Charges Dropped, Perceptions Linger

Beleaguered Lacrosse Claims Redemption; Growth Ensures More Visibility, Scrutiny

As allegations against three Duke lacrosse players mounted and metastasized into a national scandal last spring, Johns Hopkins men's lacrosse coach Dave Pietramala sat in his office with his assistants, and a troubling thought arose.

"There are people sitting around, drinking their coffee in the Midwest, that have never heard of lacrosse until now," he said.

Lacrosse was -- and still is -- one of the most swiftly expanding sports in the country, spreading west geographically and soaring in popularity. According to a 2006 participation study by US Lacrosse, the sport has grown more than any other among high schools and the NCAA in the past 10 years. But still, as Virginia Coach Dom Starsia said, "There were certainly people in the world that said the word 'lacrosse' that never said it before" the Duke case.

For some outside the sport, the Duke scandal introduced lacrosse in a negative light. For those inside the sport, it served as a stark harbinger that, as the sport grows, it will come under increased scrutiny.

A measure of closure and redemption from the lesson came yesterday, with the announcement that all the remaining charges against the three former Duke players, Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans of Bethesda, would be dropped. But for more than a year, the case rocked the lacrosse world and forced officials to confront new challenges.

"There's the old saying that any kind of news is good news. I don't necessarily believe that in this case," Pietramala said.

"But what we're finding is, as our sport grows, the things that transpire in our sport are going to be more visible and people are going to be more aware of it. It's more in the public eye. Some of that is very good. But like some of the stuff that football and basketball deal with, now we're going to have to deal with some of the negative side of getting all this publicity as well."

For instance, in a probe separate from the criminal matter, Duke's lacrosse players were found to have engaged in "repetitive misconduct" and "too many have been irresponsible in their use of alcohol," according to a school faculty committee that reviewed the team.

"It probably grew up the sport a little bit," said John Jiloty, editor-in-chief of Inside Lacrosse magazine. "It's a more high-profile sport and people are covering it, and you've got to act as if you're as much big-time as any other athletes. Hopefully, it matured a lot of people."

Steve Stenersen, the executive director of US Lacrosse, argued that the sport's reputation was sullied by a national media quick to pounce on the perception that the game is played only by "rich, white prep school kids."

"The generalizations, you know -- white, rich, affluent, elitist," Starsia said. "I'm a blue-collar kid. My father was a New York City cop. I'm a public school kid from Long Island. It didn't fit me, and it didn't fit a lot of the participants in this sport. But it was convenient. It was easy."

But in the Washington area, the perception has some merit. Lacrosse is not a varsity sport in District or Prince George's County high schools, and six of the top seven teams in The Post's most recent boys' prep rankings are from predominantly white private schools, some with annual tuition of more than $20,000 a year. As for Duke, 46 of the 47 players on last season's team are white.

To expand the game's reach, US Lacrosse has a Bridge Initiative program. Locally, the Washington Inner City Lacrosse Foundation, a nonprofit founded in October 2000, attempts to introduce the sport to "youth from historically underserved neighborhoods, in the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area."

According to US Lacrosse, the sport's Baltimore-based governing body, the number of people playing lacrosse rose 68 percent from 2001 to 2006, to 426,022 players, more than 220,000 of them younger than 15. "I don't think there's been any substantial negative impact from these allegations on the growth of the sport at all," Stenersen said

As Starsia and others were quick to note, the incident is not totally finished. Recovering reputations will take time, and future litigation on behalf of the impugned players remains possible. The lacrosse world celebrated yesterday, but the Duke case will still remain with the sport.

That wasn't lost on Starsia, who was preparing for his team's next game. Virginia plays Duke on Saturday.

"I think it's going to be a wild couple days here," Starsia said. "What is the state of mind going to be for the Duke players, for the Virginia players? It would hard to predict what effect this would have on a measly little lacrosse game."