City students find a new love in lacrosse
All those lessons about accountability and responsibility seemingly were for nil. Here was Brent Nowicki, spending hours and hours blending lacrosse and life together, and five kids show up more than a half-hour late. No, this was not the message of City Lacrosse.
"You can't let your teammates down," Nowicki told the kids. "You guys can't be late."
"Sorry coach," one kid said. "The buses were late."
Nowicki paused. "Buses?" As in plural?
Well, two buses and one train to be exact. Nowicki was speechless. These kids sincerely did want to learn the game. And they'd do anything to keep learning.
"It hit," said Nowicki, an associate at the law firm Hodgson Russ and a former college lacrosse player. "If these kids are willing to do this, they must really like it. We need to keep going."
Lacrosse is going where it's never ventured before — into the city of Buffalo. With the funding of US Lacrosse and help of the Buffalo Police Athletic League, City Lacrosse has held weekly clinics for kids in Buffalo Public Schools.
Lacrosse thrives in the suburbs, not the city. It's a dominant prep school sport, not yet mainstream in the Buffalo Public Schools. But Nowicki knew the reason wasn't apathy, it was opportunity.
Anybody can pick up a basketball and play in the park. Lacrosse takes time, money, and somebody to introduce you to the game.
Now kids in the city are addicted, willing to take any mode of transportation for more. Next up is a camp at All High Stadium on Aug. 3-7. For more, log onto www.bufcitylax.com.
"This is the start of great things to come to the city and the sport," Nowicki said. "The opportunities for the kids are endless. The opportunities for the program are endless."
Nowicki, Jordan Jason, Mike Haven and Joe Smith — the program's primary coaches — saw interest snowball.
At the first clinic, 18 kids showed up. Two of them had basketballs lodged under their armpits. They set the balls underneath a nearby tree and strapped on funky looking lacrosse gear. Coaches wondered if it'd last. The next week, those same two kids returned. Only this time, instead of bringing two basketballs, they brought four relatives.
"People are bringing people," Nowicki said. "We're growing without even trying."
One of those kids toting a basketball was 12-year-old Antonio Hill from Waterfront School. He was nervous that first day.
"I thought I wouldn't be that good enough to play," he said.
In an instant, Hill fell in love. The shooting, the passing, and, oh yes, the hitting fused lacrosse into some mega-sport. With his new teammates, he watched a video of Smith playing for the Buffalo Bandits in the 2008 NLL championship game and learned the game through hands-on drills and instruction. Already athletic, he found the sport came easily to him.
After two weeks of clinics, Antonio just had to spread the love. He told his 10-year-old brother, Donte, and 8-year-old cousin, Jacquez, about this wild sport. Naturally, they were skeptical.
"They said, "all right, if lacrosse is better than football then we'll keep coming,' " Antonio recalled.
Within days, Jacquez told his Pop Warner football coach he was quitting the team and switching to lacrosse.
This is the theme. Kids from City Honors, Waterfront, Grover Cleveland and Discovery are coming in droves. The grant from US Lacrosse netted 20 sets of equipment. Over time, the coaches had to rely on a "first-come, first-serve" system. There weren't enough sticks for everyone.
"As frustrating as that was, that's a great problem to have," Haven said. "It puts the onus on us to work for donations and find more funding."
This was the only fear. Nowicki and company never questioned whether kids would actually like the sport. Instead, lacrosse is dependent on players paying it forward. The Bandits' Smith got into the sport when a football coach at Orchard Park handed him a stick as a 16-year- old and said, "Give this a try."
Nowicki wouldn't have played at Fairfield College, Jason wouldn't have played at Johns Hopkins and Haven wouldn't have played at Canisius if somebody else didn't reach out to them.
"It's like a social responsibility," Nowicki said. "What has been done to me, I must do onto others."
The five-year plan is for this group of kids — a melting pot of African-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans and Caucasians to field the first-ever high school lacrosse team in the city of Buffalo. And the long-term plan is for City Lacrosse to lift kids off the street and into college. Nowicki and Smith visit schools throughout Buffalo to show gym teachers the game's basics. They're carpooling kids to practice.
Eventually, Nowicki hopes to incorporate education into the program. He'll give out a test full of questions on the history and mathematics of the game. Score above an 80 and get a free stick to take home. Some SAT prep, too, such as one mandatory hour of studying for every hour on the field.
Anything that combines lacrosse with education. Lacrosse could be the difference between kids dropping out and striving toward college.
"There are more scholarships available in lacrosse than any other sport," Haven said. "To play Division I football, you have the entire country competing against you."
They call Antonio "Batman" now. One, because he has a Batman hat and Batman shoes. And two, because his speed is driving other players nuts on the lacrosse field.
"My goal is to be one of the most famous lacrosse players to ever play," he said.
Now he has that chance.
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