Embrace Debate: Was This Massive Lacrosse Hit Clean Or Does It Deserve Jail Time? Lacrosse Fans Are 50/50
Getting softer and less violent is just the natural progression of all sports. You go back to the 1st century and that's when Gladiators were the #1 sport in the world. Literal fights to the death were like the NFL of that time period. Sometime around the 5th century, people started thinking that maybe you don't need to watch someone get murdered in order to enjoy an athletic competition. You get to around the 13th century and you had jousting. Two dudes riding horses towards each other and trying to knock the shit out of the other person with a giant wooden lance. Sometime around the 17th century, people decided maybe they could just enjoy watching horses do cool shit on their own without the need to spear someone through the chest with a lance.
Fact of the matter is that throughout the entire history of sports, a game has started off extremely violent and then gets softer over time. Football, hockey, you name it. You add more protective padding, you take out unnecessarily violent hits, you try to focus on the skill involved to play the game. You don't have to agree with it, but that's just the progression of all sports.
Lacrosse is now there.
This hit from Brown SSDM PJ Behan would be put in lacrosse textbooks on how to properly destroy someone if this were 15-20 years ago. It would be considered the perfect hit. It's not late, he leads with the shoulder, doesn't use his stick to try to decapitate the opposing player. 20 years ago we're not even having a discussion about this hit. 15 years ago we're telling anyone who has a problem with this hit to shove it up their ass. 10 years ago a debate starts to happen. And yesterday, it ends up being a 2-minute non-releasable penalty.
And now lacrosse fans have no idea how to handle it. Maybe it's not split completely 50/50. But you have 60% of people saying that hit is clean as a whistle--a phrase I've never really understood because I feel like whistles have to be pretty dirty considering they're always in your mouth. And then you have 40% of people saying 2 on white should sign a 1-year lease on the penalty box.
I'll settle the debate once and for all using a little thing I like to call nuance. The answer is both.
The fact of the matter here is that in 2024, that hit is going to be called a penalty every single time. To think otherwise would be like thinking the sun revolves around the Earth. It's an old, out-dated way of thinking that isn't going to change a damn thing about the way things work now. One hundred times out of 10, that hit is getting called.
At the same time, it's not a bad hit at all. It's not malicious or anything like that. In fact, it's exactly how you'd want your defensive players to play. Fast, aggressive, physical. It's one of those hits that you just have to live with the penalty being called, but you tell the player "great hit" when he gets into the penalty box. Then you just hope your man-down unit can actually do their job and limit the damage by killing off the penalty. If you want your players to fly around and destroy people like that, you better spend a ton of time in practice every week on playing man down. Case closed.