It's All in the Trying

I started working for Catonsville Community College on February 1, 1969. I was hired to start the men's lacrosse team and to teach health and physical education. I was the first ever lacrosse coach at Catonsville Community College, and our first year was rough. But, you know, starting a new sport is hard to do. Before the season started I couldn't recruit because I hadn't been hired yet, so I had a lot of players who had never played before. We recruited out of our classes. We mentioned what school sports the college had, and asked if anybody's interested trying to get students to participate. Some of our players had come out of military service and were starting college. It was OK, but I don't think we won any games the first year. When I first came to the college, we didn't have an athletic facility on the campus. Catonsville Community College opened in 1957, but the Wellness Building didn't open here until 1972. Before that we were at an elementary school over in Catonsville, Banneker Elementary. We had outdoor facilities—one tennis court plus baseball, soccer, and lacrosse fields. That's all we had for training and practice. We taught all our health and physical education classes at Banneker at that time too.