Remembering Spring Break: Hobart's Ed Howard

In the winter of 1976 Ed Howard had just become the newest of a long list of, what Hobart All American and Associate Head Lacrosse Coach at the University Virginia, Marc Van Arsdale has coined, DNPs—guys who did not play in high school. “I was lucky enough to be a ball boy for a bunch of those Jerry Schmidt/Dave Urick Hobart Teams in the 70's” says Van Arsdale who grow up in Geneva, New York. “There were some ferocious, physical athletes playing defense for Hobart in those days [who] were DNP's—Tom Korn, Tom Moffitt, Bootie Gringeri (all defensive football standouts)—but Ed, once he learned the game, was a more graceful defender,” Van Arsdale recalls. “I remember his great footwork/quickness . . . maybe attributable to his hoops upbringing,” he theorizes. Howard remembers being home in Buffalo on winter break after 6 B team practices when he received phone call for then defensive coordinator Dave Urick tell him that he’s been invited to come to up to varsity. “I am looking out the window and it was a terrible ice storm and here’s coach asking me if I want to join the varsity team on spring break down in North Carolina.” Back in those days Hobart we would play Carolina, NC State, Hopkins, and Navy on spring break. “Looking at the [bitter cold] weather outside it was an easy decision.” Howard remembers telling Urick without hesitation “I am going!” As freshmen Ed played mostly on Hobart’s man down defense. He had no fear of big offensive guns he faced on man down because he had no history on the players and programs he was facing to go on. “I had the advantage,” explains Howard, I was not encumbered” by the reputation All Americans, “plus in basketball and football I was an offensive players” and could anticipate the other guys moves. “I was 6’ 2’’ 200 lbs and ran a sub 4.5, 40- yard dash—I had the advantage in my mind and it didn’t matter who you were to me,” says Howard. Lord willing and the snow doesn’t get to high, we will have more tomorrow on Ed’s first season as a Statesmen.

Club Lacrosse Then and Professional Lacrosse Now Part 2

 Perth, Australia 1990: Left to right, Steve Mitchell (St Paul’s, Hopkins), Fred Opie (Croton Harmon, Syracuse), George McGeeney (Towson HS, UMBC), Sal LoCascio (UMass), Zack Colburn (Penn), Mike Morrill (Hopkins).  

During my first two seasons with Long Island Lacrosse Club in 1987 and 1988, I did some serious commuting driving fifty miles one way to Danbury to work Monday through Friday and an hour, depending on traffic, to Hempstead where Hofstra University is located on Thursday for practices and on Sundays for games. Moreover, way games would take me as far as Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore in my car. Jimmy Burke moved to Tarrytown my second year with the club and he we split the cost of the commute. In short, playing club ball back then was a time consuming and expensive endeavor not including providing your own equipment and paying team fees and all travel and lodging expenses. But I loved every minute of it because it was unbelievable lacrosse! I was fortunate that my second year on the team, the first attempt to have a pro-outdoor league started. It was very controversial because many of us feared that signing a pro-out door contract would disqualify one from playing on the US National team. I received an offer to play for the New York team but I turned it town. But defensemen Bobby Vencak left our club to play for the Long Island Sachems in the pro league. As a result Coach Tom Postel moved me down to close defense which made me very happy (no more sprinting on and off the field as a long stick middie!). I also played next to DeTo on close D and learned a great deal from him and Larry Quinn in the process. The physical strength and savvy veteran club players in their twenties and thirties is far superior to that of the majority of college players. That’s one reason few undergrads make the US National team. For instance, the year I made it in 1990 we had only one collegiate player—Andy Krause (Garden City and Virginia). I believe my decision to play club ball down on the Island instead of the Pepsi sponsored team in my native Hudson Valley region may have rubbed the Westchester folks wrong like I was snubbing them. I made the decision based on my experience of playing summer league both in Westchester and in the old Freeport League during my collegiate days. The competition on the Island proved far superior to Westchester and I simply wanted to play with and against the best at that time. Certainly the quality of lacrosse in the Hudson Valley as improved, but the game on the Island in my opinion is still bigger, the same hold true in Baltimore. Yes bigger is not always better, but I think the final results showed that I made the right choice in deciding to commute and play for Long Island Lacrosse Club. As in jazz, if you have the chops, playing with the best, makes you better. This also true when comes to being a husband, father, professor, and author; learn from people who are passionate about getting better every day.

My Years With Long Island Lacrosse Club, the Late 1980s

Kevin Sheehan (Baldwinsville (Syracuse suburb), , Pat Donahue (West Genesee), and Me, in the 85 Championship game. Pat’s older brothers Kevin and Tom were SU All Americans midfielders who played with John Desko both in high school and at Cuse. Kevin Donahue is John’s first assistant at Cuse and he’s been on the SU coaching staff for more than ten years now which is another reason why the team has been so success over the years.

In Danbury, Connecticut I taught grades k-7 for two years and coached boys JV soccer and middle school boys basketball (1986-1988). The teaching and coaching experience were tremendous and I loved the experience. But Danbury had no lacrosse program back then and my goal had been a position where I would teach and coach a varsity lacrosse team in a predominately black school district. A teaching and coaching position in Hempstead, Aaron Jones,’ hometown, opened up and he and Buddy Krumenacker helped me get an interview. Buddy was the Dean of Students and Head Varsity Football coach at Hempstead at the time. He’s a Farmingdale, Long Island native and the older brother of the late Hopkins All American midfielder John Krumenacker who died in 1998. As SU player had would at times cover John and thus Buddy knew of me from the Hopkins Syracuse rivalry. With the help of Aaron, his mother (a retired Hempstead High English teacher) and Buddy I received an interview. Hempstead school district hired me and I started teaching physical education and coaching at the high school in fall of 1989. Folks, the lacrosse world is small and it doesn’t pay to do be a jerk on or off the field; everybody is so interconnected in our sport. I was familiar with Hempstead because I started playing for the Long Island Lacrosse Club in the Spring of 1987 and made the commute to Hofstra University in Hempstead every Thursday evening for practice from 8-10 pm and again on Sundays for 1pm games. I made this commute because I instinctively knew that I had play at the highest level of competition to gain an invitation to 90 US National team tryouts. Playing for the club helped my game tremendously because of head coach Tom Postel and my teammates many of which had played on one or more US National teams when I joined the club in 87 and many were outstanding college coaches at local universities. Allot of these guys and the coaching staff are now members of the National Hall of Fame. I will be mixing in reflections on Hempstead and my club experiences over the next couple of days.

Delusions of Graduate School Grandeur

We recently relocated to Boston and in the process of cleaning out files I came across my GRE scores when I was applying to graduate programs (see yesterdays post) in 1991. This was when I had completed my master's in history at Shippensburg University and working as an interim dean at Gettysburg College as well as an assistant lacrosse coach at the college. This GRE document revealed an extremely low verbal score (380) yet a list of elite institution I hoped to attend; I had no contact with reality and allot of delusions of graduate school grandeur. As a prof now, I've seen undergrads who I work with make similar mistakes and overestimation of their academic record. The second time I applied to graduate programs I considered both PhD programs in history and theology with hopes of entering full time Christian ministry equipped with a knowledge of African American history and Christian theology. Back then I aspired to be a Christian version of Malcolm X. Like Malcolm I always had a book or two on hand to read and I was constantly consuming National Public Radio keeping up to date on world events (Malcolm read papers but people like me with ADD do allot better with an oratory consumption of the news). My list of graduate schools in the fall of 1991 included Union Theological, Yale Divinity and history programs at Columbia, Princeton, Berkley, Duke, Howard, Maryland, and Syracuse. In reflection, all these graduate programs were grand cannon reaches for my academic record—I just didn’t know it then. During my second time trying to get into PhD programs I had learned the importance of communicating with potential advisors. One does so because they will serve as your advocate and intellectual personal training for the next five to seven years of your life. You need to know early on in the process if there is flow or not between you and a potential advisor; more tomorrow.

Club Lacrosse Then and Professional Lacrosse Now

Long Island and USA teammate Norm Engelke and me at a practice in Perth, Australia, 1990

My first season with Long Island Lacrosse Club in 1987 was a great learning experience and confidence builder for me as a young player. Our team included lots of veteran US team players. They included Matt Crowley “snapper” for his quick and overpowering shot (Cornell, 2x USA), Ed Hughes (Adelphi), Tom Sweeney (Rutgers), Frank Tashman (Sewanhaka, Nassau, Adelphi), Steve (CW Post) and Vinnie (Hofstra 4x USA) Sombrotto, John DeTommaso “DeTo” (Farmingdale, Hopkins, 3x USA), Randy Natoli “Harpo” (Sewanhaka, UVA, 2x USA), Bobby Vencak (Farmingdale, Rutgers, USA), Larry Quinn (Levitt Town Division, Hopkins 3x USA), Jim Burke (Huntington, Cortland, 3x USA), Bob Beroza (Hempstead, Roanoke 2x USA), and Norman Engelke (Sewanhaka, Cornell 3x USA), Others also played important roles in the team’s success including coach Tom Postel (CW Post 2x USA) and team manager John Philips (Cornell (3x USA manager). One of the keys to my success on and off the field is that I am like a sponge soaking up as much essential information from whoever I can. I learned a great deal from practicing against my teammates and playing in games with them. In my opinion, playing with DeTo and Larry Quinn made me a much better player because both guys are real students of the game. DeTo reminded me of what I’ve learned about Lebron James from his peers—he was a fierce competitor, great guy, and a court jester who loved the game and being around his teammates. Larry taught me how to stay cool under pressure on the field and how to make all things look easy—which drives opponents crazy. I played long stick middie my first year, a position I never liked. Why, because you spend more time running on and off the field than you do running up and down the field. However on such a talented team, I was glad to get playing time. Long Island Lacrosse Club was one of the elite teams in Club ball and the top 6 teams back then were as competitive as any of the professional teams today the only difference is we didn't get paid. However, our championship games did get televised and the best among us filled the majority of the spots on US National teams. I would argue that most of older guy are very happy to see pro the league today and exited for the few players who can call playing lacrosse (along with endorsements and camps) their full time gig.

Returning to the Field Tournament Style

Stephen Kelly # 14 (Frank Kelly’s Son) The youngest player on this years U19 US National Lacrosse Team. Stephen has committed to play at UNC after his senior year at Calvert Hall High School. The Hall is ranked #1 in  the March edition of Lacrosse Magazine, Stephen is featured on the cover! 

Following my second consecutive appearance in the NCAA Division I lacrosse finals and loss to Hopkins, I stopped playing for a year. But after a year of coaching at the High School level I got the itch again. With encouragement with from my college coach John Desko, I returned to lacrosse playing for the first time in the Glastonbury, Connecticut Summer Lacrosse Tournament in 1986. The tournament featured some of the top Division I players from the Long Island, New Jersey, Hudson Valley, and New England regions. The competition was incredible and that’s what I thrive on—competition—I am the same way as an academic. This is where I became friends with Cornell and Calvert Hall alum Frank Kelly. Frank was the first lacrosse player I met who like me made a decision during college to make the Lord Jesus Christ look good on and off the field with my life. (See my earlier story on joining the God Squad at SU). Frank would go on to found the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) Lacrosse Ministry http://www.fcalax.com/. I participated the following year in the first annual FCA Lacrosse Camp at Gettysburg College. At the camp I began a relationship with Gettysburg Men’s Lacrosse Coach Hank Janzyck (Coach J) and the late Peter Kohn. With Frank taking the lead and providing the vision, FCA lacrosse has mushroomed over the years into a dynamic ministry that is impacting the lacrosse world with huddles (bible studies), camps, teams in tournaments, retreats for college players, and coaches’ breakfasts at national conventions. Well we won the Glastonbury Tournament and I left just as passionate about the game as did before I hung up my cleats in May of 1985. But more importantly, I left with the start of a meaningful relationship with Frank Kelly that has lasted more than twenty years and his still growing stronger each year. Lacrosse has meant a lot to me since I first started playing the game back in 8th grade. But one of the most important parts of our game is the relationships I’ve made with lacrosse folks over the years. From Aaron Jones, Frank, Coach J, Peter, to the players I have played with, against, and coached, lacrosse for me in many ways is truly a great big fraternity and sorority all mixed up into one.

Hobart's Ed Howard: Black History Month and Lacrosse Series

Do you remember this poster? Hobart All American Defensemen Ed Howard # 26 throwing a nasty over the head check on a unidentified Washington College player.

I believe Ed Howard was the first African American college player in the lime light that I ever saw; I still remember seeing this poster of of him above, throwing this great over the head check against a Washington College player in the 1977 Division III championship game. The photo was part of a 1978 U. S. National Team promotion. “The over the head check was my forte,” remembers Ed Howard. “It was my favorite because of my height [6’ 2’] and the fact I could get close to my opponent.” He goes on to say, I learned the check from [my defensive coach at Hobart] Dave Urick and perfected it via real time trial and error.” What’s unique about Howard’s story is that he never played lacrosse before coming to Hobart. And back when he played, Hobart was a power house in college lacrosse taking on all comers including Syracuse. In 1977 went 15 and 0 with Ed both starting, neutralizing other teams top attackman—most of them All Americans, and earning All American honors. This was a rare lacrosse photo back before the proliferation of lacrosse magazines in hard copy and online, and the multitude of lacrosse blogs including my own. Photos like this one represented some of the only outlets for lacrosse junkies like me to satisfy my craving for the game. Few newspapers back in the late 70s covered college games or stories about All-American selections. So when I saw this photo of Ed Howard I wanted to know more about him. 20 plus years later I got a chance interviewing both Dave Urick and Ed Howard. I am going to share the story of how Ed’s went from a Hobart walk on to becoming an All American as part of my Black History Month and Lacrosse series. I hope you enjoy the post as much as I did researching them and getting to know Ed's story.