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Random Thoughts: Football & Lacrosse
Story URL: http://northwestern.scout.com/2/521615.html
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Coach Roy
PurpleWildcats.com | Apr 18, 2006 |
Fewer Media days for Spring Football, Lacrosse players arrested at Duke, NU Women trying to get back on top of the polls. Coach Roy has thoughts on all of it...
It seemed obvious from the Spring Football Schedule...
NU coach Randy Walker didn't want the media spotlight glaring at the Wildcats during the spring.
With a new Offensive Coordinator training up a replacement for one of NU's best QBs ever, about half the team's practices were closed to the
media.
We've seen a few notes here and there, but most of the Spring Coverage has been of the "I think" type.
Somebody in Evanston once said something about media coverage of Spring practice being overblown.
I guess that thought has taken hold.
Nobody goes to college and plays varsity sports to lose.
but sometimes you can want something too much
Such appeared to be the attitude at Duke Men's Lacrosse.
Now lacrosse can be a tough game, played at times, by very aggressive people. The game's Iroquois name is Tewaaraton, and was sometimes
played by American Indians to settle disputes. It is also known as the "little brother of war."
If you pay attention to the Tewaaraton information, there is almost a religious aura around the game, one writer refers to its curative purpose, surrounded by ceremony. Given the size of the field [miles long originally] only the strongest players were able to make plays.
Over the years, various non-Indian schools picked up the game, seeing it as a better way to keep football players in shape during the spring.
Lately, the Dukies recruited some very aggressive kids in their drive to make both Men's and Women's Lacrosse a premier Spring sport to add to their Basketball successes. Their Women's team is apparently on the
right track.
It seems that the men only got the aggressive part right.
By the way, don't expect the NU Women's team to be back at the top of the polls any time soon.
As the ultimate outsiders, not from the northeast, the Cats will probably have to sweep their final 5 games, plus win the NCAA
tournament to be back at #1.
This weekend's pair with #5 North Carolina and #7 Johns Hopkins, represent the toughest opponents left on the NU schedule.
Duke has a couple of games with unranked opponents, plus what could be rematches with both #6 Maryland and #3/4 Virginia in the ACC tournament.
Forget that earlier in the year, NU easily dispatched Virgina [and Maryland], the Bounce Entertainment/Inside Lacrosse media poll has NU
firmly in #2 behind the Demons, with Virginia getting only other first place vote!
Should Duke lose one this weekend, Lacrosse will have the classic circle of winners; Duke beat NU, Virginia beat Duke, and NU beat
Virginia.
Duke has a good team with several Tewaaraton Trophy watch list members, but just like NU last week, they're set up for a surprise.
Meanwhile, it appears that everyone on the NU Women's Lacrosse team has stepped it up. I guess all we have to do now is watch our women dominate
the rest of the schedule the way they beat Penn State Sunday.
#1 will take care of itself.
-- da Coach
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