Profile Post

                “The Roots of The Game: A Syracuse Lacrosse Memoir” is pretty much what it sounds like. It is a blog written by Frederick Douglass Opie, a former member of the Syracuse men’s lacrosse team in the early 80s. Frederick (I’m going to call him Freddy for short- Freddy, if you’re reading this and would prefer to be called something else, let me know) writes about memories of his participation in lacrosse and comments on the state of lacrosse “back in the day” as well as what the lacrosse is like nowadays.  He also occasionally interviews or uploads guest posts from his former lacrosse buddies.

                If you read my blogs (mom and those robot spam advertisers, I’m talking to you guys) and several of my favorite blogs listed in my blogroll over  here à you’ll notice that most of us blog in the moment, or soon after things occur. Freddy is awesome because he blogs about the past, present, and future. Yes, you may be thinking to yourself, anyone can do that. But Freddy makes me feel like I’m living in the story with him as he tells it. The real life photos of Freddy’s teams definitely add to the “memoir” feel.

                Although I definitely enjoy reading this blog, I think that judging by the comments Freddy receives, most of his readers are former men’s lacrosse players, mostly from around the time that he played lacrosse. If you can’t tell already, my focus is mostly on modern day women’s lacrosse, so although our topics are both about lacrosse, the subject matter is actually different. I would imagine that our audiences, provided that some person out there in the black hole of the internet actually reads my blog, would be more skewed by gender and age as a result. My blog? I would expect the audience to mostly be lacrosse-playing women in their teens and early twenties. And robospammers.

                Freddy discusses his life playing lacrosse growing up and in college, his personal experiences with pro lacrosse, educating his children about lacrosse, and the direction that he thinks lacrosse is currently taking. He has little sporadic miniseries of blogs on certain topics as well. Most of my favorite posts, however, are the ones where Freddy looks back on the good ol’ days where he played lacrosse in high school, college, and professionally.  Mostly because there are some sweet pictures. In one of my favorite posts, Freddy recalls a deli he and his summer lacrosse league buddies would visit after practice:

“I can still taste and smell one of their hot corn muffins wrapped in that white deli paper. I would order one sliced in half and served with butter. The heat would melt the butter making the corn muffin the perfect consistency.”

                Freddy is also a food blogger, so he oftentimes will use vivid descriptions of food to spice up old memories of lacrosse. Pretty cool right? Everyone loves food! Or at least I do….

                In general, I found that Freddy’s tone is warm and open. Like an old friend sharing stories about lacrosse. He adds pictures or videos to almost every post to keep things interesting as well. Definitely a blog worth checking out, if you’re at all interested in the history of lacrosse.

Social Bookmarking and finding a "soulmate"

I've worked as an intern for a wedding planner, and as if brides and their mothers weren’t crazy enough, someone went and created Pinterest, making it easy for brides to see millions of wedding ideas and decide they want all of them in their own wedding. Within their budget, of course..

As I was pinning everything I could find, I began looking for another user with similar interests- my social bookmarking “soulmate” if you will.

I found plenty of people with similar interests in food, travel, and my favorite sports teams, but I was searching for someone who mainly shared my interest in lacrosse, and possibly a few similar interests in these other Pinterest categories. I found a woman named Debbie who had pinned a couple of lacrosse-related things that I had re-pinned.

When I looked at her pins, I realized that we mostly had lacrosse and food (are you surprised?) in common.  So maybe we’re not exactly social bookmarking soulmates, but here interests were the closest to mine than all the other profiles I had found of people who pinned lacrosse-related items. She had a variety of pins on her “recipes” board that I found I was also interested in (again, food is a significant Pinterest category for me).

Debbie also has a great “Bucket List” board that had a few beautiful photos of places it appeared she would eventually like to visit. Quite a few of these places were in Europe, and coincidentally I just found out I will be studying abroad in London next semester and had begun making my own bucket list of places in Europe I wanted to visit while I was there. Another “soulmate” point!

I noticed that she had a few knitting/crochet related boards, which is more of my sister’s thing than it is mine, but I really liked Debbie’s arts and crafts board. I love DIY products, and a lot of the brides I worked with during my internship really lean toward the homey, self-made feel for their invitations, gift bags, and even their dinnerware. I particularly liked Debbie’s variety of pins on this board, ranging from baby outfits and vases to jewelry and bookshelves. I could see myself making (or at least attempting to make) many of these items on her board. That is, if I can survive my midterms and find some free time (come back in 10 years, I swear this will become an arts and crafts blog).

Who’s your social bookmarking soulmate?

mens vs womens lax

What’s the difference between men’s and women’s lacrosse? I usually explain to people that they’re almost 2 completely different sports. The most significant difference? Men’s lacrosse allows physical contact and women’s lacrosse, on the other hand, does allow stick-to-stick checking but no more physical contact than allowed in a soccer game. Pushing, charging and other contact calls are made frequently in women’s games. The men do wear helmets and heavy shoulder padding and chest protectors because of the contact allowed. They also wear thick padded gloves to protect their hands and fingers. While players of both genders are typically required to wear mouth guards, women only have to wear a pair of goggles in addition to the mouth guard.

As I mentioned before, a men’s lacrosse faceoff is much like one you would see in ice hockey. Both centers place their sticks on the ground, and the ball is placed between them. When the whistle is blown, they try to flip the ball to their own players. In women’s lacrosse, the faceoff is replaced by a draw. In a draw, players stand side by side facing opposite sides. They press their sticks against each other and the ball is placed in between. The centers lift their sticks up in the air when the whistle is blown and try to draw the ball to the players on their team.

But really, what's the difference to any old non-lacrosse watching Joe Schmo out there? Well, besides the obvious contact/no-contact stuff, you'll notice that girls traditionally wear skirts when playing lacrosse. Don't get all excited though. We wear shorts underneath. Also, the gear does look different, but you'll notice that the style of play is different. Women's games are fast-based and stick skills are absolutely critical. Men's games focus more on ball control and I hate to say it, but their defense is really fun to watch when they are checking people left and right with their extra long defender's sticks.