US Lacrosse Magazine welcomes ESPN play-by-play announcer Anish Shroff as a contributor for the 2020 college season. Shroff’s columns will run every Tuesday on USLaxMagazine.com, including “Deleted Scenes” from ESPN broadcasts and weekly top-10 rankings.
Former Syracuse All-American defenseman Ric Beardsley remembers his first trip to Homewood Field. Saturday, March 21, 1992, was the day when Beardsley, then a freshman, scored his first collegiate goal. But he remembers that game for another reason. Beardsley noticed something peculiar when he got off the team bus.
“There was a guy sleeping in the stands.”
It wasn’t just any guy. Beardsley turned to one of his teammates and said, “I think that’s my father.”
Fredric Beardsley had left work in Cape Coral, Fla., around 4:30 p.m. that Friday. He proceeded to drive for 18 straight hours from Florida’s southern tip to Baltimore to watch his son play.
“Back then, if you were a Syracuse parent, there were the big three you had to attend,” says Beardsley. “The home opener, championship weekend and the Hopkins game.”
The elder Beardsley arrived at Homewood a few hours before the game. A Johns Hopkins official let him into the stadium before the gates opened and even let him shower. A pregame nap in the bleachers recharged the batteries.
Midway through the game, Ric Beardsley noticed a commotion coming from his dad’s section.
“I’m trying to cover my man, but I keep looking over and thinking, ‘What the hell is going on?’”
It started with a projectile.
“Some Hopkins fan threw an orange,” says Beardsley. “It hits a Syracuse fan. My dad had nothing to do with it. He was just walking the aisle to his seat. The Syracuse fan who was hit turns around and thinks my dad threw the orange.
“So, this guy in a Syracuse sweatshirt starts yelling at my dad. My dad keeps telling him — ‘My son plays for Syracuse!’ But this guy wouldn’t let it go. He starts walking toward my dad. My dad usually doesn’t say much. But he’s a big dude and not the type to back down.”
The two — both Syracuse supporters — nearly came to blows before a half-dozen fans intervened to separate them.
Similar drama unfolded down on the field. With the score tied at 14 in the fourth quarter, Hopkins’ junior midfielder Brian Kelly found himself being pursued by Syracuse great Tom Marechek.
“He was riding. He chased me down and the ball came out,” says Kelly, now the head coach at Division III Goucher College.. “It started with both of us scrambling for the ball. It ended with both of us on the ground.
“That’s when I gave him a little shot. [Marechek] wasn’t happy. When we got up, he shoved his hand toward my face. I jumped back like he hit me and flopped to the ground. An official runs across the field and throws a flag. We go man-up. Adam Wright scores and we win the game 15-14,” chuckles Kelly.
For the second time that day, Hopkins successfully baited Syracuse.