In assembly you probably heard Mr. Carver talking about lacrosse at ODA. Ever wondered why he was saying such a thing? Well this year your school has added a new sport: Lacrosse.

The head coach will be Mr. Carver also known as Director of Middle School/Upper School Admissions. The lacrosse program has been a talking point since the summer of 2007. One of the main reasons why we did not take action was because there was the lack of a good field (no longer an issue), but also there was the monetary issue. Starting a lacrosse team cost the school $100,000.

There will be six teams that the ODA lacrosse team will play, although they will not be able to compete for districts this year.  Dr. Christopher Sforzo, an ODA parent who is also an orthopaedic doctor, has been very helpful getting the team started. He, himself, was a lacrosse player at the University of Notre Dame. He will also help out coaching, so will Andrew (’14) and Nick (’16) Romano’s father, Joe Romano.

Jamie Carver also has been in a lacrosse world for a long time. It all started in fourth grade for him when he was in Maryland, which is not a bad place to play lacrosse since it is the team sport of the state. He started to play seriously in high school. He went to Calvert Hall High School, a school ranked in the top 10 in the country. There he started off playing for the freshman team and built his way up to varsity by going through both freshman and junior varsity teams. During his senior year, he was nominated team captain. He then went on to play at Community College of Baltimore County, Essex for two years, becoming team captain and winning a national championship.

Soon after that, he was asked to play for the University of Maryland’s Terrapins. Although he did not receive a scholarship, he accepted the offer to play and attend the University. He then only played for two seasons since he had used two of his four years of eligibility at his community college.

In the years following him graduation from the University of Maryland, he coached a high school lacrosse team. He brought them twice to the championship with an undefeated season but lost both times. In his fourth year he won the championship and was nominated coach of the year in 2006.

With all the great help, although we will not be able to compete for the district, we should have no trouble starting a great lacrosse team.