Neither could have foreseen playing lacrosse in Israel just years ago. Greg encouraged his son to try lacrosse near his home in Mercer Island, Wash. back in 2010. Cole tried the game out, but never connected with it.
His tall frame had not helped him in a sport where players thrived on agility. His love for the game wasn’t very high when his father, a lawyer for Publicis Groupe, got an offer to transfer to the global offices in Paris.
Off to France the Ritts family went, where Cole and Greg seldom played lacrosse — save for a few games of catch. Lacrosse was an afterthought when Greg left for another job in neighboring Luxembourg in late 2014.
It took a few years for Cole and Greg Ritts to connect with the sport again. Cole found signs attached to light posts emblazoned with “Join Luxembourg Lacrosse” and he started thinking about the game he used to play.
“One day I watched ‘Crooked Arrows’ and then it got me wanting to play lacrosse again,” Cole said. “I looked the club up on Facebook and found out that they had semi-regular practices. They’d have as much of a practice as they could with that many people. We contacted them and they said they were looking for players to join.”
And just like that, Cole was in. He had to balance lacrosse with baseball and hockey, but he was enjoying the game more than he ever had.
The Ritts came to a Luxembourg Lacrosse practice in late 2016 with little expectations. They arrived to see 20 or so players doing line drills, line drills and more line drills. It was as basic a lacrosse practice as one can find, but one necessary for a team working on fundamentals like stick handling.
“We did line drills for about a half an hour,” Cole said. “We kept doing that over and over and over again because the goal that we were using was made out of PVC pipe and fishing nets. It was smaller than a box lacrosse goal. It was a lot of passing, right-handed and left-handed skills.”
The Luxembourg Lacrosse was impressed by the Ritts’ skills, so much so that club president Pit Bingen invited Greg to help with coaching the team. But he wasn’t done playing just yet.
“From there, it was a lot of guys that were brand new to the sport,” Greg said. “We started developing them and then that following summer, we had some of the guys back from university who had played elsewhere. That started to develop the critical mass.”
The players returning from university — many of which got experience in Germany — helped the quality of practices. But most of the dozens of players came to have fun, a change of pace from Cole’s other practices.
“It’s not win at all costs, squeezing the fun out of the game,” Greg said. “There’s a little more perspective.”
By late 2017, Luxembourg Lacrosse made it a goal to compete in the 2018 FIL World Championship in Netanya, Israel. There were barely 30 players within the country roughly the size of Rhode Island, so Cole and Greg Ritts knew they’d be counted on.
Cole decided to drop baseball and hockey and focus solely on lacrosse — a sport with which he fell back in love.
“Coming back to it now, it’s a lot more fun and intense and I enjoy it more,” Cole said. “Getting to play for Luxembourg in the world championship has become a source of motivation. I don't want to let these guys down.”
And Cole has stayed true to his word. He switched from attack to defense to help fill holes on the roster. He and his father have driven to practice 3-4 times a week for the past 10 months, preparing for the biggest moment in their sporting lives.
Greg drives home from work, grabs his son and changes for practice, and heads to the field — one of two fields on either side of the city. It’s a chance for the father and son to catch up before they become teammates again.
“I would not have this level of interaction with Cole [without lacrosse],” Greg said. “Three days or four days a week, we get that time where we’re driving to and from practice and on the field. … It was a once-in-a-lifetime type of thing and the fact that we were in a country where it was a relatively new sport, it was an opportunity not just for Cole but potentially for me.”
The Ritts duo will help kick off the FIL World Championship on July 11, when Luxembourg faces Hong Kong in the first game of the competition. Whatever happens in the nine-day tournament, this won’t be the end for either in lacrosse.
Cole plans on playing club lacrosse in college, after pairing with his father in the Belgian League this year. Greg, at 49, is not done playing the sport he’s loved for decades.
For now, lacrosse is the sport that has helped a father become closer to his son, no matter the result.