| 6 WEST | The Kansas City Star | Thursday, April 27, 1978 |
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| Kansas City's Tom Dankenbring drives on Knox College goalie...adding to the total as KC romps to 15-2 victory |
| (Photos by Aaron Levin) |
The slickest suits, latest dance steps and flashiest slogans have had their origins on the East Coast and eventually made their way across the country to the Midwest. In most cases, it is only a matter of months before we are slaves to the whims of the Madison Avenue advertising executives.
Yet it took lacrosse, "the fastest game on two feet," more than 100 years to cross the Mississippi River.
And just to prove that "everything is up to date in Kansas City," a small collection of transplanted Easterners and Midwestern converts have introduced the game here.
Last weekend the Kansas City Lacrosse Club took its two-year unbeaten string of seven victories to the Missouri Invitational Tournament in Columbia.
The crowds at the games are usually sparse, with the largest contingent comprising wives and girlfriends. And the game between Kansas City and Washington University Saturday afternoon was no different--there were only a few onlookers as rain swept across the field.
"We can play in anything," one Kansas City player said as he looked toward the puddles and mud on the field. "Forget the rain. It can't stop us."
The 20 players on the soccer-sized field seemed ambivalent about the rain. But the chaotic field maneuvers were caused not by the field conditions, but by the nature of the game itself. The players were equipped with sticks which had nets attached to the end and a hard rubber ball slightly smaller than a baseball. It traveled from one player to another at speeds of 50 mph, and shots at the goalie, who stood in front of a 6-by-6-foot cage, often approached 90 mph.
The game of lacrosse began as a training aid for young warriors in the six Iroquois Indian nations in upper New York state and Ontario. The distance between the two goals varied from 1,000 yards to 50 miles, and the young warriors used the all-wooden sticks to strike down opponents as well as to score goals.
The modern version--slightly more civilized with the introduction of helmets and arm pads--is a popular sport on the East Coast, especially in upper-state New York, Long Island and the Baltimore area. On the college level, Cornell University, Johns Hopkins and Maryland are the traditional national powers.
But now some Big Eight and Big Ten schools sponsor teams on the club level, and the sport is spreading throughout the Midwest. Kansas City is a member of the 10-team Great Plains Lacrosse Association, formed this year.
In the tournament game Saturday, the Kansas City team held a 6-3 lead over Washington University at the half, but midway through the third quarter one of Kansas City's defensemen was hit as he tried to gather up a loose ball near the sideline.
The result was a broken collar bone, and the Washington team quickly started a comeback with a fast-break offense. The Washington midfielders (each team has one goalie, three defensemen, three midfielders and three attackmen) fed their attackmen for five consecutive goals.
"Time out charged to Kansas City," on of the referees said.
"There's six minutes left. We have plenty of time," Kansas City coach Sandy Cochran told his players. "We have to get the ball to the attack and let them work. Get the ground balls and get the ball to the attack."
Kansas City quickly countered with a goal of its own, but in the next two minutes Washington scored twice for a 10-7 victory. It was the first defeat the Kansas City team had suffered since the club was started in the spring of 1977.
"The loss was a combination of things," said Randy Reynolds, an Air Force Lieutenant who plays attack for Kansas City. "I don't think we were mentally ready to play in the rain and the mud and we became complacent when we were up 6-3. I think most of us thought we could stay two or three goals ahead like we have in every other game. But these guys (Washington) have a lot of experienced players and we just let them take the game away from us."
Cochran, 39, the coach, is a Baltimore native who played at Yale. He retired from the Army after 15 years and is now a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Kansas.
"We outshot them by far," he said. "We took 60 shots at the goad and scored only seven goals. We should have had at least 20 goals when you consider that 50 percent of the shots go in for goals. Be we had our chances. We were a man up (a team must play short-handed if there is a penalty) seven times in a row and did not score. You can't expect to win if you play like that."
The team was formed in the winter of 1976 when Dave Copeland, who played goalie for Wooster College (Ohio), began recruiting and slowly found enough former players here to put together a team.
"I didn't want to give up the game so I started looking for players," Copeland said. "In a city this big with so many people coming in from all parts of the country, I thought there would be enough players to put together a team. But the only way we can survive is if every player on the team takes an active interest. We're always looking for new players because we lose players because they move out of town or their work schedule won't let them."
Midfielder Rick Sahakian, who played for Amherst College (Mass.) and has lived here five years, worked with Copeland to find players.
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| ...fun in the mud |
The Kansas City roster includes players from the Naval Academy, Air Force, Virginia Tech, Denver University and Yale.
"You get out of college and there are very few team games left to play, especially ones involving any sort of contact," said Dave Southworth, 24, a teacher who was the captain for Yale in 1976. "We just tried to get it started up and it worked. It just shows you what a loyal and crazy breed lacrosse people are. Most of us will do anything to get the time to play in the games. We played in college for our own personal pleasure because we all knew that there was no chance to be a pro. And that spirit holds true now. We play because we love the game."
Cochran was an assistant professor of ROTC and the assistant lacrosse coach at Notre Dame before he moved to Kansas City.
"I originally went out for the team at Notre Dame," he said. "But the game had changed so much in the last 10 years with the new plastic sticks that I knew I couldn't keep up. The game has become more finesse-oriented since I left college. That's when I got into coaching. I wanted to stay with the sport. There's something about the sport that makes it a lot of fun to be associated with. It's fun to work with the guys who have never played before and it's good to learn and help the guys who already know the game.
"The people on this team are here to have a good time. Nobody tries to steal the show. We always seem to have a good time. I really don't worry about the score or think it's that big of a deal. The important thing is that we are still involved in the sport."
Sunday morning the black-and-red-clad Kansas City team played Knox College (Ill.) for third place in the tournament. The sun was out and the Kansas City team wasted little time regaining the momentum it had lost in the last quarter against Washington University. Kansas City had a 10-0 lead at the half.
"That's it, Kansas City," Cochran said during the intermission. "Show some patience on offense and keep looking for the good shot. Work your plays. We have to get ready for Iowa (University) this Sunday."
Kansas City defeated Knox 15-2. Afterward many Kansas City players stayed to watch Washington defeat Missouri in the championship game.
"That should be us out there, instead," said one Kansas City player. "Be we got to play and that's the main thing."