A perennial sport in the East, lacrosse has infiltrated the Midwest and become a contender for varsity recognition. Several MIAC schools, including St. John’s, St. Thomas and others, implemented varsity programs and are helping lacrosse become a legitimate sport in Minnesota.

Gustavus Men’s Lacrosse began much like a pick-up team would, a story straight from the script of Sandlot. The team disbanded as a club sport following the 2000 season and did not reassemble until 2008, marking the beginning of a rebuilding program scrambling for organization.

“Jonas [Broccard], Luke Nord and this year’s graduating class was the building block that got the program off the ground,” explained Senior Midfielder Andy Setterholm, narrator of this sandlot story. “Broccard did a lot of work to secure us funding from Student Senate that first year. We bought ourselves equipment and got a lot of other people interested.”

Broccard plays the role of Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez in this script, representing the guru who took Gustavus Lacrosse from a small team of misfits tossing in the parking lot to a cohesive unit of roughly 25 players. “We’re coming along as a program and had a lot of first-years come out for the team this year,” Setterholm said. “It’s at the point now where the younger guys in the program can take it to whatever level they want.”

However, before this year, Gustavus men were like a bunch of Scotty Smalls—full of curiosity for lacrosse, but completely inexperienced and naive to the game. “Most of the people in this league haven’t played in the past,” Setterholm said. “We say, ‘Hey, are you interested in lacrosse? Buy a stick, come to practice.’”

“I just started playing lacrosse last year,” Senior defensemen Adam Phenow said. “I wanted to play a team sport again and I didn’t want the big commitment of a varsity sport. But I didn’t know any of the rules.”

Although initially inexperienced, Phenow is more like a Ham Porter character than a Scotty Smalls. “When I first started I wanted to play defense because of my size,” Phenow said. “I’m usually bigger than the attackers, and they’re not trying to be physical, so it’s fun for me. I like to push people around.”

Ham Porter was a character notorious for having a greater bark than bite, with his most famous line accusing his competition of playing like a girl. However, the Gustavus men would probably benefit by playing more like their gender counterpart.

“The women’s team is definitely at a different competitive level then we are,” Setterholm said. “It’s to their credit that they have kept themselves organized over the past few years. They are really serious about practicing and conditioning all year.”

A lack of organization and motivation seem to be the biggest inhibitors preventing the men from reaching a higher level of success. The team finished 4-7 in the Great Lakes Lacrosse League in 2011, a season which came to an end last weekend at the league’s playoff tournament in La Crosse, Wisc.

“[Our league] is kind of the bottom tier of men’s lacrosse, but it [consists] of student-run programs that try to get their own equipment and teach people the game,” Setterholm said. “Our league is growing a lot and has gone from 10 teams to 30 in the past few years.”

Gustavus Lacrosse may lack coaching and an organized training regimen, but it provides a fun alternative to the rigors of varsity athletics. “Coaching is just a matter of money. If we want to pay a coach, we can do that,” Setterholm said. “[However] it’s not like hockey where everyone’s dad played the sport when they were younger, so it would be hard to find a volunteer.”

Seeking a father to coach the team might not be the most logical, and the Sandlot story should serve as a testament to this. Not until Scotty Smalls learned the game from his peers did he learn how to throw a ball, and this analogy can be applied to this story as well.

“For our team right now, for our preparation and ability, the league that we are in right now is about right for us,” Setterholm said. “There are a lot of advantages to keeping lacrosse club.”

The intimacy of a club team and the passion involved in a successful one maintains the integrity of a game. Men’s Lacrosse has had their fair share of losses, but any neighborhood kid would agree that the true recreation of a sport can only be properly represented on the sandlot.