Florida Lacrosse News on Substack 02/17/2025
Welcome to today's post!
#TAFTAG
#LayOffTheRefs
#FloridaRising
#LacrosseFanandDamnProudOfIt
#StopYellingWard
#AcknowledgeFloridaLacrosse
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Welcome - Southwest Florida Shootout Tournament Video
Buy tickets HERE
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Substack Update on College Coverage
College games tend to be most played on Friday-Monday. That coincides with two days’ worth of high school coverage, so you will see a second approach to college coverage. For the weekend coverage, the Colleges will be placed in their own Substack publication, which will be released on Tuesdays, so we can include the national polls and most of the weekly reward winners.
We’ll also be able to highlight some of the best performances of our kids in college that way, but I will put a few into the normal daily high school recap too. The College Substacks will have a title to indicate the Recap. Some colleges will play a Tuesday or Wednesday game and since the numbers are smaller, we will include those recaps within the daily high school Substack.
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Saturday In The Park . . . and in the Stands, By the Fence and Introducing One to Our Sport
Okay, going back to the old theme of years ago of using my favorite music to introduce a segment, here’s one that fits nicely with this . . .
YouTube LINK
I’ve been dating a woman who had never seen a lacrosse game in person and really had not known anything about the sport, so as part of introducing her to it I had lent her Jim Calder’s wonderful book about the history of the sport (which she has read a chunk of already) . . .
I also showed her a few clips of highlights so she could see the visual appeal, and I felt it was right to take Saturday and go on a road trip on Saturday to fully introduce her to it. And before you give me grief about Sunny Isles to Palm Beach Gardens not exactly being a road trip, rest assured, with even minimal traffic, that is basically the same amount of time it takes me from Boca to the Paradise Complex in Naples. Particularly since she is oceanside.
We got a bit of a late start and arrived when it was 3-1 Jupiter early in the game. Standing on the fence line for the first half, we watched a run of goals for Benjamin and took seats in the stands for the second half. I kept it pretty basic for her on rules and strategy since she is not that much into sports. She certainly enjoyed the speed of the action, even comparing a few things she saw to Ballet (she’s a classical music buff and is practicing to perform in Mozart’s Requiem, so that was the easier reference point for her).
By the way, I’ll give my thoughts on the game below in the Things That Caught My Attention Section.
Thankfully, she did enjoy watching the game, so that part of bonding was a success. Since this day was about more than lacrosse, off we went to downtown West Palm to have a bite and drop in on the opening weekend of the best dessert shop on Planet Earth.
Street parking available! Right in front of the store, next to Meyer Amphitheatre, and down the block from Bradleys, a wonderful old-school place to eat. Quesadillas for her and I had the distinctly non-lacrosse pregame meal of the Prosciutto and Melon Salad. Okay, enough of my feminine side.
On to what I saved my caloric intake for . . .
Just Baked’s new West Palm location, 255 Narcissus Avenue, WPB, 33401 . . . I do get a freebie for endorsing this, but it isn’t like an Alabama Football NIL deal . . . now open!
We split a cookie and a Chocolate Milk Shake, and walked some of it . . . okay, pretty much none of it . . . off and after congratulating the owner/operators, headed out back to Boca to quickly pick up a jacket for her, since I know all about the plunging temperatures that hit Don Jones Field at night, for the second game of the trip, the rematch of last year’s amazing 1A FHSAA semifinal between Saint Andrew’s and Community School.