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Fredericksburg Academy girls coach Walter Hoffman
Lauren Falkenberg balances a lacrosse stick on her nose during a lull in a girls summer
Courtney Hoffman (left) and Paige McDermott battle |
After one of his Fredericksburg Area Girls Lacrosse League scrimmages, coach Walter Hoffman was walking around the Fredericksburg Academy lacrosse field, collecting balls and pennies.
He had already handed out popsicles, an end-of-practice tradition for the league, when he noticed his team doing something no boys lacrosse team would ever do.
"They were sitting in a perfect circle, complete strangers, and they were just chatting up a storm," Hoffman said. "They were all just sharing stories. There wasn't much silence in the conversation, either.
"It was funny to me because you'd almost never see a boys team doing that."
Camaraderie has become the norm at the weekly pickup lacrosse game for about 20 middle- and high-school-age girls.
And they take their direction from Hoffman, a former Williams College lacrosse player and father to two of the league's members.
When his daughters Courtney, 15, and Rachael, 12, took an interest in sports, Hoffman couldn't help but nudge them toward playing lacrosse.
"Courtney started when she was 7, and Rachael started at 5," he said. "That's when my transition to women's lacrosse started, too."
To help, he traded in his men's stick and picked up a women's stick, which lacks a deep pocket and makes catching, cradling and shooting more difficult. But the hardest thing for Hoffman to pick up in this transition were the differences between the two games.
In time, Hoffman started to prefer the women's game to the sport he played.
"Every now and then, I'll see a men's lacrosse game and ask out loud, 'Why did he do that?'" he said. "The women's game just makes a lot more sense to me now.
"There's a lot less substitution, and everybody on the field has to be able to play everything. There's a lot less specialization."
Hoffman lends his watchful eye and expertise to a handful of young lacrosse enthusiasts at their weekly games.
The league, which costs participants $5 per week, is designed to accommodate summer schedules.
Even more accommodating to the league's members is the league's lax attitude that Hoffman hopes will keep its attendance up.
"I've heard that people came in and tried to run their teams too seriously," he said. "What I like about it being casual is that they pick up just as much goofing around with the stick. They try stuff they'd never do in a game. Even that goofy stuff is good for them."
On Wednesday, Hoffman led a 6-on-6 scrimmage in which both teams played offense and defense.
He let the girls play, shouting instructions from the sidelines and stopping play only to explain some of the game's finer points. But for the most part, Hoffman lets the play flow without interruption.
That time on the field means a lot to Jordan Banez, a rising senior at Fredericksburg Academy, whom Hoffman has tapped as a good Division II or III college prospect.
"It is true that you need to spend a lot of time playing with a stick in your hands to get better," Banez said. With this league, it makes that time a lot easier and a lot more fun.
"I don't even realize. an hour and a half goes by and it feels like 10 minutes. I just like scrimmaging because it lets me get out and play."
During a scrimmage, Hoffman even took a minute or two to instruct daughter Rachael, one of his biggest critics.
But so far, the 12-year old Fredericksburg Academy Middle School student has only one complaint against her father.
"I get to see my friends, and I don't like to stop playing, so this fixes those things," Rachael said. "I get to have some fun out there.
"Whenever he tells stories, I get embarrassed, though. He always talks about me and my sister when we didn't know how to play, and that's pretty embarrassing. That's the only thing he does wrong."
Carden Hedelt: 540/374-5440
Email: sports@freelancestar.com
