A Hall of a Class
Nov. 10, 2006
They came from different backgrounds. They excelled at different levels. Some stayed involved in the sport. Others served their country in another capacity.
They all left an indelible mark on lacrosse. So much so that Saturday in Hunt Valley, Md., they will receive the sport's highest honor -- induction into the National Hall of Fame, forever taking their place alongside the greatest players, coaches and contributors the sport has ever known.
In the following capsules from the August/September issue of Lacrosse magazine, the honorees share some thoughts on a variety of topics -- from their greatest memories to the direction of the sport today.
Ethel "Feffie" Barnhill -- Ursinus College
Why did you choose to go into coaching? My mother was a teacher and when I was in 11th and 12th grades at Tatnall (Del.) School. The opportunity was there for me to go and work with the P.E. staff during my study halls. I loved assisting the staff and helping the younger students to develop new and better skills and at that stage. I knew that teaching would be my career.
What do you think of the direction that the game is going in? Some aspects of the current trends concern me, particularly the overspecialization of high school players as a result of the development of private club teams. When will someone wake up to the fact that there is something called overexposure? I strongly believe that athletes should play multiple sports and have adequate rest periods during the year.
How has the game changed since the time you first got involved in it? Far more physical contact is now being allowed. The evolution of equipment had led to the development of a game of power and, as a result, we have lost some aspects of the finesse of former players.
What are you up to at the moment now that you've "retired?" I am busier than ever. As part of the International Lacrosse Development Committee, I had the opportunity to travel with Joanne Ambrogi to Johannesburg, South Africa, and introduce lacrosse to a new continent. The development and success of the US Lacrosse Coaches Education Program has been challenging and rewarding. And I have been involved with the National Teams Program, which is where I first became involved with the sport on a national level.
Jeffrey Cook -- Johns Hopkins University
What was it that drew you to the sport? I was the youngest of five boys and, if I wanted to hang out with my brothers, I had to be pretty athletic. I used to follow them around. When you grow up in the Baltimore area, you're kind of inculcated at a young age.
What led to becoming an attackman? I certainly wasn't the fastest guy in the world, so that ruled out some of the other positions. One of the good things about lacrosse is that you can still be very effective without being a speed demon. I tried to get faster, but I was never going to run the 40-yard dash in anything under five seconds.
Is there a highlight for you in your lacrosse career? I'd have to say it was my first year at Hopkins when we watched the older guys play. There were so many players that I was on the same field with, guys like Mark Greenberg and Michael Federico. It was a thrill to be up there playing against a team like Maryland. Back then, the games weren't boring. The ball was always moving up and down the field.
What are you up to now? I'm a lawyer. I represent the police in brutality cases. I also represent Baltimore County in constitutional cases. I love getting into court. You're lucky if you get to try two cases a year these days.
Mike Coughlin -- United States Naval Academy
What were some of the highlights playing at Navy when you were there? Well, we were playing all of the big teams, and we had just a superbly coached team during the 1960s. We were extraordinarily well prepared. They scouted the other teams and we even had films of some of the other teams. When we went into a game, we played almost exclusively man-to-man and from a defensive standpoint.
We really knew what moves our opponents had ahead of the game. I think the Navy teams of that era had some wonderful players and we also had depth. We had a lot of depth everywhere on the field, but especially in the midfield. We purposely tried to run the other teams as hard as we could. We relied heavily on keeping the ball in action and running the midfields like crazy.
What influence did your lacrosse career have on your service in the Navy, as well as your business career? We worked awfully hard in college. I hadn't played lacrosse before getting to the academy, so my freshman year I worked enormously hard, because I'm not that much of a natural athlete. So I guess one of the lessons is hard work. That'll get you through. You develop an enormously competitive spirit, because you're competing everyday in practice to hold your position and, as a team, we didn't want to be the team that got knocked off. Everybody, of course, was gunning for us. It gave me an enormous sense of confidence, as well as teamwork and camaraderie. And that was the work ethic you needed in a Navy career as well as in business.
Danielle Gallagher -- College of William and Mary
Did you know right away that lacrosse was your sport? No. I started playing boys' lacrosse in sixth grade, and I grew up in a pretty big lacrosse town. I always played three sports in high school and I always liked basketball, but I realized I was never going to play basketball in college because I was 5'5" -- you're not going to make it too far. So lacrosse kind of took off from there, and then basically from college on I definitely found a true love for lacrosse.
Are you able to teach younger players a thing or two? Yeah, definitely. They have to get to a comfort level on the field. I remember a situation with Lauren Aumiller in the 2005 World Cup. I think she scored a goal, but basically got knocked down after the goal. I said, "Look, you're in the World Cup; you've got to get up!" And she was all pumped. So that's fun, to sort of have that initiation with the younger kids. Their skills are all there, but sometimes it's just a strategic thing.
Of all the World Cups you've played in, is there one that stands out in your mind? I'd say the most significant World Cup was the 2001 championship. The whole experience was great -- the team, the chemistry. On the field, we couldn't have played more as a team. And we definitely gelled off the field as well. There were eight or nine of us who played together in the 1997 World Cup, so that definitely helped.
What do you see for the future of the US Lacrosse Women's Division National Teams Program? It's definitely got to take another step up, especially after the last World Cup. There's talent, but it's a matter of getting everyone on the same page. It's tough, because the team was picked so late. We're trying to set everything up with the National Teams Committee so we don't run into that same situation.
Josie Harper -- West Chester University
How did you get into lacrosse? I was a high school coach and teacher, but I had decided to give it up, actually. But I got into club coaching and U.S. coaching, so it was kind of a back door. I gave up high school lacrosse coaching. So I was taking the spring off, and then I got caught up in coaching the Philadelphia club, and Jackie Pitts, who was the U.S. national coach at the time, asked me if I'd be interested in coaching the development program and being her assistant.
How did you get hooked up at Dartmouth? A couple of the players playing for the U.S. at that time -- one was Ellen Remsen, who had graduated, and the other was Sandy Bryan, who was a sophomore at Dartmouth -- told me that the job became available at Dartmouth and asked if I'd be willing to look at it. I went up on a Tuesday, spent Wednesday there and Thursday took off on an eight-week tour of Australia with the U.S. I took the job when I was in Melbourne. I did the old telegram thing.
What was the biggest challenge of your coaching career, or rather what have you taken away with you from your coaching experience? That no two kids are the same. They need to be motivated in different ways. If I look back, I learned that sometimes kids can't be expected to monitor their own conditioning and focus on the game. Kids will tell you I was a coaches' coach. I understood them and I was very in touch with them. I'm not sure I pushed them as hard as I should have. That's what I learned about myself. You just wonder, if you had gone one step further, would you have more success?
Gloria Heath -- Smith College
What was your most memorable experience at Smith College? I became an airplane pilot, and I started the Smith College flying club, where we owned an airplane so that we could learn to fly at a much reduced cost. Smith did very well with lacrosse, but my absolute passionate interest was flying.
How did you end up in the Air Force in World War II? Everyone in the United States did something for the war effort in those days. It was a total response. Homemakers knitted bundles for Britain. Everyone put up with sugar rationing and gasoline rationing. It was a total response of the United States populace, with everyone doing everything they could for the war effort. In my case, my brother, who was my hero, got involved in the Civilian Pilot Training Program, and he asked his instructor to take me up. So I flew and I was entranced. And I started this whole program at Smith. Once I had 35 training hours, I could join the Women Airforce Service Pilots program. We flew planes from factory to field. We were test pilots and we flew tow targets for fighter planes using live ammunition.
How did you get back into lacrosse after the war? I wanted to contribute something to lacrosse. I became president of the USWLA and I wanted to move it forward. As president, I tried to make sure we had a whole well of succeeding students into the lacrosse regime. So I got Bacharach Rasin (former retailer) to give loan kits to schools that were starting, and that infused a number of them to take up lacrosse that wouldn't have without that innovation.
Dan Mackesey -- Cornell University
How did you come to pick Cornell? I grew up in Ithaca, and my father worked in the administration at Cornell when I was in high school. I chose to apply to schools that had a big library and that I thought could be national champions in soccer and lacrosse. That got me down to Brown, Penn and Cornell. I applied and got accepted to Brown, but I deferred for a year. Then I had free tuition at Cornell because of the faculty status of my father, and I was an exchange student for a year. I just changed my mind while I was gone. Cornell didn't really recruit me.
How did you end up playing in goal? I started playing lacrosse when I was a sophomore in high school, and goal was the one position where I thought I could make the team. Then the next year, I switched into goal in soccer, and that was just my niche as an athlete.
What was your greatest accomplishment at Cornell? Well, it's probably not what other people would say, because I let in the most goals. But I'm particularly proud about the championship game in 1976. We played Maryland and were down 7-2 at the half. We came back and won in overtime, 16-13. I had what was at the time an NCAA championship record number of saves. You have to understand that there were games when our team had more goals than the other team had shots, so it was nice to be able to contribute. And I never lost a lacrosse game when I started during my junior and senior years. But to claim credit for that would be over the top, because I played with such great players.
Patrick McCabe -- Syracuse University
What did it mean to you to be selected for the 2006 U.S. men's team? It's different for me. I've been around longer than most of these guys. In the earlier part of my career, there wasn't no MLL, just club, and the pinnacle of that was to be able to make the U.S. team and to compete for world championships.
I may have a different appreciation for this than some guys do. Once they get into a situation and get on the field and put the uniform on -- and they realize that that they're actually out there and what's at stake and the level of competition -- I think that may change for some guys. One of the things that really saddens me was that in 2002, guys had to make a choice.
Why are there fewer takeaways in the international game? Technology has changed the game. It's nearly impossible to take the ball away from a guy now -- it's not worth the risk. You used to run risk-reward. Now, it's not even worth the risk half the time. To take the ball from a guy, particularly in international with sticks the way they are, no one's going to lose the ball. In this setting, the only way to lose the ball will be for them to throw it away.
John Phillips -- Cornell University
What first got you involved in lacrosse? I injured my knee playing high school football, so by the time I was enrolled at Navy I had missed two years of baseball. I decided to try lacrosse, and it turned out to be a positive experience. Our Plebe (freshman) team went undefeated, and we had a very good coach in Willis Bilderbach.
How important do you think club lacrosse is to the sport overall? Until a few years ago, post-collegiate club lacrosse was the only place for players to continue to play after graduation. Now, with the MLL and NLL, the elite players have other options. But, the USCLA and the ALL still provide opportunities for many college players to keep playing. Also, club lacrosse spreads faster than high school lacrosse, and it is easier to get it started in new areas. This often leads to the subsequent development of high school and youth teams.
How has the game changed since you first started? It has multiplied exponentially. The Lacrosse Foundation started with two employees. Now the staff and the money involved are at a different order of magnitude. The college clubs and women's lacrosse have been two areas of dynamic growth. Since it became the national governing body for lacrosse in the United States, US Lacrosse's role in international lacrosse has expanded. On the women's side Title IX has made equal treatment for men and women the law of the land. This facilitated tremendous growth on the women's side. Progress seems to be accelerating.
Will lacrosse become an Olympic sport anytime soon? Using the current growth trends of the ILF and IFWLA as guidelines, lacrosse should qualify with respect to the current Olympic guidelines eventually. Also the planned merger of these two groups may help. But, unfortunately, the people who run the Olympic Games do not seem to be positively disposed toward new team sports. They want to eliminate Olympic baseball and softball. This could be a problem for lacrosse as well.
Sandy (Bryan) Weatherall -- Dartmouth College
Was there someone who was influential in your development in the sport? I had great coaches along the way. In high school it was Ellen Preston. In college, I was lucky enough to have, first, Aggie Kurtz, who also played on the U.S. team, and then Josie Harper, who is being inducted as well. She was huge for Dartmouth and for me. I felt so honored when I heard I was being inducted along with her.
Also I went to the Merestead lacrosse camps and met some of the English coaches there. One was Jean Martindale and another was Celia Brackenridge, and I just thought they were great. Eventually I ended up playing for the U.S. team and played against Jean and Celia in the World Cup in 1982, and that was pretty neat because I really looked up to them and then I got to play against them.
What did it mean to you to play on the U.S. team and represent your country? When I eventually made the team, I got my letter and ran all the way across the campus, leaping and yelling.
What has been your most memorable lacrosse experience over the years? One of the highlights would be when we played in Nottingham, England for the 1982 World Cup and we were down 6-1 and all the little English schoolgirls were cheering for England. We beat them in overtime, 10-7, and it was funny because the schoolgirls were fair-weather fans because, when we started to come back, they started chanting "U.S.A., U.S.A."
Note: Tickets for the 2006 National Lacrosse Hall of Fame Induction Celebration are still available. Click here for more information. Click here for bios of the 2006 inductees.
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