On the elliptical machine at the gym this morning (that's not endorsement; if you're young (or old) with working knees then jump, run, and play—but I’m hobbled and possess limited fitness options) I paused to watch just a moment of Belichick's press conference. I don't care much about the ball-deflating-controversy other than feeling everyone should just use the same damn ball. But what I did hear him say before moving on is that in practice he makes the balls as bad as possible. Wet, cold, slippery, whatever. And if the players complain, he makes them worse. And that brings me to lacrosse:
Greasers, shiners, slicks, slimers, whatever your name for them is, lacrosse balls are tacky and clean for only a short span, and then they get slick and slippery.
Playing in elementary school through high school (in central New York), I never thought much about it. A lacrosse ball was a lacrosse ball. Some were heavy, some were slick, some were dead, some filthy, some had chips removed by lawn mowers. Every once in a great while you got your pocket on a new, clean, bouncy, grippy ball. But it didn’t last. Even our game balls weren’t fresh out of the box, they were just the best of the bad.
Shooting in the back yard, at the high school, or up on Cornell’s Schoellkopf field, what I wanted more than new balls, was just more balls. Quantity, baby. Retrieving an errant shot from the woods, but finding three other balls half buried in mud, hidden in moldy leaves, frozen in ice, or sitting in puddles was great. (Up at Schoellkopf, either on the wrong end of the fence or buried in snow banks that lined the field until about April, we found the best quality—left behind by a college team with a bigger ball budget than mine). My goal was always to leave the field with a heavier backpack than I’d arrived with.
In my pocket as I cradled I could sense the quality of the ball. As it came off my shooting strings I was still adjusting my throw or shot to control a slippery or heavy ball. Sometimes they got away from me. At college, the balls were better, but they still got old. I don’t recall any players removing slick balls from play.
And then I became a coach, and encountered just that.
I don’t recall specifically the details (but I believe there were Alford brothers involved, perhaps a Polk). The players would pull greasers out of the ball bag and set them aside as unworthy of play.
I couldn’t believe it. I understood that new balls were nice, but for that to be the expectation!? What happened if the ball had a piece of mud clinging to it in a game? Could you just hold your hand up, pause the action, take out a towel and wipe it clean, maybe wipe down the pocket of your stick too? What a crazy, country-club mentality. This isn’t golf. (Still don’t understand how SI or other publications could name a golfer or a horse sportsman of the year)
Should I ever become a coach again, the Belichick tactic is one I’ll employ. Make practice uncomfortable and difficult. Put in more obstacles than they’ll face in the game. Make the balls awful, and when they whine make them worse. But maybe, just maybe, give them the new, clean, tacky balls every once in a while.
Side note: When I was in high school, I played on turf perhaps once a season. The daily grind was done on a well-worn grass field, dusty and hard in sun and soggy and muddy after a rain (or after the snow melted). Balls got beat up, fast. Now everyone has field-turf, balls rarely see mud, never mind sit caked in it day after day. (Don’t even get me started on the lost art of picking up groundballs in high clumped grass, or mud puddles). Lacrosse is spring, and spring is “mud-luscious”. I miss the mud, I miss greasers, I’m getting old.
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