Wednesday, June 25, 2003

LACROSSE IS STILL PLAYED HIGH IN THE ROCKIES

So, now it’s on to The Vail Lacrosse Shootout. George was so kind as to be born a tad earlier than we had expected, and without complication. Since her mother is here, Ada is more than happy to ship me off to yet another10 days of stress and relaxation at 8000 feet.

FROM LONG HAIR TO LONG IN THE TOOTH (and very little hair)

Jim Soran and I have been doing this tournament together for 31 years now. I was tournament in a pick-up truck. He hustled up radio interviews for exposure. What a team we were. Every year he talks about how this year we are going to spend some quality time together, he and I, leisurely sitting around enjoying the games and the fruits of our 31 plantings. Sure, Jim, that’s going to happen. He is such a half-full guy. It used to be that we would talk about playing golf in our "spare" time during our "vacation" at altitude. We would often take our golf clubs, but we never used them, not even once. Usually there aren't all that many stress-free moments during what has become ten days of tournaments. The reality is that just as we never had time to play golf, we will likely never have a tournament that runs "easily", no matter how smoothly it may in fact go. The tournament must be driven at all times. Jim and I will probably be yelling at each other by the third day about something really important like staff lunches that are late. To the staff they are important, though, after being out like mad dogs and Englishmen in the noon-day sun (or snow, or whatever). The intensity of fixing tournament leaks and gushers is as ongoing as our time running the tournament. We do always find our cherished moments, though, and I guess that’s why we still do it. It is the blood that makes we two brothers.

People still ask us if we make money on the tournament, as if it were a foregone conclusion that we do. We don’t, and we never have. We do have a debt that we have accumulated, though, and the "corporation" pays interest on it. Our inability to make money is in large part due to our (Jim and I) collective inability to say no. This tournament has always been something that we look at as a way to give back to the sport, and never as a way to profit from it. Profit would be a bad thing (karma) to even look for. If we ever accidentally made more than we spent, it would fall back in the sport somehow.

I THINK WE MIGHT HAVE "SCREWED" UP

I hate to speak for Jim, but I’m saying that between the two of us we haven’t had near the "success" that many "players" have had at the tournament over the years. People can say whatever they want, but one of the things that has made Vail a great lacrosse gathering over the years has been a tremendously powerful sexual aura that surrounds the event. Many relationships have been "born" during the tournament. Great teams started coming from the east in the eighties, and in their spare Vail time these players went fishing for groupies way more than they went on whitewater rafting trips. No self-respecting male would ever bring a girl WITH him to this event. It was a tribal "hook-up". It still has its "Fifth Element" moments, but things are "tamer" now than they once were.

In addition to all the last dance romances through the years, there have also been many lacrosse babies who were born in early April (figure it out). It worked for Dave Soran, Jim’s brother and another long-time Director of the ageless Shootout. I believe that even the great Gary Gait has a son that was born in early April following the year that he played with MAB Paints and they won the tournament.

Well, I dare say that Jim and I have not been blessed with any of this. I can’t remember personally EVER getting laid at Vail. The tournament drives both Jim’s wife and mine somewhat crazy, and in a totally non-seductive way. When we were young and free there was never time for the ritual of "The dance" anyway. I somehow feel cheated by this truth. My passion for one thing got me none of the other.

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