My final season at Herk coincided with Syracuse winning its first national championship in 1983. A number of players had transferred into Syracuse including my Freeport summer league teammate Tim Nelson. Syracuse had three senior defensmen who would need replacing the following season. Tim told Coach Simmons, a Hall of Famer, about me. Coach came to see me play in a Herk vs. SU’s B team game in the spring of 1983. At Herk I played close defense and attack on our man up team. Coach Simmons later offered me a scholarship. At the same time, I grew up idolizing Clay Johnson a high school All American from my hometown who played at Maryland. In eighth grade, the year as I started playing lacrosse, I went to my first National Championship game at the University of Maryland and saw Clay run on the second mid-field line against Hopkins. Maryland lost big to a Hopkins team stacked with future Hall of Famers Mark Greenburg, Jeff Cook, Mike O’Neill, Brendan Schneck, Mike Federico, and Canadian Dave Huntley to name a few. That experience lit my lacrosse passion and knowing Clay John planted a desire to play for Maryland. Years later my bedroom at Herk had Maryland lacrosse images posted everywhere; I even decorated the Herk helmets like Maryland’s at that time. In short while at Herk I remained intent on going to Maryland but I felt largely indifference from the Maryland staff of head coach Dino Mattessich. At the time Herk had yet to win a regional or national championship and none of Coach Wehrum’s players went on to prominent division I programs.
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