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College Crosse Prospectus: Former Wolverine Running For Governor In Michigan

All the lacrosse news you can handle and plenty more!

Maryland v Michigan Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD MORNING, College Crosse Nation!! Thanks for making us a part of your day! Here are your links for July 19, 2017.

What You Missed

We took a look at how the teams in the Patriot League did this past season.

The legend John Grant Jr. officially retired from the NLL after retiring from the MLL this past year.

Lacrosse The Nation

Former Michigan Wolverines player Abdul El-Sayed is running for governor in Michigan, from Daniel Strauss of Politico.

At 32, El-Sayed has amassed an impressive resume. He was a three-sport athlete in high school and then played on the lacrosse team at the University of Michigan. He won a prestigious Rhodes scholarship to Oxford, got his medical degree at Columbia and then taught at the university’s Mailman School of Public Health before returning to Detroit to serve as the executive director of the health department for the city of Detroit, the city’s top public health official. But he’s got one big gap on his CV: He has never held elected office. Energetic or not, he knows he has a lot to overcome if he has a prayer of winning the Democratic primary in August 2018. Hence the public speaking lesson.

“Let’s pretend,” El-Sayed tells the two staffers, “that I’m speaking to Democrats in Michigan’s 11th Congressional District.” If there is a district that demonstrates the challenges ahead for a political novice with a Muslim surname it’s the 11th. Predominantly white collar and affluent (it includes Bloomfield Hills, where Mitt Romney grew up), the district is reliably Republican. But it’s the kind of place where El-Sayed knows he will have a hard time making the case that his progressive economic agenda can win statewide. Setting down the lacrosse stick and projecting over the heads of his campaign staffers sitting in front of him, El-Sayed launches into his stump speech.

“I want to tell you about what people are telling me are the challenges in their lives. They talk about feeling locked out of their economy. They talk about knowing that their children are getting a substandard education in their public schools. They talk about their fear for the Great Lakes and whether or not they’re going to just have clean water to drink. They worry about whether or not they’re going to lose access to their health care,” he says.

Every other Lehigh Mountain Hawks men’s lacrosse account is now a fake.

A great story from Megan Schneider of US Lacrosse Magazine on the Haudenosaunee being able to use their own passports to get into the UK for the FIL Women’s World Cup.

It was a struggle that left many Haudenosaunee women unsure of their future playing lacrosse for the nation. Alie Jimerson, former Albany attacker and former captain of the 2015 squad, was one of those individuals.

Jimerson first set her eyes on following in the footsteps of the Thompson brothers at Albany and on the international stage to prove that “we, Native America girls, can go far.”

But soon after her U19 team withdrew, she transferred to Syracuse to play under all-time great at Syracuse and for Canada, Gary Gait, and then made Team Canada’s 25-player training roster following the Team USA Fall Classic last October.

"I wasn’t going to wait around and get told I couldn’t play in a World Cup again,” Jimerson told Excelle Sports in the December of 2016. “This decision was not easy for me because once I transfer over to another country, it’s binding, meaning I can never go back and play with Haudenosaunee again, even if I do get cut, which is upsetting. I made this decision because I love lacrosse and I just want to be able to play at one of the highest levels possible and have a chance at a gold medal.”

Her Canada and Syracuse Orange teammate, Taylor Gait, helped Canada defeat England yesterday. They play New Zealand today.

Cornell Big Red interim head coach Peter Milliman discusses his incoming freshman class in an interview with ESPN Ithaca.

One current Big Red player is killing it in summer box lacrosse:

The Princeton Tigers held their Tiger Lacrosse golf outing on Monday.

As a musician and former sports player, I can definitely relate to US Lacrosse Magazine’s Matt DaSilva’s article on how non-sport activities can help multi-sport athletes.

The cognitive benefits of playing the saxophone were obvious. Research demonstrates that musical training in children is associated with heightening of sound sensitivity as well as enhancement in verbal abilities and general reasoning skills. You could say this helped me dissect fast breaks and communicate slide packages as our point defenseman.

Behaviorally, the preparation and focus it took to master my small role in a larger ensemble translated directly to team sports. And when I was front and center — say, for a solo or an impromptu challenge from a fellow saxophonist who sought first chair — I learned poise under pressure. I also made a lot of mistakes in both pursuits, figuring out how to navigate failure.

The connections become more difficult to draw when searching for the physical advantages of being a band nerd. Playing a wind instrument, in particular, increases your lung capacity and teaches controlled breathing. There’s also a lot of muscle memory at play. Finding the right combination of keys to hit the right note was not all that different from finding the tape on your stick for the perfect release.

Then there’s the fun factor. The more I enjoyed the arrangement, the better I performed.

The Maryland Terrapins officially congratulated Chris Mattes on his new job with the New England Patriots.

And the Georgetown Hoyas officially welcomed back David Shriver as an assistant coach:

“I am extremely excited to bring David back to the Hilltop,” [Kevin] Warne said. “He will be a huge asset to the program in numerous ways. David is organized, passionate and will be a tremendous role model for our team and program. I cannot wait for him to get started and see him interact with our players.”

With the Nittany Lions, Shriver was instrumental with the team’s offense by developing the extra-man unit and offensive personnel. Penn State reached the NCAA Tournament twice during his time in Happy Valley while posting 12-win seasons in both 2013 and 2017.

Shoutout to Team Jamaica, who named Lehigh assistant coach Errol Wilson as head coach for the 2018 FIL World Championship!

Looks like the Boston Cannons got replacements after their trade debacle with the New York Lizards.

But wait...

Probably through waivers is my guess but I don’t know.

Speaking of the Bayhawks, another great article on how they want to build a brand new lacrosse complex in Anne Arundel county, from Ed Waldman of Pressbox.

Bayhawks owner Brendan Kelly -- another son of Anne Arundel County -- and Burdett want to use 90 acres of the Crownsville property to develop the stadium, 20 soccer-sized fields (with lights), and a three-story building that would contain locker rooms, an event facility and office space.

A stadium that size, which [Mark] Burdett said would be constructed to look more like an amphitheater, could also be used for high school sports, NCAA and high school playoff games, high school graduations and professional soccer.

The total cost of the project, including infrastructure, would be in the neighborhood of $135 million -- $40 million for the stadium, $30 million for the fields and between $50 million and $65 million for "abatement and reconstituting the property," Burdett said.

"We have not met with anybody who is against this," he said. "There's a leader of the community association that represents 35 community associations in the Crownsville area that is completely in support of the project. They obviously don't want apartments or strip centers or anything like that on the property because of traffic and because they don't want the congestion and they don't want the view, for lack of a better term. But green grass and kids playing sports, I think everybody can get their arms around that, and Anne Arundel County is underserved in that capacity in a pretty significant way.

It may be tough for this to happen because of money, but it would be great for the MLL if it did go through.

One of the best wins of the Ohio State Buckeyes’ season was against the UMass Minutemen, their first ever win against the school in program history.

Gorgeous.

Philly Jawns

A huge seven-hour standoff ended early this morning in the Germantown section of Philadelphia.

World News

The last Boeing 747 jumbo jet may have just been built.

Videos of the Day

Competitive tag is a sport and it’s really fun to watch:

That’s it for today!! I’ll see you out there!! Make sure you follow us on social media!

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Managing Editors: Safe Fekadu, Chris Jastrzembski, Ryan McDonnell