thePULSEBecker College Tosses Its Hat into the Lacrosse Ring with Its New Men’s Team
By Kyle Devitte
I’m a lacrosse guy. There is no way around it. I can’t escape it. It follows me everywhere like a tattoo. But I also think of myself as a well-informed lacrosse guy, so finding out that a new NCAA program had sprung up a mere eight miles from my apartment in Worcester came as quite a surprise. But indeed, Becker College has thrown its hat into lacrosse ring as a first year NCAA team – and I didn’t even know about it until a month ago. I feel much shame.
Becker College’s main campus is located about six miles outside of Worcester. A short jaunt down South Main Street will take you past Webster Square and into Leicester. Up a small hill to the right is the school itself, the home of Central Massachusetts’ newest sports team.
According to US Lacrosse (www.uslacrosse.org), the sport’s national governing body, lacrosse is one the fastest growing team sport in the United States. Youth membership (ages 15 and under) has more than tripled since 1999 to nearly 100,000. No sport has grown faster at the high school level over the last 10 years and there are now more than 130,000 high school players. Lacrosse is also the fastest-growing sport over the last five years at the NCAA level with 224 schools with men’s programs and 275 schools fielding women’s teams. Hundreds more schools have founded national club programs with the hopes of raising their athletic profiles as well.
Worcester itself is already home to several lacrosse programs in its own right. Clark, Assumption, and Holy Cross all field NCAA men’s teams. WPI and Worcester State also have their own club programs, and Worcester State has started its own NCAA sanctioned women’s team as well. So it is only fitting that a city already familiar with college-level lacrosse should welcome another school to its NCAA family.
Ken Cameron, who played lacrosse at his alma mater Lyndon State in the late 70s when the sport was tougher and meaner than it is today, is the head coach of the new Becker program. Coach Cameron also happens to be the Dean of Students at Becker and has coached both the women’s soccer and softball teams as well. In 2000-2001, he was awarded coach of the year honors for both sports by the North Atlantic Conference (NAC). The NAC is also the conference that Becker’s new lacrosse team will be playing in this season. The NAC will have an automatic qualifier for the NCAA tournament in 2007, a spot that Cameron thinks “…makes a huge difference in the growth of program.”
Cameron is proud that the lacrosse team is yet another step in the right direction for Becker ~ a new men’s ice hockey program starts next year and a women’s lacrosse team is also set to take flight next spring. But there is one impatient female lacrosse player who won’t have to wait until then ~ freshman lacrosse defender Sarah Lennon is the only female on a men’s NCAA lacrosse roster this season. Says Cameron, “We called the NCAA about [it]…since there is no women’s team this year she is cleared to play with us. She works hard and the guys have really accepted her.” Lennon joins an already eclectic bunch of players: Becker’s roster includes players from as nearby as Holden, MA (freshman defender Chris Smith, coming from Wachusett Regional HS) and as far away as Maryland (Midfielder and Captain Andrew Goldstein, coming from Churchill High). Goldstein, in particular, is excited about the upcoming season. “We’ve worked hard and I’m looking forward to playing this season. Coach is really enthusiastic and he’s done a good job organizing this program.”
Coach Cameron adds, “We have made a concerted effort to raise the sports profile of the school and have added several [other] academic programs as well. Next year we hope to offer more varied and modern programs. Things like advanced computer programming, web design and video game design. It’s all about improving the school and serving the [needs of the] students.”
By the time this issue goes to press, the Becker men’s lacrosse team will have played its first home game at Alumni Field in Leicester on March 25th against NAC conference foe Castleton State College and then Worcester’s own Clark University five days later on the 30th of March.
