Liberty Lacrosse Blog, Day 5, Part 1

Day 5: Friday, January 13, 2017

I got up around 6:50 a.m. and got ready to go for a run. Danny and Joey biked down to the beach to see the sunrise, and Kelly, Nina, and a few of the girls drove over. I ran the mile-and-a-half over to the beach and arrived about 10 minutes before sunrise. It was a sight to behold, as the waves crashed in and the sun appeared from the horizon. I didn’t even bring my phone to capture it because I just wanted to soak it in.

After hanging out for another 15 minutes, I finished up the remainder of my run and got ready for practice. Practice followed a similar structure, with a full field passing drill, positional skill-specific breakouts, and a scrimmage situation to end it. We had to pack up everything for good, being that it was our last day of practice at the school.

We all drove over to the Seabrook Island sign at the entrance of the town, and I was put in charge to take the team picture while the coaches filled up on gas and went to the grocery store. We took the team picture and then headed back to the houses for lunch.

The girls have a beach workout scheduled for 2 p.m. I’m going to bike over there in a bit, go for another run, and try out some boogie boarding.

Liberty Lacrosse Blog, Day 4, Part 2

Day 4, Part 2: Thursday, January 12, 2017

After everybody got ready, we made the trek to Charleston and arrived around 2:30. I didn’t realize just how hopping Charleston was. The downtown area featured a market, the College of Charleston, tons of restaurants and shops, huge houses, and tons of museums that looked like houses and had historical significance. Finally, the city is situated on the bay, which feeds right into the Atlantic Ocean.

We parked and walked to the Charleston City Market, which was established in the 1790s. There were numerous vendors across the four blocks. I ended up getting an Arnold Palmer that was made from freshly squeezed lemons. I don’t think I had ever seen lemons turned to lemonade and an ultimately an Arnold Palmer.

The girls wandered off in groups at the market and to various other stores in town to shop. I went with Kelly, Nina, and Karyl to the waterfront area. As we were approaching the bay, we saw a pod of dolphins traveling together and jumping out of the water as they went along from our left to right. When we got up there, they were off in the distance and kept moving along. Eventually, Joey, Danny, and Logan met up with us, and we ended up hanging out there for another 20-30 minutes. We did see some more dolphins, but they weren’t quite as cool as the first group we saw.

After that, we went to Rainbow Row, a series of colorful historic houses in downtown Charleston. It was cool to see and read about the history of the buildings dating back to the late 1700s.

We continued walking along the coast, eventually finding White Point Garden, which was a really cool park with humongous trees, green grass, and a pavilion. As we approached the park, we saw a guy proposing to his girlfriend and now fiancée. She said yes, and a short photographer guy took pictures of the whole event as we applauded in the distance. Just a normal Thursday.

We made our way back down Meeting Street, passing several more gigantic houses and museums that once were houses. Eventually, we walked into the College of Charleston basketball arena to use the bathroom. It was a smaller gym but still very nice.

We finally met up with the girls just before 5:30, and most if not all of them had successful shopping trip, as evidenced by the many bags they carried.

We crossed over the Ashley River and made our way to Swig & Swine, a BBQ joint in the area. As we pulled into the lot, our staff van belted out its best version of Edwin McCain’s song “I’ll Be”.

The aromas alone made me hungry. The brisket, pulled pork, mac & cheese, baked potato salad, and banana pudding all were incredible. I don’t think anybody walked away hungry or dissatisfied with the delicious southern BBQ.

On the ride back, we listened to some good tunes and had a good time. We are now at the house, about to watch This Is Us. Joey is satisfied that he’s getting to drink his chocolate milk for dessert. 

Liberty Lacrosse Blog, Day 4, Part 1

Day 4, Part 1: Thursday, January 12, 2017

It was another warm morning for practice. The girls did conditioning with Karyl first and then got into practice. I’m learning a good amount about the game just by listening or asking the girls questions. The girls worked on a full field passing drill and then split up by position to work on position-specific skills.

The defenders worked on ground balls, while the attackers worked on a new offensive scheme. After that, they came together and worked on some 2v2 situations. Practice wrapped up with full field work.

We got back to the house a little bit ago and had lunch. Everybody is getting ready to head to Charleston. We’ll spend the day there, exploring the stores and the area. We’ll all have dinner at a barbecue place later on. 

Liberty Lacrosse Blog, Day 3, Part 2

Day 3, Part 2: Wednesday, January 11, 2017

I went for a run around the island and happened to pass by Mel, Lindsey, Caroline, and Jenna as they were biking back from their lift. After getting back, I finished up some work for the tennis teams before heading over on a bike to watch the sunset with everyone.

When I got over there, the sun was about 20 minutes from setting. Some of the girls thought it’d be a great idea to go in the water. The water is 56 degrees, and I only went in with my feet. It was quite cold to say the least.

The sunset was stunning, as the waves crashed into the shore. The girls took several pictures and a big group photo right before the sun went down.

I went over to the one house but didn’t have my hotspot handy for The Bachelor. It would have to wait until after dinner. We went next door for dinner at 6:40, and the girls in the house were finishing up preparing tacos.

After praying, we had a delicious meal. Following that, we went back to the other house to finish up The Bachelor. Following the episode, I just hung out with the girls and got to know them better.

Four of us rode bikes back to the house, where we watched part of an episode of Shark Tank and a full episode of This Is Us.

I’m pretty wiped out from all the sunburn and activities today. Tomorrow should be another fun day. After conditioning and practice, we will have lunch and then head to Charleston for the rest of the day. 

Liberty Lacrosse Blog, Day 3, Part 1

Day 3, Part 1: Wednesday, January 11, 2017

It was a beautiful morning in Seabrook Island as we headed to practice. When we got there, it was already pleasant out. Within the first 10 minutes, I removed my jacket because it was plenty warm. The girls had a tough morning of conditioning, with numerous sprints orchestrated by Karyl.

During practice, some of the high school girls from the school came up to us asking if they could film practice because they were doing a project on women’s leadership. I set up an interview with them and Faith, and they asked her some questions. I spent practice watching different elements of lacrosse. I spent some time watching defending, passing, and goalkeeping. For the final part of practice, the team worked on full field stuff.

After practice, we came back to the house for lunch, and I worked on stories for men’s and women’s tennis while the girls went to rehab and lift. I’m about to go for a run now, and then we are all meeting at the beach at 5 p.m. for the sunset.

After that, I’m bringing over my hotspot to the one house so we can watch the end of The Bachelor. We’ll have dinner at the house next door at 7 p.m.

Liberty Lacrosse Blog Day 2

Day 2: Tuesday, January 10, 2017

I woke up to Joey Lyons telling the girls a story of me yelling in my sleep last night. I obviously had no recollection of it nor do I remember having any nightmares. When I was in Arizona in college for a spring break baseball trip, I was told by my friends one morning that I was talking in my sleep. My one friend said I sounded like Donnie Thornberry from The Wild Thornberrys.

We left for practice at around 8:30 and got to Charleston Collegiate High School, a private school, for practice. Danny and I worked on setting up shot clocks and goals (which we barely had a clue how to do) while the girls stretched and began conditioning with Karyl (strength and conditioning coach).

I spent most of the practice watching the attackers and working on learning everybody’s name and number. Towards the end of practice, I think I had them all down. I also asked Faith (one of the team captains) some questions about the game, as I am a novice to the sport.

Post-practice prayer

After practice, we went back to the houses for lunch. Most of the girls left after lunch to head over the fitness center in the area to rehab and/or lift.

I took a short nap and then went on a run through the neighborhood. I mostly went down Seabrook Island Drive and then ducked over to the beach to check out the view of the ocean. The waves were lightly rolling in, crashing into the shore. I also got to see the clubhouse and practice area for one of the golf courses in the area. After the run, I hopped on a bike and went to town to get coffee at Java Java. However, it was closed when I got there, so I had to go to the Starbucks at Harris Teeter.

The ride back was quite adventurous, as I could not get my bike seat to cooperate. I spent about five miles trying not to spill my coffee on a bike with an extremely low seat (quad burner). Before I got to the house where we would have dinner, I hung out by the beach as the waves crashed in further than they had just a few hours prior. I missed the sunset, but there was still a glimmer of light coming from the horizon. The sound of the ocean waves is such a peaceful sound.

Once I got over to the house where dinner would be served, several of the girls were busy making chicken teriyaki, rice, and broccoli. At the same time, the rest of the girls were watching this week’s episode of The Bachelor. A week ago, I got roped into the craze known as The Bachelor, and let’s just say I wanted to watch it with them. We only watched part of the episode before pausing it for dinner.

It was a delicious dinner. After dinner, the team activity for the night was “Body-Body”. The game itself is very similar to Mafia. In this particular game, we drew cards, with one person drawing the King (the killer). We turned off all the lights, and the killer would “kill” at least one person until someone found the “dead” person and yelled “Body-Body”. The goal of the game was to determine who was the killer. We played three rounds of the game. In the first two rounds, we figured out the killer pretty quickly.

However, in the third round, Melanie set it up so there would be two killers, and I was one of them. Eden turned out to be the one killer, and then Melanie and others seemed to plan it and accuse others besides me, even though I ended up “killing” multiple people. My reign finally came to an end after several rounds.

I biked back to our house with some of the girls. We didn’t know until tonight that there was a ping pong table in the basement. Joey and Danny played a few games, and Carly played against Danny. She is a pretty good player and had some battles with Danny.  The rest of the night, we ate ice cream and watched the show This Is Us.

Everyone has gone to bed, and I’m just about ready to go to bed. Tomorrow will be a day with even warmer temperatures, more conditioning and practice, and more fun. I’m having fun getting to know this team and learning the game of lacrosse.

Liberty Lacrosse Blog Day 1

Day 1: Monday, January 9, 2017

The journey with the Liberty lacrosse team has begun. After a 12 plus hour drive back from Chicago to Lynchburg, I packed up on Sunday night to get ready for the lacrosse preseason trip to Seabrook Island, S.C. The crazy thing is that Lynchburg has more snow than Chicago right now. My apartment complex was poorly plowed and an ice rink.

I met the lacrosse team in the fall through some practices but didn’t have a ton of interaction. I got over to the East Campus Field House around 8:10 a.m. The crazy thing is that Lynchburg has more snow than Chicago right now. They certainly don’t know how to handle the snow the way the northerners do. There was a delay with one of the vans, so we didn’t take off until sometime around 9:45 a.m. I rode with Joey and Logan, the athletic trainers. We made the 415 mile trek down to Seabrook Island, stopping once at Subway for lunch.

While it has been cold down here today, starting tomorrow it’s supposed to warm up into the 60s and eventually the 70s as the week goes on. Once we got here, we realized the house did not have any heat downstairs. The upstairs was fine, but downstairs was freezing cold. After unpacking, Joey, Danny (the team manager), and I went to pick up pizzas to bring over to one of the other houses.

We got 15 pizzas and 10 salads and brought them over to another house the girls are staying at on the island. We feasted on pizza and watched the first quarter-and-a-half of the national championship game between Clemson and Alabama before heading back to our house.

The rest of the night was spent bundling up under many blankets and watching the title game. Everybody had their own blanket or shared with someone sitting next to them. In the end, my Clemson Tigers pulled out a thrilling 35-31 victory over Alabama to win the title. Just as I ran two sprints down the hallway in a hotel in Philadelphia after the Chicago Cubs won the World Series, I ran two sprints down the street after the victory.

Only coach Kelly slept downstairs, as everyone else elected to sleep in the significantly warmer upstairs. Tomorrow will bring the first day of conditioning, practice, and lifting down here.