by Jalen Martin '23
For many athletes, their passion for their sport extends beyond the court or field, or even the country. Seven members of Haverford's men's lacrosse team have experience being part of international lacrosse programs. I talked to each of them about their favorite memories of playing abroad, the biggest challenges they faced, and more.
Evan Wolpert '25 got a taste of international lacrosse play in eighth grade when the Israeli men's national lacrosse team invited him to play in a scrimmage in Manhasset, Long Island. That experience kept him in the loop for a future opportunity to train with the team as part of a gap year program. Thus, in 2020, he opted out of his freshman year at Haverford and set off for Ashkelon, Israel.
Typical days during the lacrosse program entailed practice and conditioning in the morning, coaching youth teams in the afternoons, and touring the must-see sights of Israel during free time. Coaching proved to be a valuable experience for the players—they helped kindle enthusiasm for lacrosse in the country and provide children with a fun activity to look forward to.
"I coached a youth team in Be'er Sheva, a town 20 minutes outside of the border between Gaza and Israel, and those kids had a lot to deal with encountering numerous missile attacks," said Wolpert. "It was a really great experience to be able to distract them from that for a few hours every week, and they really are passionate about the game."
Although the program began during the height of the pandemic, The Ministry of Sport in Israel allowed the team to create a bubble and train despite a number of COVID cases. In the spring, efficient vaccine distribution enabled even more ability to play.
During games with the Israeli team, the rules and regulations differed from those in the Centennial Conference. For one, there was no shot clock, which meant teams played with slower pace. The fields they played on were also different from collegiate fields. "It takes a little bit of time to get accustomed to the international style of play," said Wolpert. "But overall, I would say the talent levels I encountered were fairly similar, as most of the kids on the team are either current college players, college grads, or even a few professional players. So it's pretty high-level lacrosse."
After his freshman year at Haverford, Wolpert participated in the Heritage Cup tournament for the Israeli team, which he named a favorite memory. He is excited for his next opportunity to reconnect with the team. "I'm really hoping I make this men's national team for this summer, but if I don't, I'll still stay involved in the program and hopefully be on the national team at some point, depending on how my career here goes. I'd really love to keep playing for the Israeli national team."
David Harris '23 got his international career started with the Kiwis. When the New Jersey native moved to New Zealand with his family in 2011, his father, a lacrosse coach of over 40 years, wanted to bring the sport with them. With Harris and a friend—an ex-Swedish national player—together they started the "Wellington Bees" team.
The co-ed team consisted of amateur players ranging from their teens to their mid-thirties. Harris, who had the most lacrosse experience on the team at age 12, helped coach practices twice a week in whatever space the team could find, teaching stick skills and leading drills.
Many of the players learned the game and developed their skills quickly. As the program grew, a few American ex-college lacrosse players joined, and eventually the team was good enough to compete in local and national tournaments.
"At some point, we became an official club and then the Wellington Bees went to the national championship tournament against a lot of teams that had been around for quite a while," said Harris. "So they all thought that we were going to be horrible. But my dad was the coach, and we actually did really well."
Because of age restrictions, Harris couldn't play in the tournament against players about twice his age, but he valued the opportunity to grow a lacrosse culture in a new city. While they may not be ready just yet to compete with the powerhouse lacrosse teams—Canada, United States, Australia, and Iroquois Nation—he believes New Zealand will continue to make a name for itself in international play.
"I think New Zealand has the potential to be good," he said. "A lot of New Zealanders are very athletic and they love sports. The physicality of rugby and like the athleticism needed for soccer definitely help. I think with the combination of those two things, I'd really like the potential of lacrosse there."
Almost 6,000 miles from New Zealand is where Mo West '25 competed for 3 years as a member of Japan's national team.
West moved to Japan for his sophomore year of high school after living in Singapore, where he also played for the national team. For the next three years, he made Japan's U-19, U-20, and U-21 teams. He remained on the U-21 team during his freshman year at Haverford and attended the team's remote film sessions, but was unable to return to his hometown of Tokyo to compete because of the COVID pandemic.
Making the youth teams each year was a battle. "The way it works in Japan is they come to practices or games for the club division and pick and choose people from games to come to this 300-person tryout, and then they slowly slim the number down week after week," West explained. "Tryouts are from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays every weekend for like two months. It was such a grind." Having been rejected from the older national team previously, making the team three years in a row felt especially good.
The language barrier also posed an initial challenge, as very few of the Japanese players spoke English, and West, though he's learning the language now, was the only non-Japanese speaking player on the team. But over time, he learned bits and pieces, and was able to communicate enough to build chemistry with his coaches and teammates.
Interestingly, the Japanese national team plays a much faster-paced style than at Haverford. "Here, they kind of trade some of that speed for being bigger and stronger and locating harder. But in Japan, it's all about how fast you can get from playing defense to offense. They're really, really patient, but everything's done at a million miles per hour."
Their style of play has helped Japan be a consistent top team in international tournaments. West described the lacrosse culture in the country as a community, for the players' love and passion for the game that brings them together.
"I think what really sets it apart from playing in college here is that huge difference in mentality," he said. "Here, we're trying to win all the time. But there, you play for the love of the game. At all times, it's like, win or lose, you just play lacrosse to play lacrosse."
Jared Heller '23 made Haverford headlines this summer for participating in the World Lacrosse Men's U21 Championship tournament with the Polish national team in Limerick, Ireland. With Polish heritage himself, Heller began playing for the country in his senior year of high school. Scouts watched his performance and invited him to the U21 squad.
Most of the players on the team live in Poland, but Heller enjoyed being an outsider. "It was really cool to get to immerse myself in another culture, connect with my heritage, and compare traditions," he said. "I thought it was really cool to get to hang out with them for a couple of weeks and learn about how they played lacrosse and what they thought of lacrosse in the U.S. as well. It was a cool cultural immersion, you could say." Thankfully, most of the players spoke fluent English, and on-field body language helped them communicate as well.
The American players only had about a week to train and mesh with the rest of the team, though the offensive and defensive fundamentals reminded Heller of play at Haverford. Similarly to Wolpert's experience in Israel, the absence of a shot clock made face-offs and control of the ball much more important, which of course took some time to get used to.
The World Lacrosse U21 tournament was broken up into two brackets. The first featured established lacrosse programs such as the United States and Iroquois Nation. The second bracket consisted of teams who just recently started their lacrosse programs and don't yet have the popularity or funding to compete with the powerhouses: Poland, China, Netherlands, and Sweden, for example.
Even though lacrosse has only become popular in Poland in the last 10-15 years ago, its rapid growth has enabled the country to host eight or nine different programs. From those programs, the best players are selected to represent Poland in international games.
"You hear stories about when they started playing and some of the kids haven't been playing for more than four or five years, either," said Heller. "It was really cool to see how far they've been able to come in such a short amount of time, and also how rapidly the game is growing there."
Peter Christians '23 is excited to get his international career started with the San Pedro Gents, a club lacrosse team in Costa Rica. The Palo Alto, Calif. native received his Costa Rican citizenship in 2021 and will be competing with the team in the Latin American Club Lacrosse Championships in Colombia in November.
"My eventual goal is to help the Costa Rican national team (which many of the San Pedro players have played on in the past) qualify for the FIL World Championships, as they have not qualified since 2014," Christians explained. "By gaining my citizenship, I want to contribute to the overall talent level on the roster. ~90% of the roster must be citizens, and the other 10% can be people of Costa Rican heritage that are not citizens. Me being a citizen allows for an extra heritage roster spot to be taken by a potential player who may be skilled but not a citizen."
International play with San Pedro comes with a distinct set of rules that aim to make lacrosse more fast-paced and entertaining to sports fans—with enough global excitement, lacrosse may one day become an Olympic sport. Games are played on smaller fields with six players on each team (plus the goalies) instead of the standard 9v9 matchups.
"I think the 6v6 style is actually more similar to basketball, with all players having to play offense and defense, with less stoppages and more fluidity," said Christians. "I personally prefer the traditional 9v9 rules as I've grown up playing that game for the past 12 years, however, I am excited to play this different version of the game in a new setting."
Building chemistry with his teammates will take time, especially in learning his teammates' tendencies, strengths, and styles of play. Like West's experience in Japan, a language barrier might make communication channeling, although Christians' fluency in Spanish will help him pick up on the team's on-and-off-the-field colloquialisms a bit quicker.
Lacrosse programs in Costa Rica began just 10 years ago, and already the country has built an extremely committed culture around the sport, with eight club teams competing for the opportunity to play in tournaments. "The players who are involved with lacrosse in Costa Rica take it very seriously, and want nothing more than to compete at the international level and showcase how the game is growing in their home country," said Christians.
Even Head Coach Nick Taylor has some international experience under his belt, most notably coaching for the Bermuda National team in the 2018 World Lacrosse Championships. The team finished with a 5-3 record and placed 37th in the world.
Taylor's own former college coach at Fairleigh Dickinson University Pat Scarpello served as his mentor and connected him to the opportunity to coach for Bermuda under coach Steve Colfer. "I spent two years working as his top assistant," said Coach Taylor. "Leading up to the 2018 World Games, he was not available to coach, so I got the call. It was an incredible opportunity to work on the international stage and even more special to share a sideline with my former head coach."
The team played games in Israel, providing Coach Taylor with an exciting opportunity to explore Jerusalem and Tel Aviv for the first time. The team spent 20 days together in the beach town of Netanya, bonding over their love of lacrosse and the pride of playing on the international stage.
Again, rules of play were different than they are at Haverford and in the Centennial Conference. Surprisingly, coaching rules are also different. "I remember in our first scrimmage v. the Philippines, I was on the field coaching and being pulled back very quickly by our head coach," said Coach Taylor. Coaches in those games had very strict areas to coach from.
Having witnessed the competitiveness of lacrosse on the international stage firsthand, Coach Taylor knows how great on an opportunity international play can be to take the players' game to the next level.
"Truly I think the life experience of being able to travel, spend time with teammates from all over the world and share those experiences of competing and being on a team are invaluable," he said. "Outside of that, for our guys who are playing, I believe the additional training and different coaches help them with their player development and give them the opportunity to work on their game outside of their time spent at Haverford."