A Soiled Reputation

The sport of lacrosse lost a big chance for good publicity this weekend when the Buffalo Bandits acted like total tools on camera for 2 hours straight. Their game was against the Colorado Mammoth, and while I'm definitely biased, it's hard to argue with the statistics: Colorado had about 5 minutes total of penalty time, while Buffalo had over 30, and Buffalo lost the game 16-9. Their problems start from the top down: their coach was mic-ed (as in, wore a microphone) and was heard spewing profanity before the censors kicked in at least 4 times. He refused to talk to the announcers and was spitting tobacco juice whenever on camera. The Mammoth played great and didn't retaliate to any of the ridiculous assaults Buffalo made, and the refs responded well by penalizing Buffalo each time.

Lacrosse already suffers from a bad image, thanks to players like those at Duke who continue to propagate the stereo type that all players are privileged thugs, white boys with money, with less decency than a rabid dog. Buffalo didn't help much, making the game look like a series of cheap shots and lucky breaks. Hopefully the Mammoth's classy performance said enough about the other side of lacrosse to keep people from writing it off. I wish lacrosse didn't have this image, and some, like US Lacrosse, insist it's just a stereotype, but in my experience it's largely true. While the demographic is changing, many of the players I've played against, and most who were good at the sport, were terrible human beings I couldn't stand to be around. The only way this'll ever change is if better people start playing, and that means more publicity, more opportunities, and more emphasis on not being a jerk.

I'd include an obligatory picture of Gary Gait here, but blogger sucks from work and doesn't want to upload one, so just imagine it for me, or go here.

And most of you don't care, so I'll leave it at that. The first bottom line is that lacrosse players shouldn't be thugs. The second bottom line is that Drew Wardlow can respond to this post without needing a dictionary to translate what I've said into the undaunting vernacular consistent with common parlance.

In other news, both Christian Kantianist and "Fashion, Trends, I'm a woman" are in danger of being removed from my links section and my google homepage. Why have a blog if you never -- and I mean not-since-February never -- post? But don't delete your blog - just start posting, darn it. I want to know what's going on.