I was in the locker room Monday and saw Matt Danowski take off his Duke jersey for what I thought would be the last time. However, it has just been announced that the Duke players from the 2006 team are going to be granted another year of eligibility. Should all the seniors return, especially Danowski, Casey Carroll and Nick O’Hara, Duke lacrosse will be a juggernaut next year and surely favored to win the 2008 title.Below is the press release from the NCAA: Read the rest of this entry »

The back of the line was further than one could see. Little kids with lacrosse sticks, balls, hats, posters, anything they could find that was signable, were in line waiting for the Duke men’s lacrosse team. Between the DII and DIII national championship games, the NCAA hosted an autograph session for the two DI finalist teams: Johns Hopkins and Duke. I’m not sure how many showed up, but it was in the 100’s, approaching a thousand.As Duke resurfaces from the false allegations in Spring 2006, it was a great to see the outpouring of support from fans. Parents wanted their children to meet and have their picture taken with the players. Fans also flocked around Coach Danowski. They gave him their support and asked questions like “How do you prepare your team for a title game.”Tonight there is a team meeting at 9:30. The guys are going to watch film from the Cornell game. Tomorrow of course is the big game.Too busy now to get a gallery up, but I will try to do that in the next few days.

espn_clinic07-20070525.jpg

Photo Galleries:

• –> Practice at M&T Stadium
• –> ESPN Clinic

We arrived yesterday around 5pm but today was the first full day of events. We departed the hotel at 11am and arrived at M&T Bank Stadium shortly after for practice at 11:30am. There are already about four TV cameras on the field filming practice. Afterwards a few of the players and Coach Danowski had a meeting with the media.At 4pm, we came back to the stadium as Matt Danowski, Zach Greer and Colin Sherwood were filmed by ESPN doing a coaching clinic with ESPN lacrosse analyst Quint Kessenich. I think it took a 100 takes to finally get everything down, but look for the final product tomorrow during the semifinals.So far everything has been great here. The weather has certainly been warm. Coach Danowski has also been really friendly; he has taken to calling me “Peyton Manning”.***Updated 5/27 with links to photo galleries.***

Blue Devils Mascot

…the Blue Devils actually. After beating my Heels Sunday, the Duke men’s lacrosse team is heading to Baltimore for the Final Four. The opportunity has come up for me to travel with the team and photograph the behind-the-scenes as they head to the semifinals and possibly the national championship. The opportunity was frankly too much to pass-up; it’s not every day I get the chance to follow a team that is national championship bound, especially in a sport I love so much. If this was softball, can’t say I’d be one-tenth as excited (my apologies to all the softball players reading this).

Sooooooo, I will be shipping out with the team tomorrow to head to Baltimore. The team plays first on Saturday and if they win, will play again on Monday. My guess is I will be home Monday after they win the title. They have so many weapons it’s hard seeing them not win.

My Tar Heel brethern are probably shaking their heads right now at me for going up with Duke; especially the guys on the UNC men’s lacrosse team. Sorry guys, I hope you’ll understand!I’m excited and a little nervous about this trip. I only know one player on the entire Duke team so I’ll feel out of place for a while. Much unlike the UNC team where I know half the guys and went to college with one of the assistant coaches. But I’ll deal; I have had to do it before.

Matt Danowski

Inside Lacrosse is reporting that the NCAA will consider granting members of the 2006 Duke lacrosse team another year of eligibility after having their 2006 season canceled. Oh man, just when I thought having  Zach Greer and company was going be tough enough for the Heels to beat next year, will we see Danowski, O’Hara, Carrol, Loftus and McDevitt back too? If that happens, expect a ridiculously talented Duke team to return next year.

Brian Burke

Gallery: Photos of Duke Lacrosse v UNC

Those who wear either shade of blue in the Duke/Carolina rivalry find it to be a bipolar existence. The winning times are the best of times; the loosing times always hurt. Such was Sunday when North Carolina squared off against Duke in the NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Quarterfinals.

The game began as standard Duke/UNC issue rivalry. First, players on the two teams traded, um, emotions when they entered the stadium at nearly the same time. Second, there was a disagreement on what side UNC was to be on and what side Duke was to be on. Once it was sorted out, Duke players were sent scrambling to find their sticks on the ground amongst all the UNC ones after being sent to the other bench. Stuff like this only happens between these rivals. Also, much like previous UNC/Duke lacrosse games, UNC began with running up the score only to loose to a more ambitious run-up by the Blue Devils. While UNC was up at the end of the first half, Duke scored 7 points in both the third and fourth quarters to UNC’s 3 points the entire 2nd half.

While the loss was hard to take, the words of Coach Haus in the locker room after the game rang true: Only eight teams were fortunate enough to play this weekend while all the others stayed home. We got to play.I feel honored to have had the opportunity to cover the team. Pulling out my dinky little SLR camera for the first time and photographing lacrosse when I was a freshman at UNC some 10 years ago is what made me fall in love with sports photography and lacrosse. Since then, both have been a passion of mine. To be able to travel with team combined both of my loves and I will appreciate the opportunity.

Thanks to coach Haus and Dave Lohse for letting me come out. Thanks to all the guys for letting me photograph a moment in their lives. I look forward to next year.

Practice

Photo Gallery: Photos of Practice at the USNA and dinner at the Staines.

I’m back at the hotel now after a busy day. We left the hotel at 4pm to head to Navy Marine-Corps Memorial Stadium for our 4:30 practice. Duke was practicing before us and we arrived just as they were leaving. Always an awkward moment.

The NCAA allowed only 1 hour of practice and we could not have gone much past that as it began to rain at the tail-end of practice.

Before it rained though, the team presented eight-year-old Christian Golczynski of Crofton, MD who lost his father, Marc, in the Iraq War on March 27, 2007, with a jersey signed by the team. The jersey will be raffled off to support an educational fund for Christian. The Duke team also presented Christian with a jersey, but it is obviously not expected to raise as much money as the UNC jersey.

After practice we headed to the home of Ron and Lauren Staines, parents of Ben Staines. There players enjoyed crab cakes. The limit was 2 per players, but there definitely were some player grabbing extras. The Staines have a house with limitless entertainment activities from a pool table, ping-pong table and a volleyball court just to name a few.

It’s off to bed now. We meet at 11:00 in the lobby then have a team meeting at 11:30. Big game against Duke is at 3pm.

(updated 5/20/07 10:40am to add information about Christian)

Photo Gallery: Photos from Lunch at Ben Hunt’s

This weekend I am on the road with the UNC men’s lacrosse team as they take on Duke in the quarterfinals at Navy. We left UNC at 4pm Friday (actually we left late because of a few not-t0-be-named players were late getting to the bus) and arrived later that night at our hotel in Annapolis. We were treated to Jimmy Johns on the bus. Waiting for us when we arrived at the hotel was pizza and chicken cheese steaks. Yum, yum.

Today Geoff and Ellen Hunt, parents of midfielder Ben Hunt, were kind enough to host the team at their beautiful house just off the Severn River for lunch, one day before playing Duke in the quarterfinals. It takes a certain level of bravery to host a lunch for a bus full of hungry lacrosse players, but they were up to challenge. Within 5 minutes, the first 10 feet of subs was gone. Luckily they had backups ready to go. While eating, we watched Albany and UMBC play on ESPN-U.

I am at the hotel now and at 4pm we leave for practice at the stadium. I believe tonight we are having dinner at the Staines house. Tomorrow is the big game against Dook Duke.

Nick Tintle

Photos: Photo Gallery of UNC Lacrosse v Navy.

On March 2nd in Annapolis, the North Carolina men’s lacrosse team bore a 19-8 beating at the hands of the midshipmen. Fast forward 10 weeks later, Navy fans were scratching their heads, wondering why they were seeded 9th and being sent down to Chapel Hill to play the Heels in round one of the NCAA tournament. RPI and SOS aside, they wondered how they could be sent to play a team they pounded so easily before. A 24 hour thunderstorm delay in Chapel Hill that pushed the Saturday game to Sunday, while Annapolis enjoyed sunny weather, gave Navy fans further proof that it would have been better to play at Navy.

UNC answered those questions with the scoreboard, beating Navy 12-8 on Sunday. Was UNC beating Navy an upset? Hardly. UNC had grown up much since their beating at Navy. Before Sunday’s game, Navy coach Ritchie Meade (and UNC alumnus) himself said: “I walked off the field that night [March 2nd] thinking that we’re not as good and they’re not as bad as that score would indicate,” he said. “North Carolina has grown up and improved tremendously since that game.” [source: Annapolis Capital] After the Navy loss, UNC went on to beat Notre Dame, Johns Hopkins and gave both UVA and Duke close games.

The Heels dominated in the 2nd half, playing with the kind of skill that could win them the national championship. Okay, okay, I’m getting ahead of myself. My blind optimism aside, the Heels, utilizing brilliant goalkeeper performance by Grant Zimmerman and the unscripted offense (Burkey’s goal as testament), can beat anyone.

UNC will now play at Navy in the NCAA Quarterfinals. There, fate has them playing for a third time this season their favorite neighbors, Duke. In another twist, neither quarterfinal hosting school (Navy and Princeton) will play on the field where they will host.

I found out I am traveling with the team on the bus to Annapolis and I am stoked. Annapolis is a beautiful town and I’m looking forward to going back. This also provides a great photo opportunity to cover the Heels behind-the-scenes as they begin their march for the Final Four in Baltimore. Very similiar to the Andrew Brackman project that I am working on.

Duke Lacrosse Team

Photo Gallery: Duke Lacrosse v Air Force.

Duke played a late regular season game against the Air Force Falcons on Sunday, easily winning 19-6 in a game that left the Duke defense twiddling their thumbs while the offense scored mercilessly. In the second half, Duke cleared the bench; gone were the familiar jerseys of Danowski, Greer, Carrol and McFadyen and in were players that I didn’t even know played for Duke. As I edited the photos from the game, I had to keep reaching for the roster as I asked myself “Who the heck is this?” over and over. Photographically speaking, it was snoozer of a game. The Falcons were too overmatched to create exciting photos. Knowing what a boring blowout the game would be, Inside Lacrosse didn’t even bother hiring me for the game. Can’t say I blame them at all. Fans of Zach Greer however could have created a highlight reel from just this game as he alone scored five.

While Duke still has lots of lacrosse to play, presumably right up until Memorial Day (that’s when the NCAA Championship is for all you non-lacrosse heads), Sunday ended the regular season. Even without NCAA post-season having started, Duke has now played twice as many games as they played all last year after a Duke President, with an itchy finger on the button, dumped the entire team’s season. All that mess aside, the success of Duke this year is nothing short of amazing; and this coming from a Tar Heel born and bred, hate Dook fan. Duke had the handicap of a shortened season last year, leaving the team with vastly less practice time. Throw a wrench in the cog of having a new coach and the national media scrutiny bearing down on the guys, this wasn’t suppose to be a #1 ranked team. But at 14-2, that is how Duke is ranked in the upcoming NCAA tournament. Nearly everyone who knows the difference between a long and short lacrosse stick projects them to make the Final Four; and most project the NCAA Championship Trophy to be on a team bus heading to Durham after Memorial Day weekend. Whether this happens or not, the success of the team can’t be discounted; it is down right remarkable.

Speaking of success, that of my alma mater in Chapel Hill has been nothing short of stunning. After loosing Ryan Blair, Andrew and Stephen McElduff among others, I expected 2007 to be another rough season for the Heels. But it started with a 11-8 win over Notre Dame; a game was written off as a “lock” win for Notre Dame by some. “It” was a culture of winning that finally began to permeate the team. Last year we just seemed resigned to loosing. This year, we have fought for every point, every second. We even gave the titans of Duke and UVA a run for their money. Wins over UNC are now considered “quality wins” instead of the easy kind. It’s nice to finally be a boost to an opposing team’s SOS. One of the greatest moments for Tar Heel lacrosse was when we shocked the Hop (Johns Hopkins) 13-10. It was by far one of the most thrilling moment in my life as a professional sports photographer and Tar Heel fan. That game was held at Kenan Stadium where two years ago the football team shocked then #2 Miami. The upset over Hopkins was no less important to the school. It legitimized the team and showed that we can and would compete at the national level. This year was great, but man I can’t wait until next year. If you live in the Triangle, this weekend will hold some great NCAA action. In what could be a blowout, Duke will take on Providence at noon on Saturday at Duke. Later at 5pm UNC will take on Navy at Fetzer Field.