Jon Brand writes…

Heavy Lifting: A profile of Notre Dame goalie Scott Rodgers

The headline pretty much says it all. My October 2009 profile of Notre Dame senior lacrosse goalie Scott Rodgers appeared in Inside Lacrosse magazine. 

ABC News’ Bob Woodruff talks lacrosse

(My Q&A with ABC News’ Bob Woodruff about his lacrosse playing days at Colgate. Reprinted from InsideLacrosse.com)

You probably know that Bob Woodruff is one of the country’s premier journalists and that he made a miraculous recovery  after suffering a traumatic brain injury while reporting from Iraq in 2006, but did you know that he was a lacrosse star at Colgate?

Woodruff, a 1983 graduate, is the Raiders’ all-time leader in goals scored (131) and holds the single-season record for points scored (82). He was also a standout soccer player and skier at the Hamilton, N.Y. school. Last January, the NCAA honored him with a Silver Anniversary award, recognizing both his successful collegiate athletic career and his post-collegiate professional endeavors.

He recently talked with us about his life in lacrosse…

Inside Lacrosse: You grew up in an area outside of the traditional hotbeds, especially in the 70s, in Detroit. How were you introduced to lacrosse?
Bob Woodruff: I played baseball all my life, but in ninth grade, I bailed on baseball when I saw lacrosse and it looked great. I had a black lab named Shannon and for some reason, when I got that dog, I played ball with [her] all the time. But I every time I picked up the ball, I would get slime on my hand, which got me thinking about how I could throw the ball without getting scum on my hand. And I saw a lacrosse stick, so I would go out there — it was my escape — and play with the dog and the lacrosse stick. I would shoot at a goal on the field for two to three hours a day, trying to shoot it into the upper right, upper left corners. And no matter how far I threw it past the goal, Shannon would go get it and bring it back down and dump it by me. I would start with three or four balls, but leave with six or seven balls by the end of the day. So it was the dog that turned me on to lacrosse.

IL: Did your parents know about lacrosse?
BW: No, not at all. Nobody had really heard of the sport back then, now it’s the fastest growing sport in the country.

IL: You played at the Cranbrook School, which still has a thriving lacrosse program, and Detroit Country Day and Brother Rice are going strong, too. What was the level of competition like there in the late 70s?
BW: There were good players here and there, but when I was that age, Syracuse, Baltimore, Boston and Long Island were the only places playing big lacrosse back then. I remember my year, Bill Aliber at [Detroit Country Day] went to Brown, some others guys went to Denison. So there were some good players.

IL: How did you end up at Colgate?
BW: I was not that great at sports, but I went for a visit at the school in the late spring and saw all the guys outside on couches. Turned out to be the four or five days of nice weather a year there. But I wasn’t going to play lacrosse; I wasn’t recruited. Colgate had a good team and I knew I could play, but it wasn’t Army or Cornell.

IL: Going back through the records, it seems your first collegiate game was at Georgia, a 9-5 win. These days, Georgia is a club team. What do you remember about that game?
BW: We did go down there, I remember, but I don’t remember much about that game. But I do remember that we were traveling through Maryland on another trip [in 1981] when Reagan was shot…it’s funny how you remember some of these things.

IL: At Colgate, you had a great career. Four-year letter winner, All-America, you still hold the single season record for points — 82 — and are first all-time in goals at 131, although Brandon Corp could break your record this season. How has the game changed since you played?
BW: It’s hard to find any time these days to watch lacrosse … but I went to Georgetown and watched a game recently and several things struck me. My advice to these guys that play attack is to be a ball hog (laughs)… No, but the game’s changed. There’s more throwing around the outside before cutting into it, the preparation is obviously better, the picks are better, the grips are better and the guys are faster and better in shape. There’s also better equipment. It’s clear that people have been working more hours at preparing for the game, too.

IL: I know you still follow Colgate. With last Saturday’s loss to UMBC, they’ve lost three straight games to top 10 teams. What’s your prognosis for the rest of the season?
BW: They started the season, in my opinion, as the favorites for national champions of America, but it’s a little bit less likely now. But they’ll keep getting better and better as the season goes on. It’s amazing, the team’s now getting some of the top players in the country and continues to get a lot more in recruiting. I hear about the ones that are coming in now and it even includes guys from Michigan, which is awesome.

IL: Over three years ago, you suffered a traumatic brain injury after an IED went off near your convoy while you were reporting in Iraq. Your recovery has been well documented, and you’ve gotten back to journalism, obviously. Were you active in lacrosse before the injury?
BW: I played in an adult league in New Canaan, Conn., for half a season, but they had to move me from attack to middie … And I went to a reunion at Colgate a few years ago and played against the Colgate guys. It was the class of ’83 and ’84 and some others against the current team. I also played one season of the Pepsi club league in New York. Now it’s tougher … they should have a 45-and-over league or something.

IL: If the MLL had been around when you were in school, would you have gone?
BW: Well, the guys from ‘Cuse probably would have. They had great players when I was up there, but I’m not sure if I would have been able to.

IL: You’ve lived in China and have spent a lot of time over the last decade covering Chinese society. The Chinese are mad for soccer and basketball. What do you think about lacrosse’s potential to succeed as a sport in China? What would be required for it to grow there?
BW: I think if you can convince the Chinese that this is the fastest growing sport in America and grab on this, as well as get it to expand outside of the U.S., that they might want to do this. The Chinese interest has grown so fast in soccer and diving and obviously basketball is a big deal; they also have tons of baseball players. There are more and more sports that they’re involved in. But I don’t know how to convince them. Maybe tell them that the game is a good mixture of soccer and American football, but I don’t see the Chinese liking contact sports, though.

IL: We haven’t seen lacrosse associated with the Olympics since an exhibition tournament in L.A. in 1984. What needs to be done to get it there?
BW: There’s got to be more countries that play it as a game. The reason softball dropped out was because the U.S. didn’t lose a game. You have to have some kind of balance. Right now it’s probably just Canada, U.S. and Australia who are the most competitive. You’ve got to find a way to spread it. Maybe China’s the answer.