Aug. 18, 2008

by Matt DaSilva, Lacrosse Magazine Online Staff

What if Michael Phelps played lacrosse? He did once, as you may have heard by now.

If you think Phelps Phever is bad in your neck of the woods, try Baltimore, which the 14-time U.S. Olympic gold medalist swimmer calls home. You can't pick up a Baltimore Sun without getting chlorine in your eyes.

Then again, you can't call Baltimore home without having some form of lacrosse in your blood, either. Photos on NBC have shown Phelps wearing a Kelly Post lacrosse jersey. Kelly Post, which proclaims on its Web site to be the nation's oldest youth lacrosse program, is near Rodgers Forge, the neighborhood in which Phelps was raised.

"Yes, Michael Phelps played for Kelly Post lacrosse," program chairman Tim McLaughlin confirmed Monday, as if by rote, joking, "We're the youth lacrosse association that produces the world's best swimmers."

Added McLaughlin: "Apparently, he liked lacrosse. He may have even been a goalie."

Phelps, a 23-year-old phenom and the object of a worldwide man-crush after winning eight gold medals over the last nine days at the Summer Olympics in Beijing, quit lacrosse (and baseball) when he was 12 to focus on swimming.

"I really thought Michael was going to play lacrosse," Debbie Phelps, his mother, told the Sydney Morning Herald last week. "He carried a lacrosse stick around all the time, but the thing about Michael playing lacrosse, he wanted to play the whole field. So the pool was a much better, a much wiser choice."

Play the whole field, huh? Perhaps the next youth lacrosse coach who wants to specialize 11- and 12-year-olds like robots will learn from one that got away.

Six Degrees of Zack Greer

Note: Zack Greer, a former Duke attackman and the NCAA's all-time leading goal scorer in Division I, has transferred to Bryant University to reunite with head coach Mike Pressler in his fifth year of eligibility. Inside Lacrosse broke the story last week, with an official announcement from the school expected Tuesday.

My take: It became clear that Greer was looking for a change of pace in the spring, when the native Canadian told LMO that he had contacted other schools that offered ice hockey as well as lacrosse. At Bryant, a transition program that will play a Division I schedule in 2009 but will not be eligible for NCAA playoffs until 2012, Greer has the opportunity not only to put his record for career goals (206) further out of reach, but also to cement his legacy without Matt Danowski. The Bulldogs will have legitimate Division I competition, and Greer will most certainly draw the defensive focus. Can Robin succeed without Batman? We'll see.

Note: Speaking of Bryant, Pressler's addition of Pete Toner to his staff might not garner Greer-like hoopla, but it certainly resonated back home in Kennebunk, Maine. Toner, who spent the last two seasons as the head coach at Division III Wheaton College, became the third Kennebunk native hired by Division I men's lacrosse programs this summer.

My take: Really? Maine? Well, it helps that Nick Myers, who was promoted to head coach at Ohio State after Joe Breschi departed for North Carolina, and Toner played and earned degrees at Springfield College, a breeding ground of quality coaches and innovator in the field of physiology. Breschi hired Myers' brother Pat, a 2003 Ohio State graduate and Bucknell assistant the last three years, to join him in Chapel Hill. Their stepfather, Charlie Burch, is the head coach at Kennebunk High School.

Note: Speaking of Myers, Ohio State announced earlier this month that the Buckeyes will add transfers Peter Coluccini (Syracuse), Justin Hayes (Herkimer Community College) and Andrew Reinhardt (CCBC-Essex) to the roster for 2008-09.

My take: The Myers era has unsurprisingly started with a few comings and goings. Peet Poillon, a 2008 honorable mention All-American, was reportedly seeking to transfer from Ohio State to UMBC, a move that has yet to be announced by either university. But this crop of additions helps absorb that loss.

Coluccini had an up-and-down career at Syracuse, starting every game as a goalie in 2006, when the Orange went to the final four, and 2007, when the Orange failed to make the NCAA playoffs. He has to be considered a leading candidate to replace Stefan Schroder between the pipes.

Hayes, an attackman, led the NJCAA in scoring with 138 points in 2008.

Reinhardt, a midfielder, was a first-team junior college All-American with 49 goals and 48 assists.

Note: Speaking of Ohio State, future conference foe Fairfield of the ECAC has finalized its list of candidates for the head men's lacrosse coaching position vacated by Ted Spencer, now the school's associate athletic director. Among them is Dartmouth assistant Andy Towers, a former top assistant at Fairfield who also spent a season as a head coach at Hartford. "Certainly the Fairfield job is one I couldn't be more interested in," Towers said, "being a Connecticut native, having coached there and having worked with Ted Spencer."

My take: Certainly, Towers' 0-14, one-and-done campaign with Hartford in 2004 raises eyebrows, but as a Fairfield County native with a longstanding reputation for recruiting and execution, he deserves another shot and should be considered a frontrunner. The other finalists, according to Christian Swezey of Inside Lacrosse, include Georgetown assistant Matt Rienzo, Maryland assistant and former Marist head coach Andrew Copeland and Western New England College head coach John Klepacki.

Note: Speaking of Maryland, Terps attackman Ryan Young will miss the first two games of the 2009 season after a DWI arrest on Long Island earlier this month.

My take: That's standard operating procedure in College Park, suspending a player for 10 percent of his or her schedule for a DUI or DWI arrest, as the university did Travis Reed midway through the 2008 season. Funny, though, that Notre Dame's Will Yeatman had to miss spring football and the whole 2008 lacrosse season for a similar offense. Click here to see how he has responded. Also of note: Phelps was arrested for a DWI in 2004. Nobody's perfect.

Note: Speaking of College Park, that's where Quinn Carney, subject of the September cover of Lacrosse Magazine, available to US Lacrosse members has returned as an assistant women's lacrosse coach under Cathy Reese. In the article, Carney talks about her last hurrah as a player vying for her third U.S. World Cup team in 2009, as well as hopes to restore the Terps' dominance in Division I. Also in the article, Jen Adams, now the head coach at Loyola, says of Carney: "I believe that she's a better player than me."

My take: Heady words from the Aussie. Adams is the all-time leading scorer in Division I history and one of just two foreign-born players still holding NCAA career scoring records. The other? Well, Zack Greer, of course.