any publicity is good publicity” has a lot to answer for.
What does one say to a particular sect of collegiate athletes whose chosen game, while fighting to stay afloat in mainstream sports in America, has been rocked by two of the worst scandals of the last decade?
College lacrosse was thrust into the national spotlight four years ago when a number of Duke men’s lacrosse players were falsely accused of rape, and the situation digressed into a chaotic slop of lawsuits, accusations and hateful turns of phrase.
The resolutions weren’t all that relevant; I hardly know anything about what finally happened other than that the players were cleared, but the moniker “Duke lacrosse” is forever tarnished.
The more recent development is even more heart-wrenching. A men’s lacrosse player at Virginia is accused of killing a player on the women’s team with whom he had a tumultuous past. In allegedly killing Yeardley Love, George Huguely has also garnered more negative attention for a sport that is searching for just the opposite.
“They’re both really bad, just terrible things to have reflect on the sport,” said Victor Poon, one of the captains of the UCLA men’s lacrosse team. “The Duke scandal got a lot of visibility, and whatever the case is, it shows a bad side of college lacrosse. The Virginia one, I don’t even know what to think about it, it’s so terrible.”
There are plenty of team captains on our Westwood campus, but few have the concerns that Poon does.
You think Reggie Carter worries about the Ben Roethlisberger scandal? Does Michael Roll bear the burden of Dwyane Wade’s nasty divorce? When every story involving your sport that hits ESPN is a negative one, it can’t be easy to keep plugging away at it. That’s awfully sad news for a sport that, in the last decade or so, seems to have taken off (and not just because the abbreviation for lacrosse is “LAX”).
Few team sports date back as far, and few games were as deeply rooted in spiritual and community relations. Lacrosse originated as an activity of Native American tribes in the United States and Canada, who participated as a means for social connection, religious ritual and wartime preparation.
The irony of today is a sad one: These recent scandals represent distinct disruptions of the social ethos. Wartime preparation? After observing the public scrutiny that befell the lacrosse community in recent years, I’d have to think that that’s still an important element of the game.
Then again, maybe lacrosse players are well-equipped to handle the frenzy.
“You have to be able to outrun people and take hits,” Poon said in describing the ideal lacrathlete (I just made that up). “You have to have good hand-eye coordination in addition to being strong and tough.”
That certainly sounds like an individual that won’t easily be turned off from a sport just from negative publicity. Especially because these are guys that have chosen to forgo the more popular athletic arcs of American children.
Poon himself fell in love with the blend of physicality, skill and teamwork that the sport involves.
“As it has gotten more popular and people know more about it, then people you might expect to play football or basketball or a more visible sport have started to play lacrosse,” he said. “When kids start playing, they generally like it. They score their first goal and they’re hooked a lot of the time.”
In seeing where lacrosse fits in today’s sports spectrum, its origins suddenly seem all the more appropriate. A culture that has faced subjugation and hate has borne a game that absolutely merits inclusion in mainstream sports, yet has been forced to deal with so much negative stigma.
We can only hope the positive trends that athletes like Poon point to will continue to manifest themselves. Lacrosse has had a rough few years, and it definitely deserves better.
It may not be the Trail of Tears, but the path to significance has certainly been a sad one.
If you ever feel the urge to swing a stick at someone’s bare shins, e-mail Eshoff at reshoff@media.ucla.edu.