I apologize to all those that have read this blog before on my MySpace page, but let's be honest here... Nobody goes on MySpace anymore! So here's a little story I'd like to tell about one bad MoFo you may or may not know so well...
Well, as many of you know from the hundreds of text messages I had sent out way back in 2007, I attended Open Tryouts for the LA Riptide of Major League Lacrosse up at the Home Depot Center on St. Patty's Day of that year. What I came away with was a great experience, a reaction in my eyes probably from the field-turf, and a sore body.
So here is the diary of the day... The day was broke up into two sessions. The morning session which was basically line drills, one-on-ones, 4-on-3's, 5-on-4's and 15 minutes of scrimmaging; and the afternoon session which was a full field scrimmage in a game type of situation.
My friend Jimmy Lin and I went in, not knowing what to expect, but immediately we both saw another player from SD who we had played against. Later, just before the afternoon session, I also was greeted by a goalie I had played with in Junior High. Man talk about a weight that was lifted off my shoulders! The more West Coast people that I saw there, the better I felt. Now during the line drills, I was relaxed and pretty much didn't miss one ball that was thrown in my direction. This felt pretty damn good, as I could tell there were people there that were tense and messing up these routine drills.
In the one-on-ones, it became apparent that I had lacked some serious game-time situations, as I was having a hard time playing defense and getting by my guy on offense. In college, there was really no-one who I felt could defend me in a one-on-one situation, but I was definitely lacking my old moves or whatever. Still, I scored a few times and had some good showings. In the unsettled 4-on-3 and 5-on-4 situations, I was able to showcase my full field speed and open-field abilities on the field. A couple of the current Riptide players were out, and were telling us that, "Cross-checking is full legal in this league." That statement has to be a defenders dream come true. I certainly used it! He proclaimed, "Doing these wild stick checks isn't gonna work out here against these players. What works is playing good defensive positioning, and just basically cross-checking the shit out of everyone!" The last 15 minutes of the first session was done as a scrimmage. I did ok in that, but was happy for our lunch break as the unsettled full field situation had gotten me pretty damn tired!
Flash forward to the afternoon session, and the full field scrimmage portion. I was playing middie, and had to face off, which I don't like doing, but was able to do ok on face-offs. It was at this point that I found out a few guys had flown out from back east, who had played at Division I NCAA schools. But I have never felt intimidated by that. I have never played on a D-I team or against a full D-I team, but I have played against these players from D-I colleges before, and I have been able to hold my own against them in the past, and was still able to on this day. Still, any time I would try to drive one-on-one, I would be turned away. That surely couldn't bode well for me. But just when I thought I wasn't doing good, I got a pass near the two point line (in the MLL there is a 2-point shot), and I ripped a shot past the goalie, on his hip, stick-side! That definitely got me noticed, as no one else had even shot from that far out. The next time I faced off, one of the current players asked what my name was! Fuckin' Awesome! It's apparent that I could still use a lot of improvement before playing in this league, but if you put me up against guys at a professional level, I will start to play with them eventually.
I awaited anxiously to hear from the Riptide, but if they saw any sort of potential in me they sure didn't let me know. If so I would've been asked to register in the MLL player pool where I would have to be picked up as a free agent to go to training camp. All-in-all, this experience made me want to join a club team to play on a regular basis because I love to play. I can honestly say, that I am way past the tryout stage now though.
