George Huguely trial hangs over start of a new college lacrosse season

CHARLOTTESVILLE — Up and down the Eastern Seaboard, and even in some growing hotbeds near the Mississippi and beyond, this weekend is the beginning of spring, because the college lacrosse season truly gets underway. Most teams ranked in the top 20 of the preseason coaches’ polls, men and women, will have played their season openers by the end of the weekend. The march to the NCAA semifinals and final, the sport’s biggest celebration — a convention and party wrapped into one, held on Memorial Day weekend — has begun.

But here, where the Virginia men’s team is ranked first in the nation and the women are seventh, there is an inescapable backdrop. The trial of George Huguely V — a former Cavaliers lacrosse player accused of murdering a counterpart on the women’s team nearly two years ago — is coming to a conclusion. And fairly or not, because lacrosse has not yet become part of the nation’s mainstream sports discussion, the story of the death of Yeardley Love in May 2010 has become not only about the University of Virginia and its campus culture, about domestic violence and alcohol abuse and a smattering of social issues, but about the sport they both played.

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The Washington Post's Jenna Johnson reports from the ground Charlottesville, Va., where the murder trial of George Huguely V had been delayed due to an illness of a defense attorney. (Feb. 16)

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The defense for George Huguely could wrap up its case. He's accused of murdering ex-girlfriend Yeardley Love. (Feb. 18)

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• The Huguely case: What makes for a media mob?

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Indeed, when defense attorney Francis McQ. Lawrence first addressed the jury Feb. 6, he said of Huguely: “He’s not complicated. He’s not complex. He’s a lacrosse player.”

Such broad-brush painting rankles the lacrosse community, which felt unfairly stained by a 2006 case in which white Duke players were accused — wrongly, it turned out — of raping an African American stripper they hired for a party. Now, another season opens, with another ugly backdrop behind it.

“People think it goes hand-in-hand: the prestige and lacrosse and these incidents,” said Harry Alford, a former all-American goalie at Maryland who three years ago helped start the boys’ lacrosse program at Wilson High in the District. “That makes for chaos in the media. If you’re inside the sport, you know that’s not what lacrosse is about. But it’s such a sensitive subject.”

Not all ‘elite and exclusive’

The stereotypes that are reinforced in the Huguely case are well-trodden in lacrosse circles. Though the sport has Native American roots, it took hold in the early 20th century at elite colleges and universities, then in prep schools. That spoiled-rich-kid reputation has been difficult to shake, even as the sport has grown exponentially.

“Every stereotype has a basis,” said Steve Stenersen, a former college player at North Carolina who heads U.S. Lacrosse, the sport’s national governing body. “But I don’t think describing lacrosse today as elite and exclusive is an accurate description.”

Alford’s three-year-old program, one of a few in the District’s public school system, would be one example. Public school teams are now the norm in suburbs from Washington to Baltimore through Philadelphia and New York, well into New England. And for those kids, the Huguely case may not mean much.

“I doubt these kids even know about it,” Alford said.

Those who are trying to spread the sport beyond the East Coast certainly know about it, and a tragedy so closely linked to lacrosse makes their task harder.