Wiedmer: Even without TSSAA label, McCallie lacrosse title a big deal

The McCallie lacrosse team defeated Memphis University School 13-11 on May 16.
The McCallie lacrosse team defeated Memphis University School 13-11 on May 16.

Before the Spring Fling comes to an end this week in Murfreesboro, the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association will crown state champions in five sports: baseball, boys' soccer, softball, tennis and track and field.

So for a lot of folks who think the TSSAA is the only governing body over high school athletics in this state that matters, McCallie's stirring 13-11 victory over Memphis University School in the Tennessee Scholastic Lacrosse Association state title game last Saturday doesn't mean much.

Even Blue Tornado senior Tyler Wilks, who'll play at Providence College next year, admitted Tuesday, "Sometimes I don't think we get the respect from people in general that we might if we were a TSSAA sport."

But that doesn't mean the Blue Tornado's 10th state championship in its 25th year of fielding a recognized (non-club) lacrosse team shouldn't be celebrated, whether it's a TSLA title, a TSSAA crown or a shirts-and-skins scrimmage in coach Troy Kemp's back yard.

After all, how many prep athletic teams anywhere can say they've won 10 state titles in 25 years at the highest level available to them? And whether the TSSAA sponsors lacrosse or not, McCallie has become so respected nationally that it recently rose to No. 15 in the latest Max Preps poll.

In fact, when asked his favorite moment of the season other than the state championship, senior Paul Silverblatt brought up a 14-6 loss to the Landon School in Maryland, which has won three national championships and held 11 of its 22 opponents this spring to fewer goals than the Blue Tornado scored.

"We didn't win, but that let us know that we could be competitive with any program in the country," said Silverblatt, who'll play NCAA Division I lacrosse at Bellarmine University next year.

Yet until 1989, McCallie didn't even offer lacrosse as so much as an intramural sport.

"There was not a lacrosse equipment store within 500 miles of campus," recalled David Hughes, who now runs the school's honors scholars program but was the man who introduced McCallie to the sport in 1989. "Losing a ball, or breaking a stick, was a big deal, especially a goalie stick."

Purchasing equipment was also a big deal, since players were required to buy only their sticks ($100) and gloves. Hughes and Hank Lewis -- a 1985 McCallie alumnus who had returned to coach soccer -- were going to have to raise money for everything else.

"We sold T-shirts, sweatshirts, anything we could think of," Hughes said. "My wife Kathleen worked more concession stands than we could count. Carrington Montague and a number of parents and alums contributed more than half of the $9,600 we eventually raised to keep the program going the first two years."

Fortunately, they had Lewis's 1971 Delta 88 convertible to serve as a "mobile equipment room" to transport the necessary gear from Baltimore.

Yet because Lewis was, in Hughes's words, "both charismatic and a great coach," lacrosse took root on the side of Missionary Ridge.

McCallie claimed its first state championship in 1991 in the fledgling Tennessee Secondary School Lacrosse League. A second title arrived the following spring before Kemp took over the program in 1993.

"To show you how much different lacrosse is now than then on our campus," Kemp said Tuesday, "our guys didn't want championship rings when we won it in 1994 because they thought everyone on campus looked at it like Ultimate Frisbee. Now we actually have guys interested in coming to McCallie because we play lacrosse."

Saturday's state title was Kemp's eighth as coach. Twelve of his 16 seniors among his 36 players will play college lacrosse next year. Four juniors already have been promised college scholarships.

But even with it costing as much as $400 a player to field a team, he's hopeful that the TSSAA will sometime soon sanction lacrosse.

"It's the fastest growing sport in the Southeast," Kemp said. "It's not cheap, but it's a physical sport that anyone can play. You can stand 5-5 or 6-5 and it doesn't matter. It's all about teamwork and hard work."

Said Silverblatt, who was also a key member of the McCallie football team: "I think what I like most about it is that you can get substantially better at it every day. I don't know of any other sport where that's true."

TSSAA executive director Bernard Childress said Tuesday that he's definitely intrigued with adding lacrosse in the future.

"But we currently have more than 400 high schools," he said, "and less than 40 of them play lacrosse. I think we'd have to have close to one-third of the membership fielding teams before we'd strongly consider adding it."

Because he wanted to "stay in the South" for college, McCallie's Sam Viscomi will play his college lacrosse at Sewanee rather than a larger school farther north or east. Because Viscomi also played football for a Blue Tornado bunch that broke a six-game losing streak to Baylor, a sports writer couldn't help but ask which was bigger, the football win or the lacrosse state title.

"That's a great question," he said. "Beating Baylor in football was like winning the Super Bowl. But winning a state championship is everyone's goal. Nothing beats a state championship."

Nothing.

No matter if it's TSSAA, TSLA or TBA. A state title is a state title, regardless of the label that precedes it.

Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.

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