One of my first summer jobs ever was selling hotdogs on the beach in Fenwick. It was great. I got to take skim breaks, eat free hotdogs, and even call out when the waves were good, because the owners were pretty cool. Plus, I was really good at it. I only wish I could be half as good of a writer as I was a hotdog salesman.
The only downfall was that the “Weiner Wagon” didn’t offer health insurance, which turns out is kind of important when you eat hotdogs for lunch every day.
Why am I telling you this, you ask? Well, mostly because that job was awesome, but also because that’s when I met Jamie and Kim Allison, who owned the beach stands in Fenwick and the Weiner Wagon all those years ago. That’s also when I met their daughters, Maggie and Keeley Allison, who as little girls used spend every day of the summer on the beach at the wagon — making me make them hotdogs and snow cones and refusing to help me put the beach umbrellas out.
I’m pretty sure I did leave them in charge while I took a nap behind the beach stand one time, but Maggie was 7 years old. Surely, she could figure out how to work an industrial grill.
Even back in those days, I remember talking to Jamie and Keeley about how well Maggie and Keeley were doing playing for the Beach Lacrosse program and how they both wanted to play lacrosse in college.
Miraculously, the hotdog wagon never burned down and Maggie’s D1 dream became a reality when she signed with Towson University to play for the Tigers next year — despite having attended for the past two years a high school with no girls’ lacrosse program. She hasn’t committed anywhere yet, but Indian River senior Taylor Billinger has been getting some looks from D1 programs, as well.
But girls like Maggie and Taylor will finally get a chance to showcase their skills at the high school level, as last Monday the school board approved a JV program for the 2015 spring season.
While the news may have come later than they hoped for some, for underclassmen, including Maggie’s younger sister Keeley, it’s right on time. They’ll be remembered as the pioneers of the program, much like the 2014 senior class will be for the boys’ lacrosse program.
I don’t know why it took so long to get approval, but I’m glad that they finally did. If Indian River was already sending girls to Division 1 schools to play lacrosse, without having its own team, just think of how many they could send while actually having one!
All joking aside, lacrosse is a rapidly growing sport, especially collegiately, where bigger universities have been trying to build legitimate programs for years now and need the recruits to do it. The scholarships are there to be had.
To be able to take advantage of that, however, further steps need to be taken. Players who get lacrosse scholarships, including Maggie, have been playing all their lives, traveling to camps and tournaments and testing their skills against the best competition in the country.
Indian River boys’ lacrosse coach Jim Dietsch knows that, which is why he started the Tribe Lacrosse youth program last year to get kids started in the sport earlier, as they do in lacrosse recruiting hotbeds such as Baltimore and Long Island.
The clinic had some success in its first year, last spring, but as it grows, so will the sport in the area — which, if it goes according to plan, will eventually yield success and scholarships for lacrosse players at Indian River High School.
Until that day comes, Indian River lacrosse players will gladly settle for a junior varsity program and the promise of one day getting to the varsity level. If it turns out anything like the boys’ program did, they’ll do one year of JV, one year of varsity and then make history as the first ever Indian River girls lacrosse team to make it to the playoffs. And I’ll be there for the story... as long as the hot dog stand doesn’t reopen and start matching 401K contributions.