Cross & Crescent

“Bring It Home” is the motto for this year’s men’s U.S. Indoor Lacrosse team, which plays in the 2007 ILF World Indoor Lacrosse Championship, May 14-20, 2007, in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

For the last several months, team President and General Manager Graham R. D’Alvia (Susquehanna 1990) has been busy hiring staff and coaches, and holding team tryouts.

“There’s a satisfaction in assembling the elite team that we’ve assembled,” he says. “It’s been great.”

About 100 participants attended four separate tryouts and when they finalized the roster, 30 of the 33 were professional players from Major League Lacrosse and the National Lacrosse League.

The U.S. team is one of eight teams participating in this year’s event, which occurs every four years. The other teams are Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, England, Ireland, Iroquois Nationals, and Scotland.

D’Alvia explains that when you play outdoor lacrosse it does not mean you will be a great indoor player.

“It’s a different game,” he says. “Tighter quarters, more stick handling. You have to be a different breed to play indoor. So not all outdoor players play indoor, but a lot of indoor players do play the outdoor game.”

Making the Pitch

In July 2006, at the outdoor World Lacrosse Championship in London, Ontario, D’Alvia played in a senior game and networked with many of the players and coaches.

He and another lacrosse veteran, Kevin Finneran, decided to pitch a proposal to the U.S. Lacrosse governing organization about managing the men’s U.S. Indoor Lacrosse team.

Needing the additional staffing resources, the U.S. Lacrosse organization agreed and D’Alvia and Finneran began the process of putting together the organization.

“Because of all my past playing and people I’ve met, assembling the management team was easier than we thought,” he says. “Finding the right coach and coaches, which is integral, was not easy but came together fairly simple.”

History and Canada’s Dominance

Traditionally, indoor lacrosse, also called box lacrosse, is generally played in summer on an ice hockey rink from which the ice has been removed.

The playing area is called the box, in contrast to the unenclosed playing field of outdoor lacrosse.

Indoor lacrosse was invented in the 1930s, as a way to promote business for ice hockey arenas, and it became a popular version of the sport in Canada, Eastern Europe, and the United States.

The first World Indoor Lacrosse Championships were held in 2003, and Canada defeated the Iroquois Nation in the final by a score of 21 to 4.

Historically, the United States plays better in outdoor lacrosse games and Canada typically dominates indoor. But at the 2006 outdoor championship, the Canadians beat the United States in the finals 15-10.

“Canada beat the U.S. for the first time in 25 years,” D’Alvia says. “That was a big to-do. To knock the big boy off the block.”

So at this year’s world indoor championship, D’Alvia and the U.S. team are looking for their own upset.

Lacrosse in His Blood

D’Alvia has been involved with lacrosse his whole life. He played lacrosse in high school in Westchester, New York, and he started a men’s club team and a women’s Division III team at Susquehanna University.

After college, he played lacrosse at various levels, mostly at the club level.

In addition to his lacrosse duties, D’Alvia also owns Kradal Inc., a consulting company that sells medical software and is based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

“I kind of dabbled in the professional league but didn’t really travel with the team because of my job, I was traveling too much,” he says. “I dabbled in the club level and played all around the world.”

D’Alvia’s travels playing lacrosse took him to places like Japan, New Zealand, Prague, and Australia.

“I’ve been all over the place,” he says about his lacrosse opportunities.

Sport’s Growing Popularity

D’Alvia chuckles when asked whether a professional can earn a living today just playing lacrosse.

“Back in the day, we got paid about $100 a game,” he says. “So it wasn’t very profitable. But now it is becoming profitable and it’s right at the cusp for the guys to be able to play lacrosse full-time.”

However, most of the players still have other full-time jobs and teams typically practice on Wednesday nights and play games on the weekends.

“I would say in the next 5 to 10 years it will be a full-time, professional job where players can come out of college and play lacrosse for their career,” D’Alvia says.

Thanks to an increase in youth lacrosse programs, more children today are growing up playing the sport. In addition, more countries around the world are starting to organize professional teams and leagues.

One of those is Japan, who will be attending the indoor championship but are not playing in this year’s event.

“There’s a large contingency from Japan, even though Japan’s not in it, they want to be in it, but they couldn’t be in this one,” he says. “They definitely will be in the next one. It’s growing in leaps and bounds in Japan.”

Plans are in place for the 2011 championship to include as many as 14 teams, up from eight this year.

Lambda Chi Experience

Like college students sometimes do, D’Alvia initially struggled with his choice of colleges. In the end, Lambda Chi made the difference.

“I can honestly say that if I wasn’t a part of Lambda Chi Alpha I probably would have made the mistake of transferring out early just because it was so tiny in the middle of Pennsylvania,” he says. “The friends that you meet and that I created freshman, sophomore year…there was no going anywhere else.”

The chapter encountered a few challenges in the days when D’Alvia was an active member but he says the brothers remained very close and the experiences made them stronger individuals and better team players.

“I attribute a lot to Lambda Chi of my success with Kradal Inc. and with lacrosse.”