Matt Danowski grew up with a lacrosse stick in his hands in Farmingdale, New York, a small but proud Long Island town with a population of 8,399. No one ever called Farmingdale glamorous – the economy coughs and sputters as people look to the local aircraft industry for plant jobs that pay just enough income to scratch by. The per capita income is $27,492.
Like just about everyone else in Farmingdale, Danowski attended the local public high school, where his talent for lacrosse flourished. He dedicated a significant portion of his childhood to the sport, and the rewards have been remarkable. Playing lacrosse helped him gain a scholarship at Duke. Then, in 2004, the attackman was picked as ACC Rookie of the Year. In 2005, he set a new Duke scoring record for points in a season and earned first-team All-America honors en route to leading the Blue Devils to the national championship game. As a rising junior, Danowski was well on his way to accomplishing his ambitious goals of helping Duke dominate college lacrosse and graduating from an internationally renowned academic institution. Not bad for a kid from Farmingdale.
“The first emotion I had was a bitter feeling towards everything that was going on ... I think some guys [on the team] knew it was coming and other guys were sort of in denial.”
Anyone who has watched television or read a newspaper in the last three months knows what came next: the scandal. School, community, and country were shocked by allegations that three Duke lacrosse players had raped a stripper at an off-campus party on March 13, 2006.
Three weeks later, on April 5, Duke Coach Mike Pressler resigned, and then perhaps the cruelest blow: the school cancelled the rest of the lacrosse season. Danowski first heard the news at a team meeting. “The first emotion I had was a bitter feeling towards everything that was going on,” he says. “I think some guys knew it was coming and other guys were sort of in denial. It was just more shock and awe than anything else.”
In the next week, the players relied on each other for emotional support. Danowski and roommate Mike Ward lived near midfielder Pete Lamade and defensemen Tony McDevitt and Casey Carroll, and the five often gathered together at Danowski’s place to watch CNN. “We watched the all-news channels to see what people were saying about us,” says Danowski. “Usually we disagreed with it.”
What bothered Danowski most about the media coverage were the character attacks on Duke players. “[The media] made it seem like Duke players are all white, elitist, racist, white collar guys who will get everything because daddy’s going to fix it for us,” he says. “And when it comes down to it, I’m a public school kid from working class parents, a blue collar family, a blue collar town. It was kind of annoying when people look at you that way just because you play lacrosse. The fact is that lacrosse is a blue collar sport. Kids work hard and play hard, and then the media portrays it as something totally different.” Danowski pauses, and then adds, “It was kind of frustrating because you can’t do anything about it.”
“The kids at [Duke] are for the most part great kids, and it doesn’t matter what sport you play, they’ll treat you like anyone else ... unless you’re J.J. Redick.”
The media attention was also aggravating because it robbed Danowski of one of the things he most enjoyed about being a Duke lacrosse player: his anonymity. One of the reasons he felt so comfortable at Duke was that people didn’t treat him differently just because he was an athlete. “The kids at the school are for the most part great kids, and it doesn’t matter what sport you play, they’ll treat you like anyone else,” he says, and then adds, laughing, “unless you’re [just graduated Duke basketball star] J.J. Redick.” Danowski expressed similar opinions in a Duke Magazine article published in October 2005, in which he observed that students who play lacrosse have “more of a balance between academics and athletics.”
Danowski couldn’t watch CNN all day, so he searched for other activities to fill the void left by the season’s cancellation. His lacrosse stick stood in the corner of his room, but most of the time he couldn’t even bring himself to touch it. “We’d go out [to the field] and shoot every once in a while, but it was kind of hard to just pick up a stick because of the fact that our season was cancelled,” he explains. “It was a really sour feeling.”
That feeling was never worse than when he heard accounts of the lacrosse season that was moving ahead without him. “In all honesty I paid attention to Hofstra [where his father John is head coach], and I called my friends who play. I paid attention to their games, but nothing else,” he says. “I didn’t know who was leading the country in points, and I didn’t know who was playing who on a given weekend.” Danowski is quick to add, however, that he was overjoyed by his father’s success at Hofstra. “I was happy for the Hofstra seniors who worked so hard, but I was also upset that the media calls my dad and all they want to talk about is Duke and not his 16-1 [regular season] record.”
“My class isn’t leaving. This is still the place to be, not only for lacrosse but for academics. If everyone stays we have a real good shot at competing and getting back to where we were.”
Danowski gained some solace by dedicating himself to his academic studies. He and his parents expected exemplar grades since he didn’t have to contend with the daily distraction of lacrosse practice and games.
It would seem that studying would be easier, but he found just the opposite. “I definitely spent more time academically, but it was different for me because I didn’t know how to manage time without a sport,” says Danowski, who before 2006 had played lacrosse every spring since the second grade. “I would wake up and go to class, and it was like, all right, now what do I do the rest of the day? Sometimes you catch yourself sitting there watching TV for two hours. [During a regular lacrosse season,] after practice I’d go right to the library. This season I’d tell myself I can go to the library later, and then you never end up going.”
Danowski also struggled with focus at times. Sitting in the library, his mind would inevitably drift to thoughts of the allegations and concern about the way they had tarnished the university and his friends. “It was tough concentrating on school work when your mind is just occupied with so many other things.”
Fortunately, Danowski could lean heavily on the support of the Duke alumni and the women’s lacrosse team. He received a flood of e-mail from alumni, offering their services to ensure that Danowski and the other players were being treated fairly. Efforts by the female players were just as significant. “They always tried to make us feel better,” says Danowski. “The people who know us and the people who’ve been around us and hang out with us – they know who we are.”
One mid-April morning, Danowski rose from bed, opened a clothes drawer, and after thinking about it for a while, chose a Duke Lacrosse t-shirt. By routine, he grabbed the television remote and aimed but then paused before turning it on. He realized that he didn’t want to watch anymore. Instead, he put down the remote and called his dad. For the first time since the scandal broke, Danowski was able to discuss his plans for the upcoming school year. “I knew I couldn’t make a decision acting on pure emotion, so it took me a while to talk about it,” he says. But when he spoke to his father that morning, they both knew that transferring wasn’t an option. Even if he had to spend his senior year without playing lacrosse, a Duke degree was more important than anything else. “That was one of the reasons I went to Duke was to get that degree. I wasn’t going to in a sense put three years of hard work down the drain.”
“I’ve been playing [lacrosse] since I was three. To have it taken away like that, I’ve never had an experience like that in my life. Getting it back was a great moment.”
A few days later, Danowski called his teammate McDevitt, and the two organized a meeting of the junior class players in the team locker room. Despite the fact that the team hadn’t practiced in over three weeks, the room still smelled of sweat and dedication. “I love this place,” Danowski told the team. “My class isn’t leaving. This is still the place to be, not only for lacrosse but for academics. And if everyone stays we have a real good shot at competing and getting back to where we were. This is where we’re going to graduate from.” Danowski searched his teammates’ faces, and he knew that if nothing else they understood how much he needed them.
During the last month of school, Danowski avoided watching the all-news networks completely. Every day, his focus on the task at hand increased, and he was more and more capable of forcing his thoughts away from anxiety about the impact of the allegations. At the end of the school year, his concentration was rewarded when he received some of the highest grades he has earned at Duke.
In May, he left school for the summer and returned to the aircraft plants and humidity of his hometown. He drove through Farmingdale, its hills and fields gobbled up by small businesses and suburban growth, and he was grateful to be anonymous again. A few weeks later, in the modesty of his parents’ living room, Danowski learned that his faith in Duke had paid off. He received a phone call from then Assistant Coach Kevin Cassese, who informed him that in a few minutes Duke President Richard Brodhead would announce the reinstatement of Duke’s lacrosse team. Ending his boycott of the all-news channels, he turned on CNN and watched the press conference by himself. “I was thrilled,” he says. “Lacrosse is something that I’ve been playing since I was three years old. To have it taken away from me like that, I’ve never had an experience like that in my life. Getting it back was a great moment.”
Now that the team has been reinstated, Danowski turns his prodigious talent and energy toward resurrecting Duke’s image and doing what he can to preserve his legacy. “Definitely one of my goals is to try to erase people’s memories of what happened last year, what they think of us,” he explains. “Work hard in the fall and work even harder in the spring. I think that’s the best thing we can do to get our good name back and bring something positive back to Duke. I came to Duke with high goals that I set for myself, and unfortunately last year wasn’t a good year to achieve some of them, but next year hopefully we can make the university proud and make ourselves and our family proud.”
Does Danowski still feel anonymous on campus? Sometimes less so than before, but that’s not going to stop him from enjoying Duke. “I won’t be afraid to wear my Duke Lacrosse t-shirt,” he says. “There’s probably going to be a lot more media coverage during next year’s season. But in the end, you know, lacrosse is still a growing sport. Maybe we’ll become less anonymous, and I hope that it’s for the right reasons in the coming years.” Understanding what lacrosse and Duke mean to a kid from Farmingdale seems like a step in the right direction.
Matt Fuchs played lacrosse in high school and club ball in college, and he currently lives in Baltimore. He can be contacted at matt@laxpower.com.
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