The Augsburg Chronicles: A New Team’s First Season in the MCLA
Article and Photos By G. F. Gallagher
Every year the Men’s Collegiate Lacrosse Association sees new players and new teams join its ranks. Even as the overall organization grows and strengthens through the eventual development of “virtual varsity” teams into elite programs, the Association progresses—nourishing and replenishing itself from the bottom up—as a continuous wellspring of fresh talent percolates to the surface.
In time, and as they earn “veteran” status, these new squads will take their rightful places within the conferences that absorb them and, in their turn, stand as examples to those coming after them of what can be done with grit and vision. That first season of real competition is a rite of initiation that, although inevitably painful, serves as the currency for membership in the brotherhood that is the MCLA.
For 2008, Augsburg College in Minnesota has taken up this challenge as have others around the country, not with trepidation but with the joy and resolve that comes with a true commitment to our sport. The following stories will attempt to capture and convey some of the feeling that every established team can recall, when they took that first bold step toward national legitimacy.
Chapter 1 – Who Are We, and What Are We Doing Here? – (Originally Published January 5th)
Chapter 2 – Getting After It
MINNEAPOLIS — Midwinter in Minnesota is many things to many people. For some, it’s the time to gear up for the Saint Paul Winter Carnival or some other local event designed for the specific purpose of distracting the native population from the brutality of the seasonal climate. For others more comfortably situated, it’s an opportunity to flee to Cabo San Lucas or at least to a weekend in Las Vegas. In the world of Upper Midwest lacrosse, though, it’s the time to check your frailties at the door, strap on the pads and get those practices in for the games already slated to begin in February.
There are seventeen teams in the Upper Midwest Lacrosse League, the southernmost of which is not in Florida. All these clubs need to start their practices in earnest now, preferably without skates on, so every one of them has to seek out an indoor venue for their drills and scrimmages. Since there are only so many spaces that can accommodate a full lacrosse field, suitable facilities are always in peak demand. Even when you’re the home team at a non-varsity school, you may find yourself sharing your own dome and practicing in it at whatever hour the administration tosses at you. It’s a classic case of: “Here’s what we have for you—take it or leave it.” To paraphrase from the film, A League of Their Own, there’s no crying in UMLL lacrosse. The tears would just freeze anyway.
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The Augsburg College lacrosse club has just learned on Tuesday afternoon that it will be allowed to use its own dome for its second practice of the year, for an hour and a half, starting at ten o’clock on Wednesday night. Nice.
It’s twelve degrees below zero outside the facility as the players assemble, and only a bit warmer inside. The student supervisor on duty in the sideline area, charged with the unenviable task of watching over the proceedings at this hour and eventually closing up, is demonstrably thrilled. So it goes. This is club lacrosse—you take what you get.
With the Auggies’ first real test, a non-conference game against Northwestern College, only 10 days away, there’s far too much to do and not nearly enough time to do it, especially when there’s only one coach and, even now, an indeterminate number of players. Tonight there are eleven individuals present and suited up, a definite upgrade from last month. One plus, though: the captains are all here, and they’re most definitely taking their jobs seriously, helping Coach Jonathon Harris set up drills and also providing invaluable encouragement, as well as some spontaneous coaching of their own, to the rest of the group.
There are enough guys, thankfully, to suggest a full-field team: Three longsticks and a goalie at one end being schooled by Harris in the art of the clear, and seven attack/middies at the other end, practicing cuts, feeds, dodges and drives. After a break the units combine for what has to be their first taste of a real lacrosse scrimmage. Unlike the previous practice session, tonight there’s a bit of edginess in the air. The exercise being necessarily scaled-back due to the numbers present, the players nonetheless start to look like they’re doing this for real—the casualness of the recent past has melted away, even if nothing else will.
The three poles take up their positions in the box and triangulate their slides. The attack sets up a rotation and the offensive midfielders take turns driving from up top. Passes fly and stick checks are thrown. Zones are patiently explained, but coverages are still missed. Even dodges seem to fail on their own as if a phantom defender, hip-to-hip and stride-for-stride with the erstwhile attacker, were covering to harass and strip the ball-carrier, drive after frustrating drive. The rock goes up for grabs more often than not as it becomes clear, at least with respect to the rookies, that cradling is an acquired skill. Even the experienced guys scream out the odd expletive and fling their sticks to the turf in self-disgust at the dropped balls—the missed opportunities. The off-season’s rust has taken its toll on all, indiscriminately.
The Dome, being a much sought-after commodity in the winter months, bore witness to a very different scene just a week or so earlier. On that evening the bubble had fairly reverberated with the first field maneuvers of the UMD Bulldogs, who had rented the facility for their own early preparation. During that session some thirty disciplined troops executed carefully choreographed moves at a level of speed and accuracy that can only be imagined by a first-year group like the Auggies. Cuts were crisp, frozen-rope passes were timed to perfection and still the coaches demanded more. Such a comparison is unfair, of course—Duluth has been at this awhile, and it shows. That will be the Auggies someday, there’s no doubt; but on this night the road appears long, indeed. Nonetheless, when the competition starts, there will be no handicaps afforded the underdogs, nor any credit given just for effort. No participation trophies here. In this game the high score still wins.
Next: Chapter 3 – “The Campaign Begins”
G. F. Gallagher will be covering the Auggies and the rest of the Upper Midwest Lacrosse League this season on CollegeLAX. Talk about the conference in the UMLL forum on the CollegeLAX Message Board.
