by Ralph Nichols

[NOTE: Interviews for this and a companion story that follows were conducted just before the 2010 youth lacrosse season ended in May. With the growing popularity of this sport locally, many players – returning and new – already look forward to a new season next spring. – RN]

Not long ago, a Burien junior high school student, who already plays baseball, basketball and soccer, told me he plans to play lacrosse next spring.

That he is not alone in this new sporting interest is one of many promising signs for the future of a game that remains largely unheralded in the Highline area.

Every spring, the “traditional” high school sports – baseball, soccer, track and field, tennis – grab all the headlines.

Yet lacrosse – first played by Native Americans in the Northeast – is the fastest-growing sport among young athletes throughout western Washington.

Increasing numbers of Highline-area boys from 5th grade through high school are marking their calendars, like the Burien teen, for the second week in March when a new lacrosse season begins.

And it will build on what, looking back, was the best year yet for teams of the Highline Lacrosse Club.

Highline Medical Center CEO Mark Benedum also coaches lacrosse.

“Just this year we turned the corner” in developing players, said Mark Benedum, who coaches the 5th-6th grade team. He was also the founder of the local club, which is now an ascending youth sports program.

Benedum fielded in the 2010 season an increasing – and increasingly skilled – number of players, who will move from the 5th-6th grade team up to the 7th-8th grade roster, and then to high school-level teams.

The Highline Lacrosse Club even had enough players this year to field a high school junior varsity team for the first time.

Lacrosse isn’t a sport sanctioned by the Washington Interscholastic Athletic Association, so competition at both the high school and youth levels is sponsored by leagues with organized clubs that are, for the most part, coached and managed by parent volunteers.

Loy Kalapo coaches both the high school varsity and junior varsity teams of the Highline Lacrosse Club. Charlie Simpson coaches the 7th-8th grade team.

They are assisted by fathers of some players, many of whom are good athletes who participated in other high school or college sports.

“A big difference here is getting dads involved who have never played lacrosse but are teaching [the kids] the game,” Benedum said. “It’s important to have the parents involved.”

All local teams play under the umbrella of the Washington State High School Boys Lacrosse Association, which is working to win sanctioned by the WIAA.

Anthony Gardner, president of the Highline Lacrosse Club board of directors, predicts that “it’s just a matter of time before lacrosse becomes a sanctioned high school sport in this state.”

Highline lacrosse program
Many residents of Burien and neighboring communities already know Benedum as the CEO of Highline Medical Center. But beyond the campus of this growing medical facility, he shares with the young athletes an enthusiasm for lacrosse.

“Lacrosse is one of my passions,” said Benedum, who played collegiate lacrosse at Cornell University. “I’ve been playing it since I was nine.”

After moving to the Seattle area he discovered there were only a handful of lacrosse clubs here. He started playing at the adult club level where most of the players, like him, were transplants from the east coast.

About seven years ago, he got a call from the president of what, at the time, was the local high school lacrosse league. The team at Mt. Rainier High School, which included some players from other Highline high schools, had lost its coach.

Since the team couldn’t finish the season without a coach, Benedum was asked if he would consider taking over, and he volunteered to fill the void.

“The high school kids were good athletes, but they had no experience” playing lacrosse before they got to high school,” Benendum recalled. This impressed on him the need for local junior lacrosse teams to feed players to the high school team, just as youth teams do in other sports.

Three years ago, the team at Mt. Rainier was renamed the Highline Lacrosse Club to eliminate identity with just one local high schools “to make all players feel welcome,” Gardner said. “Any kid in the Highline area can be on the club,” no matter what high school they attend.

The Highline Lacrosse Club also expanded, adding youth teams for younger players to increase participation and skill development.

An estimated 5,000 boys and girls played on lacrosse teams in western and central Washington this spring. The only girls’ team in the Highline area is at Kennedy High School.

There are some 40 lacrosse teams at the high school level from Port Angeles to the Tri-Cities, with about 25 of them in the Seattle metro area, Gardner said. There are around 60 teams at the 5th-6th grade level.

“I see a time when every high school will have a team,” Benedum said. For now, “the kids [from different schools] try to set aside their high school rivalries” as they play at the top level for the Highline club.

As he gazed across the Manhattan playfield in Burien during the final practice of the 2010 season, Benendum observed, “It’s good to see this group out here, to give more kids a chance to play.”

Lacrosse is “a physical game that includes a lot of running,” he added. “It offers opportunities for kids who are not necessarily big. Kids that really do well in soccer and basketball tend to have a lot of fun.

“There is a lot of team strategy. They can use the stick. And, Benedum said with a grin, “you get to hit people.”

Goal: increase players
Gardner said the Washington Stealth professional indoor lacrosse team, which won the league’s national championship at the end of its first year in Everett earlier this year, has “helped a lot in increasing interest in lacrosse” in western Washington.

Looking closer to home, he said “We’re the fastest growing lacrosse club in the country. We’re definitely the fastest growing sport in the Highline area.”

It takes 18 players to field a lacrosse team. And, Gardner noted, the 5th-6th grade team fielded 24 kids this year, the 7th-8th grade team had about the same number, and the high school team, including junior varsity, had 36 players.

“We doubled this year the number of kids playing. Once the kids turn out and get involved, their interest seems very strong. Next year we’ll be more aggressive – reaching out to the elementary schools with a grass-roots marketing campaign.”

The Highline Lacrosse Club is “looking to add a second 5th-6th grade team and a second 7th-8th grade team,” Gardner added. “Our goal is to increase interest and to build a feeder pipeline” for the high school team.

Players from Mt. Rainier in Des Moines, Tyee in SeaTac, Highline, Evergreen and Kennedy in Burien, Foster in Tukwila, and Aviation High support the high school team.

Beyond the playing field, interest has grown to the point where “we’re looking to having an official mascot next year,” he said.

Not only is the number of players improving, so is the level of play, Gardner said. While the 5th-6th grade team “struggled,” they were “building for the future.” And the 7th-8th grade team, which went 11-2, “had an awesome season.

“The high school team had an improved year, and this was the first year that we actually had 9th graders with experience.” In addition, the junior varsity “had a lot of new kids.

“A lot of new kids only means good things for the future of this program,” Gardner concluded. “I’m very excited.”

Rogers Hornsby, the great second baseman with the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1920s and 30s, once was asked what he did during the off-season. “I look out the window all winter waiting for spring,” he replied.

In the Highline area, there’s a growing group of boys who are counting the days until next spring for a different reason – it will be time to start playing lacrosse again.

The “Governor Albert D. Rosellini Scholarship” benefits deserving students at Kennedy Catholic, where two of his great-grandchildren are students, and which all four of his grandchildren attended, according to Joe Faccone of the school’s Advancement Department.

Sponsored by the school and Sons of Italy Lodge 1390, the event starts at 3 p.m. with a reception in the cafeteria of the school, which is located at 140 South 140th Street. A dinner featuring traditional Italian fare will be served at 4 p.m., with a program celebrating the former governor’s centennial at 5 p.m.

Tickets are $50, and can be purchased at the door.

An invocation will be given by Oratorian Father Clarence Jones, parochial vicar of Our Lady of Mount Virgin Parish in Seattle, the Rosellini family’s native parish.

Gov. Rosellini, who served two terms from 1957 to 1965, noted in a 2008 letter to the Kennedy Catholic community that he has strong ties with the school in addition to the fact that his offspring went there. He met President John F. Kennedy, the school’s namesake, on several occasions and in 1962 was selected chair of the U.S. governors to represent their collective concerns to the president.

“Then in 1964, shortly after his tragic passing, I was pleased to learn that the first high school in the nation to bear his name was going to be the new Catholic high school in Seattle,” the governor wrote.

For more information, or to donate to the scholarship fund, call 206-246-0500.

It is often agreed that most people over five years old and living in the United States on November 22, 1963 will remember exactly where they were when they found out that President John F. Kennedy was killed by an assassin’s gunshot in Dallas, Texas.

Today is the 45th Anniversary of this event that robbed us of our first Catholic president. The BTB thought we’d look back at this common memory through the eyes and memory of a local man who was there.

I met Tim Leahy at the Des Moines Legacy Foundation’s 9th Annual Bayside Brunch at Anthony’s Homeport recently. He was the Auctioneer, I was a volunteer.  Through the course of conversation, I learned that he not only had lived in Dallas with his family, he was at the actual parade.

His Dad Richard took Tim (6th grade), sisters Cathy (8th grade) and little sister June (5th grade) out of class to see the first Roman Catholic President. Mom Patricia was home with his two younger brothers.  From their vantage point they saw the presidential plane landing and Love Field.  The Leahy family were very excited as the Presidential Lincoln Convertible drew past their spot real slow.  Dad was taking home movies on an 8mm camera. Once they passed, Mr. Leahy got the kids in the car and drove them to a nearby restaurant for lunch.

Local resident Tim Leahy was in Dallas when JFK was shot.

In what Tim said was “no longer than 10-15 minutes, we walked into the restaurant; everyone was gathered around a radio, weeping.  A waitress told them the President had been shot.  Dad rushed over to St. Monica’s Catholic Church to pray for the president, his family and the country.”

Although they had planned to go back to school at St. Monica’s, they were taken home to start what would be a three-day television broadcast.

Like all viewers on Saturday morning, Tim and his family watched Jack Ruby kill Lee Harvey Oswald in the garage of Dallas Police Headquarters surrounded by policeman and detectives.  Let the conspiracy theories begin!

Walter Cronkite of CBS News broke into the CBS soap opera “As the World Turns” to tell the nation President Kennedy had been shot about 12:35pm CST and rushed to the hospital – here’s a video clip of that very moment:

Click here to view the embedded video.

At 1:38pm CST Mr. Cronkite was back on screen to tell American that our 35th President of the United States had died, about 38 minutes ago at 1:00pm:

Click here to view the embedded video.

BTB wants to know where were you when Kennedy died, and what were you doing?

Email us or post a Comment below…

To listen to Saturday’s game against Kentwood at Qwest Field (which Kennedy lost 28-14), click here.

To see a current schedule of games, click here.

To listen archived previous games, click here.

Here’s a Q&A with Ronnie Wald, Founder/Broadcaster of Waldcast.net:

Q: Has anyone ever broadcast football games for JFK High before?

A: We’re entering a new realm here…MOST high schools have not attempted this. Thanks to the internet, we’re now introducing a new way of thinking–yes, now local high schools can have play by play of their games on a regular basis. When, I started packaging broadcasts for california high schools in the 80′s, the only available avenue was contracting with a (not always agreeable) local radio station. We have now eliminated the middle man in that “terrestial” radio outlet–as waldcast.net becomes, in effect, the radio station…internet radio, that is.

Q: Will you be doing the play-by-play from the stadium or will someone else?

A: I handle the play by play duties which dovetails nicely with the moniker of the network.

Q: How long has Waldcast been doing high school sports?

A: After 27 years in sports play by play and hundreds of lifetime broadcasts under my belt–it all seems like one big blue mist to me. Let me say that for the last five years, the significant moment in my career was breaking away from local radio stations by creating my own network with waldcast.net. I now work wherever and whenever I choose and cut my own deals with teams. Ad rates fall significantly with a “waldcast” since we obviously don’t have the radio overhead. Also, we offer so much more in that any computer “around the world” can now listen to a Kennedy Football game–that includes you in burien or a grandma in denver–there’s just no limit. Additionally, we have a free archive where players and coaches’ who missed the broadcast the first time can come back and relive the memories over and over again. Plus, at midnight after the webcast, I have numbers that show how many were listening and where. That adds real value to my marketing push with local sponsors. In fact, thanks to the research, waldcast.net has now been heard in 49 states and over 20 foreign countries..not bad for a humble, little one-man network!

Q: Are you expanding into the Northwest with JFK games?

A: I’ve come to the Northwest to gauge the interest and partner with one of the finest prep programs in Washington at Kennedy. Thanks to the mobility of the internet..I can travel to wherever i’m needed to get the job done..right now I am needed in Burien. I literally carry this network “on my back”.

Q: How does internet broadcasting work? Is it a big operation?

A: It can be an overextended, major operation if you try to follow an example of a major network. What I’ve perfected is the one-man network where play by play, engineering and commercials are all merged in into a somewhat chaotic whole. People compliment me on how I work at such a high level while juggling all the jobs that joe buck and bob costas never have to concern themselves with.

Q: What does it take for an internet user to listen to games live?

A: Not much…just download the QuickTime Audio Player (Windows Media won’t work). There’s also a link for the free download on our game menu.

Q: What does the future hold for internet broadcasting?

A: I feel like Columbus who is first to make a claim in this brave “new world”. It won’t be too long before everybody will get on the bandwagon and offer “live streaming” of any game, anywhere. Once the “genie is out of the bottle” it will become an accepted fact that if–you have a stadium and a game and fans…you will naturally offer a broadcast component..which will be as omnipresent as hot dogs or the marching band. The only trump card with all this perpetual streaming: what will be the quality of the given broadcast product? Your choice..quantity or quality? Its a great thing if you don’t have to sacrifice one for the other..and easier on the listeners’ ears..if you have both.

Q: What other work have you done?

A: My Northwest connections include broadcasts from Gongaza, Seattle Pacific, University of Portland, Portland State, and from University of Idaho and Boise State. In 2006, Seattle University hired me to provide webcasts of their softball team in the NCAA regional in California. Another example of the power of the web…the redhawks didn’t want to fly a broadcaster down to Stanislaus state..so, there I was..ready to broadcast on a moment’s notice.

Sure, the internet sometimes has you flying off the seat of your pants..but, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Most of all we try to have fun on the these games and really highlight the student athlete. I know the emails I get from appreciative parents makes it all worth it.

Kennedy’s football schedule:

9/12	@ Tyee	7:00*
9/20	vs. Evergreen	1:30*
9/26	@ Highline	7:00*
10/4	vs. Foster	1:30*
10/10	@ Renton	7:00
10/16	vs. Lindbergh	7:00*
10/24	vs. Hazen	7:00*
10/30	@ Mt Rainier	7:00*

* Games at Highline Stadium

More info on Kennedy’s football team can be found here.

More info on the webcasts can be found at Waldcast.net.