When I first set foot in upstate New York I quickly learned two very valuable lessons. Never, ever call what I was raised to identify as a footlong sandwich and a coke as anything other than a “saab and a paap”. And the sport that comes in second only to hockey in relevance and importance was not baseball, it was lacrosse.
While the Long Island and Westchester suburbs had a decent history and association with the sport, the city itself had virtually no representation of Canada’s actual national sport. And it paled in comparison to the level of connection and success that the farther reaches of the state did, particularly in Central New York. The year I got there, the Hobart Statesmen were in the middle of a 12-year run as Division II champions and the defending Division I titlist was the Big Red of Cornell. And for a school that in my mind was better known as a way to get an Ivy League education at a state school price if one feigned an interest in becoming a farmer and a bridge where at least one suicide attempt a week would occur–even before winter would set in and set the mood for it–that was a revelation.
Cornell did not repeat as champion the first year I was there, nor the second through fourth. And in no year since my graduation.
Until yesterday.
Which is why I suspect those with deeper current connections to the CNY were even more enthusiastic than was USA TODAY’s resident JEOPARDY! superstar Eddie Timanus with the news he dropped yesterday:
The wait is finally over for Cornell. After nearly five decades, the Big Red are finally on top of the men’s lacrosse world once again.
Top-seeded Cornell (18-1) defeated No. 2 Maryland 13-10 in front of a Memorial Day crowd of 32,512 at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, to claim its fourth NCAA title and first since 1977. The Terrapins (14-5) won the title in 2022 but had to settle for a runner-up finish for the third time in the last five NCAA tournaments.
Two days after Cornell relied on its supporting cast to survive a semifinal challenge from Penn State, the Big Red’s biggest stars shined brightest in the final. CJ Kirst, who will likely be adding the Tewaaraton Award to his trophy case later this week, notched six goals and an assist, and his fellow attackman Ryan Goldstein found the net four times. Five of Kirst’s six tallies came after halftime as the Big Red asserted control of the game.
CBS SPORTS’ Cody Nagel chimed in with some emotional context:
“I know it’s been a long time for the whole group, but I came on the heels of the 2009 national championship with the expectation we were going to win one here,” Cornell coach Connor Buczek said postgame on the ESPN broadcast. “Credit to these guys, credit to these players, credit to this tradition, credit to my staff. I’m the luckiest guy in the world and I’m surrounded by incredible people who just work their tails off day in, day out. I’m so happy for the university. I’m so happy for our tradition. This feels incredible.”
That 2009 championship that Buczek referenced was a title game which Cornell lost, one of five such runners-up trophies that they settled for since that last title, and was at the hands of the school that tends to define Central New York success, the Syracuse Orange. It was one of eleven titles in a 26-year span claimed by the Orange under the leadership of the legendary Roy Simmons, Jr. and John Danko. But the Orange haven’t won since that May day in Boston 16 years ago, which means it’s been that long a drought for CNY at this level. Virginia won three times. Notre Dame captured the last two before yesterday. Heck, even Denver won one.
And do remember that folks in Ithaca, let alone the rest of the region, have to tolerate winters that frequently last right up the onset of the playoff season–sometimes even dangerously close to the Memorial Day weekend that has of late been reswerved for lacrosse’s Final Four. So a wait that was already quite long becomes all the more interminable when one considers what one has to slog through to get there.
So if you’re a Big Red alum, or even an Ivy Leaguer who otherwise overpaid, play that anthem loudly today. Follow the urgency of the refrain from the song title that appears at the top of this musing:
- Lift the chorus, speed it onward,
- Loud her praises tell;
- Hail to thee, our Alma Mater!
- Hail, all hail, Cornell!
It’s been THAT long. They’ve earned your warbling.
Courage…