The Battle for Michigan

This is a long-awaited moment for lacrosse in the state of Michigan. Two NCAA Division-1 teams, for the first time ever, are going to square off against each other in their home state. Our home state.

Shayne Adams celebrates victory on the battlefield

Something must be said about what this game means. I’ve self-appointed myself as a person who says things about lacrosse in this state. I guess I’m the one who has to say something, anything to put the game into context.

Whenever I think of what sports mean to us as a society, and how much we care about them in some bizarre fashion, I come back to what is probably my favorite sportswriting piece of all time, Eleven Swans. I’ll never be half the writer Brian Cook is, but how he felt the night before the Michigan-Ohio state football game is about how I’m feeling right now, to a degree (I caution that if you’re a Michigan fan, that post – especially in context of what transpired over the next 51 games for the Wolverines, can be pretty emotional).

What do you do? I’m supposed to type. I do this. I’m here now and I have responsibility to put words here. But there are no words. I tap stuff out and erase. Everything longer than two words is crass. Now? How can it be now?

The concept of “battle” and “war” as a set of sports metaphors is overdone, or – as Brian puts it – borderline offensive. Real war carries far more stakes than anything that takes place on a field, court, or rink. Sports is not as important as war, full stop.

Trevor Yealy rushes into battle against Providence

Today at 1 in the afternoon, you try telling that to Shayne Adams. Try telling it to Trevor Yealy. Tell Jordan Houtby and Jamie Hebden, or Austin Swaney and Brian Greiner that what they’re doing is unimportant. I promise, they won’t believe you.

You will suffer humiliation when the team from my area defeats the team from your area. It’s ridiculous. Intelligent people do not spend a goodly swath of their life pouring emotion and precious time into a contest that affects no one and changes nothing except some inky scribbles in media guides.

Today’s game is simultaneously more and less important than the classic border battle of us vs. them. It is, at its core, a civil war. Us vs. Other Us. Brother vs. Brother (literally for Brad and Jeff Janer). Former teammates squaring off. It is not a battle to see if our area can defeat your area. It is a battle to determine who among us can claim dominion of the territory we share. Who owns the Great Lax State?

Today’s battlefield is Ultimate Soccer Arenas. It seems unfitting – even silly – that a game I put so much importance into will be played in a soccer facility that sounds like the Ninja Turtles named it. I guess it’s no more silly than the generically-named alternatives of Titan Field or the future Herbalife/Dominos Lacrosse Arena of our dreams. That’s not the important thing.

What is important is that this game, for the first time, will be played at its most passionately-followed level, even its highest level (among the levels anyone cares about, at least). At the end of this afternoon’s game, as the rest of his team gethers in the corner, some 8-year old kid wearing oversized shorts and an oversized backpack with a soccer ball tucked under his arm will take notice of what’s transpiring on the field in front of him. He’ll be inspireed to give the game a try – something he may have never done without a local team to give him the inspiration.

Go Red, white and blue. Go maize and blue.

No matter who wins this afternoon, the real winner is the game.

Substantive preview set to drop at 10:30 a.m.