What is the greatest TV show ever created? Is it ‘Breaking Bad? ‘The Wire?’ Game of Thrones?’ No. There is only one correct answer to the question, and that answer is ’The Sopranos.’
I love the Sopranos. Growing up in the early 2000’s, it was a Sunday night ritual; turning off Sunday night football, and turning on HBO to watch the critically acclaimed crime drama with my dad. We watched it upstairs because my mom didn’t quite have the same affinity for the show as we did. When I watched it for the first time, I was more drawn to the vicariousness of it all; the violence, the shock value, and the explicit material. It felt like I was watching something I wasn’t supposed to be watching. With my dad’s permission, and with the understanding that it was just a show and though in some ways imitated real life, wasn’t to be taken literally or modeled after, we would break down every episode. We would groan when we heard the music play, which signified that the credits were about to role, and we’d have to wait another week for a new episode (back when you couldn’t binge watch programs). It was easily the fastest hour of the week, as I was on the edge of my seat the entire episode. As I got older (and could binge watch shows) I loved it for the quality and complexity of the plot. On the surface, it’s a story of a New Jersey Mob boss and the struggles he faces as the leader of his ‘family.’ But underneath, there are many subplots that make the show what it is. Like the fact that the main character, Tony Soprano, goes to therapy for panic attacks. The fact that many argue that he is a borderline personality, teetering on the edge of psychopathy and sociopathy, but has anxiety induced panic attacks makes his plight that much more interesting. You begin to see him show emotion only in regards to birds, and horses, but is indifferent towards other people. He continues to apply some of the coping strategies in therapy to help him in his role as a mob leader, but in other ways regresses in his personal life. He is highly intelligent and has almost premonition-like dreams that he is intuitive of. Where other past mob movies mainly showcase murders, and shock kills, this show deep dives into other areas of the human psyche, where violence is present, but not really all that important to the overall themes of the show. Not to go off the deep end, but I bet if any college level philosophy courses examined ‘The Sopranos,’ they could fill a semester on this show alone, especially in regards to themes like morality, Christian faith vs secularism, and what Nietzsche describes as the ‘overman.’ These are all reasons why I believe this is the greatest show ever aired on television.
Wow. I just went on a bit of a tangent there. What the heck does any of this have to do with Lacrosse? Well there is something that Tony Soprano says in the pilot episode of the show that always stuck with me, and is a great analogy that I use for players that struggle to understand what it takes to be a college player. So no, this is not my dissertation on the philosophical themes found in the TV show, ‘The Sopranos,’ sorry to disappoint.
What Tony says in Season 1, Episode 1 (and I will be paraphrasing here) is that “everyone now and days turn witness protection, no one today has any respect for the penal experience.” I will break this down for all the non-mob genre lovers. In mafia culture, there is what is known as ‘omerta’ which is just a fancy Italian term for ‘code.’ In this particular case pertaining to the mob, it’s a code of honor, a code of silence, and a code of loyalty that can’t ever be broken, even in the face of authority figures, government, or people outside the ‘organization.’ Once you swear the oath of omerta, you can never betray it, no matter what the consequences (trial, imprisonment, etc). In the show, there are many references to the ‘old guard’ of made guys who faced these challenges. Characters like ‘Richie Aprile,’ ‘Feech La Manna,’ and ‘Phil Leotardo’ were old gangsters that were featured in the show after long stints in prison (circa 20 years). There is implication that within the “family structure,” you were rewarded for your silence. If you go to prison, you will receive your same status and ‘earning’ potential upon your return to society, while both you and your family are “taken care of,” while you are away. What Tony is saying, is that the organization is crumbling due to the fact that federal agencies and task forces are growing larger, and younger members are not willing to do the same time their elder mentors were. The ‘Omerta’ code didn’t have the same respect or reverence to them, and they felt it was easier to cut their losses and their ties to organized crime and seek refuge elsewhere, under the protection of the federal government. This is actually somewhat accurate. Author Peter Reuter examines how the demise of the older values of loyalty in Mafia families help contribute to their downfall in his article, ‘The Decline of the American Mafia.’ https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA17379694&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=00333557&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7Eedae0487&aty=open-web-entry#:~:text=Abstract%3A,territories%20by%20other%20criminal%20elements.
To summarize, to avoid a lengthy sentence, younger gangsters were looking to take the easy way out.
I’m sure there is an audience that is still confused and waiting for me to get to the point of this ridiculous analogy. I am not trying to glorify the mafia or anything like that. The point here being that in any organization (whether good or bad, but hopefully good) in order for the structure to work and for the individual to reap rewards, you need to be all in. You need to be loyal. You can’t take the easy way out.
Tony Soprano talks about the “penal experience.” This is a very harsh comparison, but when talking about recruiting specifically, my staff and I talk highly of the ‘4 year experience.’ This is very important to us, and our team structure. We value 4 year players. We recruit guys coming out of high school under the premise that they are bought in to playing college lacrosse for 4 years. I want to talk about why is this so important.
First and foremost, I believe you win with 4 year players. Obviously for this rational I am excluding the junior college group for a minute here because they are an exception, but at the NCAA DI, DII, and DIII levels, that’s where you find success. As former UD football coach, Stan Zweifel used to say, “you win conference championships with juniors and seniors, not freshmen and sophomores.” I think most people understand what I am driving at with this piece. I could spend all day talking about the value of 4 year guys. From experience, to maturity, to leadership, to physical development, the list goes on and on. There are so many reasons why you would want your team to have a healthy number of upperclassmen each year. Obviously, for younger teams just adding, it will take time to get there, but after a few years it will be worth it. And just for all the left brainers out there that only deal in logic and facts, University of Dubuque has only won its conference 1 time, and it happened to be the year where we had our largest senior class in program history (10).
Is this to say the your underclassmen are not important? Absolutely not. If a freshman in your program is good enough to step on the field on day 1, good. Think how good that player will be by the time he is a senior. But it’s not always about who is the best and who isn’t. The freshmen in your programs need someone to look up to. The seniors that lasted for 4 years had to learn from someone. Someone left an impression on them, or else they wouldn’t have made it that far. Regardless if they are a starter or not, they will teach your incoming group what to do, how to act, what is acceptable and what isn’t. They will set the standard for your program. And when your freshmen class one day becomes the senior class, it will be the group of seniors that they learned from that will leave an impression on them for when their time comes, good or bad (our current junior class were freshmen the year we won the league in 2022. Next year they will set a standard for everyone coming in that will be greater than that of which they learned from).
I know every program is different in terms of their culture, and their values. I value 4 year players. I value the commitment it takes. I value giving something time to grow and develop. In a world of instant gratification (texting, binge watching, fact checking) we don’t hold enough value in hours spent doing something. It’s all about who can do it the fastest, or solve it the quickest. It’s no wonder my generation is a mess (yes I went there). I don’t want to be a traitor to the millennial generation, but there are a ton of us out there are living under the guise of ‘if you don’t like the way something is going in your life, then make a change.’ This is like the unofficial millennial slogan. I’ve been working at this job for a whole year now and I haven’t seen any improvement in my situation. I haven’t gotten a promotion, a raise, praise for my work, so I am going to quit. Sadly this speaks all too true in some scenarios. If any friends or colleagues my age think I should be canceled for speaking on behalf of our generation, Simon Sinek talks about it at length in one of his interviews
I, just like anyone, could understand making a change if something really isn’t panning out the way they had thought it would. But the key is to put real time into that something first. Nothing great was ever created overnight. It takes hours and hours of work. It takes years of steady and consistent effort in many cases. And it takes loyalty. If your heart is set on working at a specific firm, you need to show them that you are going to be a faithful employee if you want to climb the latter. These are things that transcend sports. They are good lessons to learn in college, and sadly that is becoming harder and harder to teach.
Tony Soprano talking again. “Kids these days…they got no respect for the 4 year college experience’ (in New Jersey accent). I am attempting to be humorous but there are a lot of things working against 4 year college players now and days, and it isn’t their fault. Mainly, it has already been touched on in this article; the age of instant information and gratification has seeped into college sports. Don’t like that show your watching? That’s ok, just turn on a different one. Not interested in this person? Just swipe left to find someone new. Not interested in that school you chose? Hit the transfer portal and find a new school. We are all victims and perpetuators of this quick change mentality. Ever since COVID, leaving schools has never been made easier. I was at a recruiting event over the summer in Utah, and I had an ninth grader ask me if guys don’t like our school can they just use the transfer portal. No doubt he was just very young and not really understanding of the whole recruiting process but before we knew it, we were only answering questions about the transfer portal. Before long we were basically trying to re-wire their pattern of thinking, explaining the goal of choosing a school isn’t to have 2 or 3 options and leaving if the first one doesn’t work out, but to pick the best choice possible for your goals and trying to stick with it for 4 years. If something super extreme or unforeseen happens, the transfer portal can be a means to explore other options, but it should never be at the forefront of your decision to think, ‘I’ll try this place out and if I don’t like it, I can leave.’ You should choose a school that you would attend for 4 years regardless if you were playing a sport or not, because lacrosse can be taken out of the equation and you need to make sure you love your institution if that isn’t an option for you anymore.
But who can blame them? This is all they hear and see now and days. Anytime a high profile player enters the portal it turns into shades of LeBron James exclaiming “I’m taking my talents to Miami, blah, blah, blah,” all over social media. It doesn’t even have to mean someone is actually transferring, they just have to enter the portal for it to become newsworthy. We are conditioning our youth to not only think all this transfer stuff is normal, but that it is important. If someone gets attention off it, good, bad or otherwise, they think “maybe I can get attention that way when I’m older. Maybe I’ll be the subject of some sort of contest to compete for my ability.” I think it’s the wrong message to send.
Another reason the 4 year experience at one location is so rare isn’t just transferring because ‘I’m not playing at my first choice,’ but quitting altogether. This is far more common in my opinion. It could be easy to say that it is more apparent in the Midwest than other places, because I do think you are seeing this transpire everywhere, but since I have lived here, and the years I have spent coaching, I have made some keen observations about the conditioning taking place at the HS and club levels. In my last piece, I examined the culture changing to just playing games, vs intentional instruction and concerted practice. When games are the main focus, that leads to some other damaging effects. Everything ultimately becomes about playing time. Most of the kids playing in the Midwest getting recruiting to the college level are some of the best players on their respective teams. Makes sense. I mean if all of us weren’t trying to recruit the best players, then we are doing something wrong. But where the game is a little less developed in these non-traditional hotbeds, you get a lot of kids that are so accustomed to being the best player right away. Their HS team is usually not very good, because lacrosse is still newer in their area, so they were probably on varsity early, like in 9th or 10th grade. They played on a summer club team with other kids just like them from their respective high schools. So their entire life has been centered around them being a starter, and never knowing what it feels like to not be ‘the guy.’ As a natural growing up, they get to college and for the first time in their lives, they aren’t playing, let alone starting. In my stint as a DIII coach in the Midwest, I have dealt with this a lot! It’s hard to try to explain that everyone coming in is learning a new system, a faster, more physical game that rewards tough players that make great decisions, and exploits the opposite. Sometimes it takes a year or two of practice to develop enough to be on the field in a game. Sometimes it’s necessary to get stronger, develop better habits, and grow as a student of the game. For a lot of young college players, it’s very hard for them to hear that they have a valued role on the team, though that role doesn’t include playing in the actual game right now. And because of what they were conditioned to believe, when faced with the choice to buy in, learn and develop for a year or two, and get on the field as a junior or senior versus giving the sport up and quitting altogether, many players sadly choose the latter.
I was lucky growing up in high school. I tried out for the varsity team as a 9th grader and got cut and told to play JV and develop for a year before trying out again. I was devastated. At the time I was fighting back tears for sure, whether or not anyone ever knew that. It just hurt probably because it was the first time I was ever really rejected in my life. I tried out again as a sophomore and made the team, but never played. By my junior year I was starting and my senior year I was team captain and an all-league defenseman. In college I would get on the field as a junior and a senior as well, but ultimately never back to the amount I was playing in HS. But I did everything I could to continue to get better each year. I don’t think I would’ve been able to make it through 5 years of a college sport, mentally, if I didn’t experience that early failure. I came into college not expecting a damn thing, except the understanding that I, and I alone, was responsible for earning whatever playing time I would be given. College athletics isn’t a charity, I’m afraid. A lot of jobs and careers are held in the balance of the outcomes of these games, and you can rest assure that no college coach ever makes a decision to play, or not play someone, in haste. No, the decisions that go into putting someone on the field in a game are extremely toiled over, and meticulously thought out. I promise you that.
So in summary, regardless if coaches are hitting the transfer portal hard or not, most people would like to see their team have large classes of seniors and veteran players each year leading them into the meat of their schedule. And I am always the first one to say that it is hard to make it the distance. We all know the stats at this point in time. Something like less than 7% of HS athletes go on to play college sports. I would love to see the stats of how many of those athletes actually go on to finishing their career at the same school they started and competed for 4 total seasons, and that’s not even taking into account injuries, redshirts, academic eligibility, grad school, etc. I bet the percentage would be incredibly small. It is a rare thing to be able to compete for all 4 years. It’s a special thing for sure. I have seen so many talented players play a year or two, and then quit because of something as trivial as lack of playing time. I try to explain that it takes time and just like anything, people develop at different rates. Before you know it, you have smaller senior classes that funneled down because of ‘natural attrition.’ Now, winning helps for sure. Once we started winning, retention increased and guys were more willing to go through the trials and tribulations of a 4 year experience if they believed they would be a member of a winning team vs a losing team, and I understand that. But it says so much more about someone’s character to put time into trying to get better. I find the guys that really get it, usually will find their way on the field eventually, provided they stick it out and don’t give up. And as a coach I always try to take care of my seniors. Anyone who sticks it out for 4 years with me, will be in the front of my mind for playing time if they aren’t are starter. So for recruits out there that are on the fence about playing a college sport for 4 years, if you are 50/50 right now, maybe a club experience could be more what you are looking for. You have to be all in to make it through 4 years of collegiate athletics at the Divisional level, because it isn’t easy. If you are a first or second year college player that has limited field time so far, I would tell you to stick it out. Don’t quit, don’t take the easy way out, and don’t go into hiding. Like Tony Soprano says, ‘this thing of ours,’ when describing the ‘mob,’ I like to think graduated seniors can look back after a 4 year playing career and make an inside joke about being part of a ‘crew.’ If you last for 4 years, that’s something no one can take away from you. You are part of a special club. You can even say, you ‘Made’ it.
KASEY BURST
The HC at the University of Dubuque, Kasey brings all things college lacrosse to your inbox.