Lacrosse Players Littering March Madness Field of 68 – What?

Call me a cuss and shallow and insecure.

You would not be wrong.

Some 20 years ago my older brothers started sending their sons to an elitist high school that had 28 lacrosse fields, a gym the size of the Georgia Dome, and alumni who all make billions selling commercial real estate office space. I rode my brothers saying they sold out sending the kids to a tony high school devoid of hardscrabble, real-life situations. They weren’t preparing their sons for what would be forthcoming, a working world filled with street-fighting, underhandedness, insincerity, and ganging up one group against another, people battling each other for food.

Then I sent my son to a tonier high school with 48 lacrosse fields, a campus larger than Duke University and vistas more pleasing to the eye than Stanford University. I did exactly what I had criticized my brothers for – but upped the ante, took it to another level of aristocratic privilege and abject hypocrisy on a scale never seen before in human history.

It was during those days I learned that the names of lacrosse players have an identifiable ring to them. T.J. Camizio and J.J. McBride are two examples.

This brings us to the March Madness Tournament which tips tomorrow as Wake Forest plays in the NIT because it lost four of its last five games thus playing themselves out of the field of 68 but who’s counting?

Having nothing else to do, I studied the rosters of all 68 teams and noticed a pattern that they are littered with names guys with lacrosse names. Now I don’t know why but could it be that as babies their parents gave their boys lacrosse names figuring they would end up playing lax but re-directed them towards basketball once they figured out there was more NIL money and lifetime income to be had for their sons and the extended families playing college basketball.

People do things often for money and no other reason.

So where does all this lead us? It leads us to an eye-opening listing of the names of the players in this tournament who probably started out being lacrosse players and then switched to hoops to make more bank. Here’s a sampling of the names of these laxers-turned-hoopers:

Finley Sheridan, Bennett Steele, Stetson

August Mahoney, Swen Stanwick, Yale

Tanner Hayhurst, Cade Jojek, BYU

Conor Enright, Drake Darnkell, Drake

Cade Kelderman, Reed Kenlaw, Iowa State

Cormac Ryan, Paxson Wojcik, UNC

Jaxon Kohler, Conner Sexton, Michigan State

Aidan Mahaney, A.J. Mahoney, St. Mary’s

Jake Heidbreder, Flan Jexto, Clemson

Braden Appelhaus, Thrash Gogen, New Mexico

Will Kuykendall, Whip Geddy, Arizona

Maddox Monson, J.R. Jetset, Long Beach State

J.J. Hurley, Cleeve Rhoden, Utah

Reed Sheppard, Grant Darbyshire, Kentucky

Cooper Craggs, Brent Big House, Oakland

Casey O’Malley, Carney Whiplash, Marquette

During the tournament you’ll get to see these guys play probably mostly in garbage time once the games are no longer competitive.