From SPORTINGNEWS.COM
Exhausting travel and no pay: Major League Lacrosse players stick with it
- August 16, 2014 12:08pm EDT
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The sky grows dark, the clouds roll in and the lights come on. The youth soccer match on the next field finishes, and parents are picking up their children.
It’s 7:55 p.m. on a Thursday, and 10 players, about half of the Charlotte Hounds roster, are waiting on the turf field at Providence Day School. Their last home game is in less than 24 hours.
And the only practice of the week starts in five minutes.
Players file in at the last second, some coming right off hours spent on the Amtrak, others coming from their office at the bank. In fact, their head coach has to drive more than an hour from his job in South Carolina to make it to Charlotte.
At 8:01 the rain begins to fall.
(MORE AFTER THE JUMP)
The team warms up anyway. They walk through lines stretching wearing their shorts, T-shirts and cleats before they grab their sticks and helmets to run through drills.
The Hounds sit in last place in Major League Lacrosse, a sharp decline for a team that made it to the title game last year. They recently were eliminated from contention for the playoffs — which start this weekend — and will play for a paycheck that will do little to pay for things like food, bills or rent.
There is no indoor practice facility. Nor is there a locker room stocked with trainers to tape up battered ankles. There isn’t a locker room at all, just a patio with a tray of pasta after a couple hours of working out.
Just another chance to play the game they love.
By 8:27 the rain has intensified. The drills continue, players passing the ball back and forth as they fine-tune their offense, a constant flurry of activity. One player at midfield shouts, “Here we go!”
Another says, “This is why we play the game, boys!”
The rain doesn’t stop until the morning.
* * *
Brett Schmidt has heard the question more times than he can remember.
“Why aren’t you practicing now?” a coworker or client will ask.
After all, the NFL practices almost every day. Major League Baseball teams play 162 games at a minimum in the summer on top of spring training and the postseason. Why wouldn’t a professional athlete be spending his time training?
Schmidt knows the confusion, and he’ll provide the same answer: “Well, the team doesn’t live here. They fly in on weekends.”
And it’s true — he has only one day to work with his team — but Schmidt has already practiced that morning. He wakes up at 6 a.m. to head to the gym to lift or go out for a run. The next morning he may grab his stick to practice.
“If you want to play in this league you have to stay in shape.”
Then he’ll head to his job at the bank until the evening. And Schmidt isn’t alone. In New York, Denver, Baltimore, players train before heading to their “other job.”
That’s why after a year playing with the Denver Outlaws, flying from Charlotte to games, and back, Schmidt asked for a trade. And the league obliged him.
Schmidt also turned down a job that he had accepted before his senior year at Maryland was over in order to continue playing lacrosse. His boss wanted to limit him to competing during the first year of the job before ending his playing days.
“I called them a week before I was supposed to start and told them that I wasn’t going to work for them,” he said.
Some players, like Schmidt’s teammate Matt Danowski, spend their days coaching lacrosse to stay in shape.
Danowski, who was a four-time All-American at Duke and named the nation’s best collegiate lacrosse player in 2007, is also an assistant at Duke. He works camps in the summer when the college season is over to keep up with the game.
“I wish this were our full-time job,” Danowski said. “I wish we could practice five days a week and play Saturday. We’re not there yet, but we’re pioneers in this thing.”
Added Schmidt: “It’s really just a balancing act as long as you can do it.”
* * *
The Hounds are one of eight teams in lacrosse’s highest level and one of two professional leagues — the other, the National Lacrosse League, is an equally small league for indoor lacrosse.
MLL started in 1999 with six teams, grew to 10 teams, and then shrank to six teams, before expanding in 2012 to eight. The Hounds were one of the expansion teams. There’s talk of further expansion, but for now, it’s just talk.
Lacrosse has been called one of the fastest-growing sports in the U.S., but in a league growing old enough to drive, the sport hasn’t grown fast enough at the professional level thanks to financial constraints and low attendance.
That means the paycheck and hours have never been enough to sustain a living. Players earn anywhere between $10,000 and $25,000, whereas the league minimum in other sports is six digits.
Just about everyone in the organization works another job to compensate, from the training staff to the communications staff along with the players.
“You have to do something else, because you can’t live off the pay you get paid in Major League Lacrosse,” Schmidt said. “It’s not to a point yet where the teams are making enough money that you can play pro lacrosse year round. That means the MLL has to be flexible to a full working schedule."
It extends to the coaching staff, too, some of whom work with the team as volunteers. The Hounds’ general manager brings pasta to practice to feed the team the same day he worked on marketing.
For now, everyone feels like a trailblazer, paving the way for the day when it will be a full-time job.
“In the beginning you’re wondering, what’s the ultimate direction? Where is this heading?” said head coach Mike Cerino. “It’s been a bit of a grind. There are days when you realize there’s going to be another three-day weekend on the road.”
* * *
The Hounds have been around for all of three years. Lacrosse in the city of Charlotte hasn’t been around much longer.
North Carolina sanctioned lacrosse as an official high school sport, holding its first state championship, five years ago.
Established East Coast markets such as Long Island or Baltimore do a better job of sustaining teams, thanks in part to a thriving high school and college scene. There, youth lacrosse rivals the popularity that basketball enjoys in Kentucky or Indiana.
Cities in the Midwest or Deep South don’t yet have that foundation, and starting a professional lacrosse team can be a risk.
Last season, though, the Hounds exceeded expectations in Year 2, advancing to the championship game where they lost, 10-9, to second-seeded Chesapeake.
“We were looking to be the first (major pro) championship team in Charlotte,” Cerino said. The Panthers and Hornets have yet to capture a title. “But that wasn’t lost on everybody. People noticed it.”
This season, the Hounds finished last in the league. Attendance dropped. People noticed.
* * *
Two hours before the opening faceoff of a Friday game vs. the Long Island Lizards, Charlotte’s full squad arrives at the worn-out American Legion Memorial Stadium. The sky is cloudy, and the puddles remain in the stands from the night before.
Ryan Flanagan, a defenseman, rushes from his office at Bank of America to make it on time. Ryan Young, an attacker from New York, takes time off work and flies in to meet up with his team.
The game's outcome has no effect on the Hounds’ postseason chances. The Lizards, on the other hand, are fighting to extend their season. A win would allow them to control their destiny.
Matchups like this have all the makings of a blowout. NBA teams are accused of tanking to set up for the next season. Baseball teams sell off assets knowing it will hurt their team’s chances of winning now.
Not in this league. Not when every year a large crop of players can rise up and play at a higher level.
“It’s a pride factor they play for,” Cerino said. “There are only 14 of these games. Each one of them is precious.”
Added Danowski: “I consider myself very lucky to even be able to get a paycheck to play. … You’re playing for your job. You can’t take a play off because there’s a lot of guys who would be willing to play for free.”
There are just over 2,000 fans in attendance at the first faceoff. The dance team — also part time — has five members to line up for introductions and a handful of kids who brought their sticks to the game.
Few fans know players by their names. The loudest cheers come when the announcer says a player is from North Carolina — whether they start or not.
* * *
It’s 9:06 p.m. at Memorial Stadium, and dark clouds fill the sky. Charlotte trails 12-9 with less than three minutes remaining.
Some fans start to leave, aiming to beat the rain in a game that looks to be over.
Still, the Hounds make a comeback. A timeout and a two-point goal later and it's a one-point game, and the Hounds have the ball back with a minute to play.
At 9:13, the rain begins to fall.
A team that hasn’t played as a unit must put together a possession in the last minute to extend the night. They pass around the ball, looking for an open look, but nothing works, and Charlotte finishes with another loss.
“It’s tough because it’s such an isolation league,” Flanagan said. “Everybody here is a professional and everybody here (is) in shape, so you do the best you can."
The horn sounds while fans swarm the fence between the field and the stands. They offer up hats, programs, sticks or anything for a player to sign.
“Hey, Mike (Sawyer), can we get an autograph?” a fan calls out without getting a response.
“I think that’s Ryan Flanagan,” his friend explains, scanning the roster.
They try again, succeeding in getting his autograph and moving on to the next player walking down the field.
The Hounds sign autographs for nearly every person that asks even until 9:30, when the rain still falls and there are bruises that need attending to.
But this is the part of the job they enjoy the most.
Fans can’t get to Derek Jeter for an autograph. They can’t get to LeBron James for a picture. They can get to Matt Danowski, though, one of the elite players in the league.
“This is the highest level of lacrosse being played,” Cerino said. “To be around these athletes at this level is a privilege.“
* * *
After 30 minutes of fan interaction, the players finally head into the locker room, the rain still falling.
The commute home for some will take hours. Others will have to work the next day.
“I wasn’t ready to stop playing,” Schmidt said. “It’s a fun league and I hope to play for a while as long as I’m physically able to do it.”
The Hounds will lose their next two games. They will finish 4-10. Schmidt or any of the others heading back to the office on a Monday will be asked how the team did or how they feel, only to smile as they describe the pain.
And they will come back to Providence Day School for another practice, paid less to get whacked in the shins or run laps around the track than Miguel Cabrera is paid to strike out once.
Even if the rain is falling.
“You’re going to get to play at the highest level,” Flanagan said. “How do you turn that down?"
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