Bobo’s Vail Journal:

This year’s Vail Shootout Tournament was so fantastic that I really don’t know where to begin. I guess the best place to start would be at the end. Per tradition, our last night in town consisted of another great meal and songfest (Park School Song/Cheer Boy Cheer) at Los Amigos and the annual Pete Kohn with children conga line trip to the ice cream store. Afterwards we all hugged and promised to return next year and do it all over again. It was a bittersweet moment, thinking about all the fun we had and the fact that we would have to wait nearly 365 days to do it again. The walk back to the Manor Vail after the ice cream fest is my least favorite moment of the “Vail experience”, but thanks to Pete Kohn, this year’s walk was different. I was walking with my family and a few others and we were bemoaning the fact that our time together once again had come to an end, when out of the blue,

Pete stated, “But it wouldn’t be meaningful if it didn’t end”.

So… let’s start from the beginning.

Wed. July 4^th - I arrived at the Manor Vail to find 3 fairly small boxes of equipment. I opened the boxes and discovered that we only had 11 helmets. Erin immediately made a few phone calls and was informed by UPS that our other boxes were in Denver. Apparently, 3 of the boxes got shipped via ground delivery instead of air. No big deal, one of us would drive to Denver the next day and fetch our equipment. That evening we had a light practice and basically we just played catch. However, as usual, the new guys started doing line drills. The rest of us Vail “old timers” slipped away quietly since we knew what was ahead and resting was more important than remembering how to catch the ball on the run.

Thu. July 5^th – We had an early morning practice. Luckily several of the guys had their own helmets so with helmet swapping we managed to play some 6 on 6. I was supposed to drive down to Denver at 1PM to pick up our lost helmets, but Erin informed me that in actuality, the helmets were still in route to Denver and we wouldn’t know their final disposition until 4AM on July 6^th. This was not good news since we had a 9AM game on July 6^th.

Steve Bouchard ’76 hosted a barbecue for the Supermasters team and families at his home in Frisco (about 20 minutes from Vail). Steve was a GA with Will Graham ’76 during the ’76-’77 school year. It was a great party and was a nice way to kick things off.

Fri. July 6^th – Erin awoke at 4AM to call UPS. They informed him that our helmets were in Silverthorne, CO (about 30 minutes away). Steve Bouchard ’76 picked up the boxes and brought them to directly to the playing field in time for our first game. This was the first of a series of last second events during our short stay in Vail!

The first Supermasters game was against Air Force. It was a classic seesaw battle. We matched goal for goal and with 39 seconds left, the game was tied 9 – 9. Air Force got control of the ball and scored with 8 seconds left. We weren’t able to score in the last seconds and we lost 10 – 9. This put us into the Round Robin Consolation bracket and we were scheduled to play 2 games on the 7^th and 2 games on the 8^th. Five teams (first round losers) would play each other in the round robin to determine the consolation champion.

The Masters team played STX/Lax Unlimited (Long Island) at 2pm. We were up 2 goals immediately and everything looked great until Long Island started up their buzz saws. It was immediately obvious that we were playing against the team that would eventually win the division. Kevin Mahaney ’84 stood bravely in the goal and suffered a constant barrage of shots. Our boys fought hard, but the Long Island team was well rehearsed. The game ended STX 20 – Middlebury 4.

The annual Middlebury regional alumni reception on Pepe’s deck was very well attended. Hugh Marlow ’57 couldn’t make the trip this year, but he would have been proud of the turnout. We definitely need to find another venue for this reception next year. The restaurant staff kept trying to push us out of the eating areas because they wanted to seat people. I kept trying to convince them that our cash bar was generating more revenue than their eating customers.

Sat. July 7^th – The 8AM Supermasters game against the Geezers went into sudden death overtime and we lost 5 to 4. The 9AM Supermasters game against the Palladins also went into sudden death overtime, but we won 6 to 5 on a goal by John Burchard ’80. The round robin games consisted of 20 minute running time halves. We played a lot of lacrosse between 8 AM and 10 AM!

The Masters team played the Hollywood team in a fierce battle. It was great seeing the young guys running their offense. All I have to say is that there wasn’t a gut on our Masters team and 33 year olds sure have better reflexes than us 40 something year olds! However, the Hollywood team managed a late goal and won it by one goal: Hollywood 9 – Middlebury 8.

At 3:30PM, Greg Wheeler ’78, Mark Perry ’77, Ray Jones ’65 and I played in the Annual North/South Grand Masters (over 45) game. It was a fun game, though the play was more aggressive than I expected. At one point, I was clearing the ball and turned back to the goal and noticed a very familiar and friendly face so I flipped him the ball. Unfortunately, it was Greg Wheeler ’78 who was playing attack on the South team and, believe it or not, he turned and put the ball in the goal! I surely would have thought that he might have passed the ball back to me, his friend, seeing that I made such a grave error. But instead, I was credited with an assist on a goal against my own team. But of course, Greg probably won’t talk about how that was the only goal that he scored while I was covering him. He even tried a behind a behind the back shot and it never got past my shoulder.

Sun. July 8^th – The Supermasters team had an 8AM game against the Magic Wands. The Magic Wands clearly must have woken up earlier than us since they came out strong and scored 3 unanswered goals. We had to scramble to get our game on track. They ran a very aggressive offense and ran a lot of midfielders straight up the pipe. In retrospect this was not a great idea because eventually we got our defense together and shut them down. Unfortunately, they continued their aggressive play and one of their players was hit very hard close to the goal and was knocked unconscious for 3 minutes. He was taken away on a backboard to the hospital. (The good news is that he returned to his teammates several hours later in perfect health.) The injury sure put the scare in the Magic Wands and we came back strong and tied the game and once again went into sudden death overtime. And once again, John Burchard ’80 scored the winning goal (Middlebury 5 – Magic Wands 4). This time he got a feed from Roy Heffernan ’78 after a fantastic and heroic ¾ length field run.

The 5^th and last Supermasters game never materialized because the Hounds (Notre Dame alumni team) forfeited due to the fact that by the end of the 4th game, they were down to only 11 players.    They did ask us to lend them a few players or play with fewer players on the field, e.g. 8 on 8, but coach Grube didn't want to do that.  After seeing the Magic Wand player taken to the hospital, I think Grube didn't want us to go into the game unless we were prepared to play it straight.  I think he feared that someone would let down their guard and get injured.

The Supermasters team ended the tournament with 3 wins and 2 losses. The Palladins also had 3 wins and 2 losses, but since we beat them, we should be named the consolation champions (9^th place out of 13 teams). This is getting to be a habit. We were consolation champs at the Masters level in 1997 and 1998.

The Masters team last game was at 3PM against Prudential Financial. Our boys looked great and they took a very early lead scoring 4 goals against Prudential’s one goal. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate and eventually the game was called due to lightening.

My hat goes off to the non-Middlebury guys who traveled out to Vail this year and helped fill out our rosters. We couldn’t have fielded 2 separate teams without their assistance. They seemed to have a lot of fun and were strong contributors on and off the field. And they seemed to really enjoy our Middlebury style. In fact, Jim Ladd’s (Ithaca ’81) wife, Ariane, gave him a pep talk before the Sunday Supermasters games. She wanted him to do well so that we would invite him back next year. The pep talk definitely worked. Jim scored two goals against the Magic Wands. As a token of appreciation of the recruit’s efforts, I presented them with “honorary” Middlebury diplomas at our Los Amigos dinner.

The non-Middlebury recruits included:

Supermasters:

Jim Ladd (Ithaca ’81)

Steve Hadley (Plymouth State College ’77)

Wally Lueders (Brown ’73)

Masters:

John Corsi (Hobart ’90)

David Decker (Tufts ’88)

Rob Peterson (Amherst ’84)

Jamie Rosin (Ithaca ’87)

James Carroll (Duke ’88)

Pat Dailey (Northern Illinois ’88)

And special thanks goes to Anne Sargent, wife of Bob Sargent ’78. She designed, ordered and paid for commemorative tee shirts for all the kids who traveled out to Vail this year. It was quite a treat seeing all our kids on the sidelines with their matching tee shirts that said “Go Blue” on the back. We even had a cheer leading squad. You really can’t imagine how fantastic it is to hear a group of young kids yell the cheer “Go dad”.

While other teams make the Vail tournament a family affair, I don’t think any team even comes close to our numbers: 45 guys, 21 wives/girlfriends and 54 children (Total = 120). And please don’t let me forget the local and not so local Middlebury fans that showed up for our games.

In closing, Paul Scheufele ‘80 captured it all last year when he said, “I intentionally excluded "lacrosse" before “experience" because, as others have said before, lacrosse is the reason we go the first time, but the people are the reasons we return.”

See you all next year.

Bobo