Author’s note: This is the first installment of a series focused on lacrosse in literature. Lacrosse Book Reports, if you will. We roll things out with Take a Shot!, tales from the founders of Major League Lacrosse. We won’t be spoiling the books too much. Our goal is to let you know they exist and how to add one to your library.
Looking for ways to stay engaged through the quarantine, I dug into my assemblage of lacrosse-focused literature. It’s not a deep collection. There’s about twelve or so books, from the roots of the game to the birth of professional lacrosse and beyond, sitting on my office shelf. You’ll never find these reads in the same bookstore, but for the most part they are all up for grabs on Amazon.
Books even referencing the game of lacrosse can be more than hard to find. Living in the Midwest, it’s been like a needle in a haystack my entire life. My hope is to grow your library and maybe even learn about about a few new stories myself along the way.
I’m going to share a few passages from each. Like it? Buy it. If not, hopefully you learn something. We’re starting with Take a Shot! A Remarkable Story of Perseverance, Friendship, and a Really Crazy Adventure.
Take a Shot!
Jake Steinfeld & Dave Morrow
Copyright 2012, published by Hay House, Inc.
From $16.08 on Amazon!
Take a Shot! is the true account of Body By Jake’s Jake Steinfeld and Warrior founder Dave Morrow building of Major League Lacrosse from scratch. Steinfeld steals your attention for story time and takes you through one of lacrosse’s biggest accomplishments from his and Morrow’s perspective. For fans of professional lacrosse to those involved with sports at a grassroots level, it’s an informative read an a fairly transparent look into how the MLL was built. The book released about a decade after the events take place, with the focus set on 1998 through the inaugural season in 2001. It’s one of the few chronicles of the early days of the MLL that are out there.
Steinfeld is a larger than life personality built in Southern California and Morrow was an Ivy League lacrosse player from Michigan. Add in the son of televangelist Pat Robertson, Tim, to the mix and things get a little over the top. The crew went through some pretty wild phases as they built out their own professional outdoor lacrosse league, the good and bad making it into the book.
Take a Shot! isn’t one of the harder reads on the list to get your hands on or to get through cover to cover. It reads like part motivational speaker is giving you a one on one seminar, part buddy reminiscing on the glory day, because it basically is. It’s less than 200 pages, has a small chunk of in-color photos in the middle and is suitable for middle school students through adults. A solid book report pick-up for any youngster looking to tell the class more about the game they love.
Enjoy this classic passage from Take a Shot! as Steinfeld looks back at the early marketing strategy planning with some Hollywood producers.
Take a Shot! excerpt:
“You’re not planning on blowing any of our guys to pieces, are you?” I asked half-jokingly.
“Don’t worry, no one’s gonna get really hurt,” said the producer, whom we’ll call Gladiator Guy.
Now while I’m sitting there listening to this crazy pitch about how to turn the MLL into Rollerball meets Armageddon III, Dave is sitting next to me wondering what he got himself into. And the reason I know he’s freaking out is because he’s got the jittery legs going.
When Dave gets really excited, his legs start twitching and pumping like there’s no tomorrow. And on that day, those legs were bouncing up and down to the point that when I looked down, I realized my legs were bouncing! My legs never bounce! But Dave was so freaking jittery that he got me doing it, too! I willed my legs to calm down, but Dave was hopeless. His legs had a mind of their own, and that mind was getting blown right now.
The Gladiator Guy brought in someone he introduced as his “marketing genius.” Apparently the guy had done for some foreign sports teams. He was full of ideas as well, and he told us about his most successful promotion, for a Russian hockey team.
The promotion? Toilet Paper Day.
That’s right, I can’t make this stuff up.
