There’s an old adage that the lacrosse community epitomizes that occasional “small world” scenario. How many times have you been in conversation with so-and-so, and that person knows so-and-so due to some degree of proximal separation, and all caused by lacrosse’s doing? Well, I can’t tell you how many times this phenomenon has unfolded before me, and so, as the ten-year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks passes, I find myself taken by that personal connection to those people who helped carve for me indelible life moments prior to that fateful day.

Father-son

I spent at least one evening in the company of Donald, whose son Geoff was a friend of mine in college. I met Donald through Geoff at the University of Delaware and I remember having a great time over drinks and “shenanigans” at Geoff’s apartment on Main Street in Newark. Don was the type of dad (a lot like mine, which was why I liked him) who so enjoyed spending time with his sons in the company of their goofball friends.

Geoff and his family had been from Manhasset, New York, a Long Island lacrosse mecca, where Jim Brown starred in lacrosse (and, oh yeah, football too) before Syracuse, a place that continues to churn out some of the top players in the country. I would never have met Geoff had it not been for common acquaintances through lacrosse. A couple of my Delaware teammates were also close friends with Geoff, so therefore I would have never met Donald if not for a relationship lacrosse helped to mold.

Shortly after 9/11 I met Geoff in Wilmington for what turned out to be the last time since we hung out regularly in college. I can recall the strength with which he spoke when I asked him how he was coping after the loss of his father in such a sudden and unimaginable way. Having lost my father to cancer this past July, I now have a better understanding of where that strength comes from.

Newsday on Long Island recently did a small film interview with Geoff and asked how much he remembers of the actual day, September 11, what that day was like for him, and how he and his family have managed to cope since. It was great to see him doing well — actually living in New York City, married, and at peace.

The “area”

In college we used to rib each other when someone gloated about some relatively famous (at least to us) person, usually athletes, who hailed from our respective home town or “area”. During my sophomore year I had two roommates from Nyack, New York and so Jon Hess (Princeton Lacrosse virtuoso on arguably the greatest attack line ever), Elton Brand, Keith Bullock, who all went on to success in the pros after great prep careers around the Hudson Valley, were often repeatedly (stress on “repeatedly”) subjects of mindless banter. I, too, would chime in about usually some obscure athletes from my “area” in northern, New Jersey. Glenn Sekunda, anyone? Parsippany Hills, New Jersey basketball star, early 90s? Syracuse, transferred to Penn State? I’m shocked.

Okay, my list was far less impressive I would come to realize than the Hudson Valley one often bragged by Will and Kevin, my two housemates from Nyack. Some of the people from my “area”, like Sekunda, did experience marginal successes, but only if I could prove it.

Kevin, Will and I would often trade sarcastic comments, often unsolicited, over our clinging to “glory days” through constant mentioning of people from the “area”. Both Kevin and Will were good lacrosse players (Kevin, a goalie, Will, a middie) who grew up with Hess and Welles Crowther, at the time an equities trader with Sandler O’Neill & Partners, who heroically perished on the day of the 9/11 attacks.

I’m not exactly certain whether at some point I met Welles through Willy or Kevin. But I can swear with positivity that they both spoke about him often. No different from any of our closest friends, I remember Welles’ name coming up over conversation, usually with some term of endearment attached to it — something like “scrapper”, “legend” or “asshole” (actually pronounced by New Yorkers as ess-hole and, unlike in most discourse, was a commonly used, matter-of-fact, surprisingly benevolent attachment to any buddy’s name. For example, “How’s that asshole doing? Haven’t heard from him in a while.”)

There’s a uniqueness to the bonds that people from New York form through friendships, and I mean that in a good way. Will and Kevin clearly shared that unique friendship with Welles. When I caught the piece ESPN recently aired about Welles, Man In The Red Bandanna, I was immediately moved by the photographs and film footage of Welles as a lacrosse player at Nyack and Boston College. As I learned his story narrated by Ed Burns, I couldn’t help but feel an attachment to Welles. It’s impossible to comprehend what someone like him experienced on 9/11. Though I didn’t really know him hardly at all, I sure knew of him. That certainly wouldn’t have been possible without having Kevin and Will as teammates, and always talking about the “area”.

Everyone comes from an “area” — it is our own personal small world and, for some like me, it is often shaped by lacrosse.