Lee's Corner Archives - Florida Lacrosse News

Jul302020 by Lee RoggenburgNo Comments

Choosing Compassion Over Hatred: How Gabe Clark Overcame Racial Adversity

Across The LAX World, Celebrating The Game, Featured Posts, Florida Lacrosse News, Lee's Corner, Youth/Club

Lee’s Note: Gabe Clark is a very impressive young man. Never mind the fact that he is a top-notch player who is looking at a possible D1 lacrosse future or that he is looking at several terrific academic institutions that are D3. Or that he is a leader among his peers. None of that prepares you for the unexpected life event that propels you to prominence; life does not always run on your chosen timetable. Sometimes life choses you, not the other way around. I’m confident Gabe understands that, as you will see below. For the few reading this and wondering about what this is about, there was a youth club lacrosse event in Orlando last weekend and during the semifinals of one of the two high school brackets an incident occurred where racial slurs were used by a few members ...

Jul282020 by Lee RoggenburgNo Comments

An Update On The Last 24 Hours

Across The LAX World, Featured Posts, Florida Lacrosse News, Lee's Corner

Well, it's been a pretty intense day. And as the situation plays out I want to bring the readers up to date as well as make sure a few things are addressed right away. The fact gathering is continuing and Sweetlax Florida has put out a tweet this afternoon: https://twitter.com/Sweetlax_Fla/status/1288200445937299458 This is an acknowledgement and those words were likely carefully chosen to indicate that they are taking full responsibility for what is found out and the fact that a club team is named in this makes it clear where the investigation is pointing to. And that leads me into an important point that needs emphasizing, because I didn't mention it in my last post: There is no reason whatsoever to attach any blame on the event itself, or the organizers o...

Jul272020 by Lee RoggenburgNo Comments

My Turn to Apologize

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Late yesterday, after the Orlando Faceoff event ended I was informed that racial slurs were sent at 3 players from another team and that one of the families would reach out to me to give me details. I have not heard from that family yet as I write this. The story has been sent through social media to Kyle Harrison, who published the following on his Twitter: I clicked on the tweet and started to read the comments and came across a comment by Jeff Katz, which I assumed was the details of what happened. This is what I read: One of my U11 players was called the N-word. He told me. I called a TO and told the opposing coach. He talked to his player. The player walked over & apologized. Then he was sent home from the tourney. He was the their best...

Jul182020 by Lee RoggenburgNo Comments

Saxton Dunlap’s Next Step Is One That Needs A Wide Net To Be Cast

Across The LAX World, Featured Posts, Florida Lacrosse News, Lee's Corner

The lacrosse goal is 6 by 6. The net we need as a lacrosse community is a good deal wider. But the good news is we need to only score one goal in it. And that goal only needs one assist. But it also needs a lot of passes to set it up. Saxton Dunlap was diagnosed with T-cell lymphoma in May, 2020. He needs to find a matching donor so he can have a stem cell or bone marrow transplant. The best chance of finding a match is with someone who shares the same genetic heritage. Because Saxton is African American/White, his best chance of a match is with someone who is also multi-racial. That's the goal. Let's get to work. Spread the news to all we know. And put this one in the win column. Here's the link: SAXTON'S ARMY WHAT YOU CAN DO J...

Jul122020 by Lee RoggenburgNo Comments

From The Vault: My First FLN Article – March 7th, 2013

Featured Posts, Florida Lacrosse News, Lee's Corner

As we gear up for the big event in Vero this week, I went back into our database and based on my data search this looks like it is the first article I wrote for FLN and it was a game coverage of Columbus playing Spanish River, on March 7th, 2013. Yep, over 7 years ago now. Needless to say, my writing matured a bit since then. I also saw that there was a lot of my early stuff that focused on MLL exploring the market at FAU to gauge interest in moving a franchise into the stadium, which we were blessed to have for 5 years. The Hamilton-Rochester game (that was a MUCH better article) and an interview with then MLL Commissioner David Gross were two highlights of that early coverage, as well as my first big kerfluffle that Tom West and I now chuckle at, but was intense for abo...

Jun192020 by Lee RoggenburgNo Comments

LaxRecords.Com April Broadcast – With FLN On Board

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Back in April, after the seasons had come to an end, Mike Loveday invited me to appear on a live YouTube chat with himself and Mike Ward and here's the broadcast. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KddabpAi_rk If you didn't get to see it the first time here it is.

Jun172020 by Lee RoggenburgNo Comments

Back to Work! And Some Thoughts . . .

Across The LAX World, Featured Posts, Florida Lacrosse News, Lee's Corner

(Author's note: We will be leading off this re-boot with another sad story in our local lacrosse community, just adding to a miserable 2020 for the sport, and that will be up later today but I needed to get a few things off my chest before we get to it. Also, if you sent in a Recruit Commitment questionnaire that hasn't been published yet but your choice has changed please let me know at lee@floridalacrossenews.com) It's been a lengthy time between posts as I made the decision that there really wasn't any point in handling the last 3+ months as if things were normal. We've received plenty of content from our contacts and I'll spread that over time. Suffice to say that what happened the last few weeks and months means we are entering a new period in our country a...