Syracuse Lacrosse All American and Hall of Famer Jim BrownMost folks know about Jim Brown and Kyle Harrison. But there are a lot of African Americans who played the game and who served as my role models in my youth. There are those from my generation who have been forgotten that I played with and against back when there were so few of us playing the great game of lacrosse, the fastest game on two feet. I am sure I will leave some folks out of the discussion but that’s because of accidental omission and not a comment on their contribution to the game or ability. “Lacrosse has long had a reputation as a ‘white sport,’ writes Dartmouth Professor of History Bruce Nelson. “At the D1 level, lacrosse has been, overwhelmingly, a ‘white sport.’ In the forty years from 1957 to 1996, only five African-American players were named first team All-American in D1 lacrosse. The first was the legendary Jim Brown, at Syracuse, in 1957. After Brown, there were no black All-Americans for the next twenty-three years. Tomorrow’s post will be on “Big Jim” as his college teammate and my college coach Roy Simmons Jr. called him.
Jim Brown Lacrosse Stories: http://lacrossememoir.blogspot.com/search?q=Jim+Brown
This blog is awesome! I am an African-American lacrosse mom from Montclair,NJ which has a rich tradition of lacrosse and a host of great African-American players. One of our Montclair High School alumni was just inducted into the NJ Lacrosse Hall of Fame (Mark Tyree, MHS 1977). My son is a defenseman and in 8th grade, but loves the sport and has included our entire family in his obsession. I am the web master for our junior lax site, www.montclairlacrosse.com .
ReplyDeleteThank you for your great blog!