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hristian Marley is becoming more aware of the significance of his last name. As Bob Marley’s grandson, he has heard the stories that make up the legend of the late musician and humanitarian — one that is intertwined with the culture of Jamaica. He has run into strangers that speak to him of their encounters with his grandfather, like the time he drove out of his gate, picked up local children and took them to school. Khristian was born into a Marley family that’s as popular as any in Jamaica, an island country roughly the size of Connecticut.

 “We’re all raised in a very humble way,” he said. “Even though we know, ‘My name is Khristian Marley and my father is Ky-Mani Marley and my grandfather is Bob Marley,’ it’s not like we go out each day and make that a point. Yeah, we’re conscious of it. We’re conscious we come from a very appreciated and loved bloodline.”

Now 16, Khristian Marley has seen the emergence of another generation of the Marley family on the global scene. His father is among a handful of Marleys — including Ziggy, Stephen, Damien, Julian and most recently Skip Marley, who performed at the 2017 Grammy Awards — carrying on Bob’s legacy through reggae music.

Although he has toiled with idea of recording music, Khristian Marley has no interest in joining the family business. Right now, he has his mindset on another endeavor — lacrosse.

He hasn’t graduated high school, and Khristian Marley is already blazing his own trail within one of most well-known families in the world.

“Of this generation, Bob’s grandchildren, I know he’s stoked to bring something new to the family,” Khristian’s mother, September Marley, said. “Bob never said that they had a legacy and they were to follow in his footsteps. Bob said, ‘I’ve done my part and I’ve opened the door for you to do whatever you want to do.’”

Through Jamaica Lacrosse and his interactions with the Fields of Growth, Khristian Marley has fallen in love with the game. His involvement in lacrosse in Jamaica could have an impact on its growth. He shies away from that notion. Lacrosse has become as much a passion for him as music is for much of his family.

 “Lacrosse for me is a way to express myself,” he said. “It’s like asking a musician what music is for him. There’s a way of getting out how you feeling and releasing emotions and having fun. Really for me, lacrosse is like an outlet. It’s nice to be able to show them something for once.”

Planting the Seeds

Cal Hutchinson gets questions all the time about his experience with lacrosse. His answer always is the same.

“I have not played lacrosse and I don’t play lacrosse,” he said.

But, in 2012, Fields of Growth founder Kevin Dugan enlisted Hutchinson to begin developing the game in his home country of Jamaica. Having worked as the head of the Local and International Volunteer Enterprise — which assisted organizations looking for help in Jamaica — Hutchinson knew he could put a structure in place.

Hutchinson may not have seen the game, but he knew it had potential in his country.

 “Sport in general in Jamaica is seen as a means of significant achievement for a lot of youth,” he said. “We’re achieving great things like getting into college and universities, to even becoming professionals and earning big bucks.”

That’s the influence that Dugan, a member of Notre Dame’s men’s lacrosse team from 1998-2001, had hoped for when he founded Fields of Growth in 2009.

Dugan got his vision for Fields for Growth in El Salvador in 2007, where the former Division III Scranton coach was asked to be a chaperone on a school trip. He found his passion and continued to chaperone through Scranton — to Ecuador, Jamaica and Uganda. His vision to foster human development through lacrosse became clearer.

After making connections through his previous trips and clinics, Dugan decided Fields of Growth’s first challenge would take place in Uganda, the eastern African country.

He spent three years building lacrosse in Uganda, focused primarily on college-aged players, before expanding to a second country, Jamaica — a country where sports were a major part of its identity.

Unlike in Uganda, there was a sophisticated sports structure in place with which Dugan could work. He admired the Inter-Secondary School Sport Association, an organization that provided the foundation for high school sports in Jamaica.

With the help of Fields of Growth, Hutchinson established the non-profit Jamaica Lacrosse in 2012.

“Jamaica right now is a country that receives incredible benefit in human, national and economic development through sport,” Dugan said. “There’s a realization from the government that sports is in the best interest of our national pride, our national economy and the development of our youth.”

It began with boys lacrosse in two high schools and has since expanded to 14 in both genders in Jamaica. The summer and winter camps, which saw 40-50 players attend in the first few years, have since expanded to more than 200 children.

Lacrosse is picking up in Jamaica, a country blessed with natural beauty like the beaches of Montego Bay, but also working to overcome the socioeconomic challenges of poverty and crime that exist in many neighborhoods in downtown Kingston.

These extremes have created a class structure that rarely brings the youth of the uptown and downtown communities together. But when lacrosse was introduced, it created a platform that brings people across all social classes together. What started as a vision of a structured lacrosse program is quickly becoming something more.

“There’s clearly people wanting and demanding it,” Dugan said. “In the past, we provided and supplied and had to work to generate the demand. Now the demand is there beyond what we can supply and it’s created a good problem. We have an idea that lacrosse is going to be a big deal in Jamaica.”

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The 2017 Jamaican High School Lax Champs Competition

The Return

September Marley kept hearing the same quick, repetitive sound on her bedroom wall. It drove her crazy.

“I was like, ‘What the hell is this?’” she said. “Every evening for the past week there has been a ball. He was just throwing a tennis ball against the wall.”

In his bedroom, which sat adjacent to September Marley’s room, was Khristian Marley, throwing the tennis ball off the wall and catching it with his bare hands. No stick. He was trying to refresh his reflexes, making his mother angry in the process.

“It won’t stop me,” Khristian Marley said, as any defiant 16-year-old would.

“That's how I knew he was getting back into lacrosse,” September Marley said.

It was October 2016 and Khristian was about to join the Jamaican lacrosse movement, which had reached his school, Hillel Academy. Except unlike most of his classmates, it was a return to lacrosse.

Khristian previously was introduced to the game in sixth grade, when he moved to Toronto to live with his aunt and uncle. He idolized stick wizards like John Grant Jr. and Matt Gibson and started to grow fond of the sport as he played.

 “It was fun. I really enjoyed the fact that you had to be more than just fast or good with your feet or hand,” Khristian Marley said. “You have to have a close relationship with this new object. I appreciate that.”

Khristian Marley started playing with Hillel in the fall — with the String King stick he bought with his father in Miami — and he picked it up quickly. After the fall season, he signed up for the Jamaica Lacrosse holiday camp at St. George’s College in December.

By that time, he had gotten his friends from school interested in the game, adding to the already growing number of campers. He participated in games and scrimmages and immediately caught the attention of Dugan, Hutchinson and others.

But it wasn’t because of his name. An aggressive midfielder, he was one of the best players at the camp.

“I’ve been in many different developing countries and there are challenges,” September Marley said. “Politics of the game. Lacrosse really made it a level playing field. It has been great for him to go into a sport that you really can shine off your own ability and not so much your name or what socioeconomic status you come from.”

Marley became part of a sport that gave no regard to his name or background — or anyone else’s for that matter.

“We have players from the poorest of places in Jamaica, and we have players from the richest of families in Jamaica coming together on the same field playing for the natural love of the game,” said Hutchinson, now president of Jamaica Lacrosse. “Lacrosse is one of the only sports that I have seen so far that has created a bridge for everyone to come together.”

Coaching Coaches

Dwayne Dunn and Dale Walker couldn’t be missed at January’s US Lacrosse Convention.

Rocking their vibrant yellow and green jackets — emblazoned with “J-A-M” on one side of the zipper and “A-I-C-A” on the other — they weren’t hard to pick out of a crowd.

Although they sat near the back of the room, they stuck out at Towson coach Shawn Nadelen’s presentation. The same thing happened while they were watching coaching clinics near the expo hall of Baltimore’s Convention Center.

“It’s very exciting,” Dunn said. “People constantly have questions for us, like where we’re from, why we play lacrosse. We’re constantly explaining, which is great. Most of them haven’t heard that we play lacrosse in Jamaica.”

Walker and Dunn, both native Jamaicans, got the chance to attend the US Lacrosse Convention alongside Dugan as recipients of the FIL Coaching & Leadership Grant.

The goal was simple — Walker and Dunn were to soak in as much information as they could and transfer it back to coaches in Jamaica. The hope is that the ripple effect will help develop more lacrosse coaches in Jamaica, who will then be able to foster even more growth within the sport.

 “If I am going to teach someone to do something, I want to see them doing it well,” Walker said. “It’s not about winning. It’s about getting them to do the right thing.”

Jamaican Coaches Dunn & Walker sharing a #LaxCon kodak moment with the legendary @DUCoachTierney #GiveThanks #OneLove #GrowTheGame pic.twitter.com/nnSpQedwtA

— Jamaica Lacrosse (@JamaicaLacrosse) January 21, 2017

Dunn, a graduate of G.C. Foster College, Jamaica’s sports college, and Dunn, who had played more than six different sports growing up, were prime candidates to take in the sport of lacrosse.

Both have tried so many sports that the aspect of adding another was easy.

“I didn’t know much about the strategies of lacrosse,” Walker said. “I said, ‘You know what? Let me give it a try.’ I’m loving every moment of it.”

“Why not?” Dunn followed.

Bringing coaches to LaxCon was a significant step in the progress of Jamaican lacrosse. With more coaching, more children will learn the basics of lacrosse quicker than ever before.

“It’s a critical moment for Jamaica lacrosse,” Dugan said. “Dale and Dwight and others are getting involved in taking ownership of the sport and sustaining it and moving it forward. It’s so much fun to see them and the kids.”

Both Dunn and Walker know they have taken on a big responsibility.

“It’s a wonderful feeling knowing that we were selected to be the first,” Dunn said. “We are trailblazers, so to speak. We get it from the experts, so we can get it back to tour children back home. It’ll give us an idea and way and foundation on which to build. We don’t want to get that part wrong. That’s why we’re here.”

Looking Forward

Cal Hutchinson, the public address announcer, readied himself on the sideline. Khristian Marley found his spot on the field, donning the customary green pinnie with “Jamaica Lacrosse” inscribed across his chest.

Neither thought Jamaica would win, or could win.

“I figured at some point they were just going to go, ‘OK, well let’s get serious,’ and start scoring goals everywhere,” Marley said.

It was the annual “Jamaican Friendship Game,” where the American volunteers — including players committed to North Carolina, Holy Cross and Bowdoin — faced off against the Jamaicans to conclude the camp. This game had not been too competitive in recent years.

“When we had the combined volunteer team versus the Jamaican team, we would have discussed with them that, ‘Hey, you guys are professional. Take it easy on our players,”’ Hutchinson said. “But this time around, nothing like that.”

After the U.S. team scored the first two goals, the Jamaican team that included Khristian Marley went on a four-goal rally to take the lead. They were winning faceoffs, beating the volunteers to ground balls.

They believed they could win.

“‘We’re better than them,’” Hutchinson recalled the Jamaican players saying. “We’re not going to lose our cool. We’re going to win this game.’”

Just seconds remained in an 8-8 game when Deneilson Neal, a do-it-all middie from St. George’s, came from behind the goal to the wing, made an inside roll, dodged in front of his man and scored. The crowd at Emmitt Park, on the campus of St. George’s, erupted.

“‘Ref, ref! Call it,” Hutchinson shouted at the referees, knowing Jamaica had just clinched a milestone victory.

The Jamaican team won 9-8. It was a friendly game between nations, but the win resonated throughout the camp.

“I was hoping we could have drawn so we could play a little longer,” Khristian Marley said. “I wouldn’t say I was shocked, because I had faith in the people that I was playing with. But it made me realize how much potential we have in this sport if we were able to beat the volunteers.”

Potential. It’s what Dugan, Hutchinson and the rest of Jamaica Lacrosse had hinted at, but now they had game results to show their progress.

Soon, they’ll have more opportunities to showcase the growth of the game. Dugan said Jamaica intends to field a team at the 2018 FIL Men's World Championship next summer in Manchester, England. Tryouts will take place this summer and a team will be finalized in January 2018.

The roster will be composed of both native Jamaicans and those from the diaspora — players with Jamaican heritage playing abroad.

“We think that we have the unique ability to probably strike the balance better than any country ever has before of making a truly authentic Jamaican team,” Dugan said. “One that has real homegrown talent mixed with legitimate heritage players.”

Khristian Marley made it clear that he wants to be included on that roster. He’ll be training all year for the chance to represent his country.

 “If I put myself to it, I can definitely be a part of this squad,” he said. “I personally believe I have the potential, and it’s really up to me to continue to develop myself and my stick skills and my tactical understanding of the game so I can ensure a space on the team.”

Marley also has his sights set on playing Division I lacrosse. He wants to be the next Sergio Perkovic.

Through his ability on the field and prestige off of it, Khristian Marley is helping expand the reach of Jamaica Lacrosse. He might be the first Marley to play the game, but he’s not the first to make an impact.

“He’s beginning to understand that the name can have some power and influence and help with exposure for whatever your cause is,” September Marley said. “He’s now understanding that now he can use his name for lacrosse. Now that he’s going his own way and creating his own ventures, like lacrosse, he’s becoming a Marley.”