coast. Even though we were worlds
apart and I
experienced
things I wasn’t
accustomed to,
the team still felt
like a real team,
a real family.”
Suddenly the
biggest decision
of his life was a
little clearer, who
wouldn’t want to go to one of the most beautiful campuses in the
world, at one of
the best public
universities in
the country to
learn and play a
little lacrosse
for a national
powerhouse
that had the
right coach, a
group of very
talented young men, who had just
won the National
Championship and
every intention on
winning more, …. so
off to Virginia he
went.
Now sports fans,
for those of you
who don’t know,
the University of
Virginia is one of
the top public
universities in the
nation with
excellent academic standards, and outstanding athletic programs. I asked Brett how hard it was being a student athlete at a high academic institution while playing for a program that was expecting to compete for National championships every year. “It was tough. You have to put the time and work in, not only at practice but in the classroom, to be successful there or at any college program these days. I knew going in I was going to need some help so I asked the university what kind of academic support they had and found out that
they had a
lot, which
helped. At
an early
age I
learned to
ask for
help and I
still do that
to this day,
and
because of that I was successful at Virginia. I was never in academic trouble, that was my promise to coach Starsia because he took a chance on me and I wasn’t going to let him down.”
From the first time he stepped foot on the Hoos campus, his time wasn’t wasted. His freshman year he got a chance to compete for a starting defensive spot. For those of you who know Division 1 lacrosse, this is a very rare opportunity. Rarely does a freshman see the field, year let alone compete for a starting spot at a program like Virginia, which should tell you something about Brett’s