Memorial Day lacrosse memories - both glad and sad
May 30, 2022
So many mixed feelings this Memorial Day Weekend.
Despite being at approximately 35 of the past 40 NCAA D-I championships, I haven’t been to lacrosse’s Championship Weekend since Yale beat Duke at Gillette Stadium in 2018. My travel partners - my wife, and then later, my sons - opted out of accompanying me, so in recent years I’ve settled for watching the games on TV.
But some of my friends don’t necessarily know that, and I received several texts and phone calls this week asking, “Hey, are you going to be in Connecticut on Saturday (or Monday)?”
“Not this year,” I replied. “Maybe next year.”
As a long-time part-time college coach, Memorial Day Weekend was a chance for me to rub elbows with the big dogs. I saw my full-time rivals, colleagues, and friends in the parking lots, on the stadium field for youth clinics, in the bleachers, and later in the bars and restaurants. I went to championship games at Rutgers, Maryland, Brown, Syracuse, Delaware, Penn, and NFL stadiums in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Foxborough…
I’d see Oswego State alumni, and I’d see high school coaches. I’d bump into coaches who worked the same summer camp circuit I did - staff members from the LeMoyne, Cornell, Army, Hobart, All-American, and Top 205 camps. I took great delight in bumping into someone I knew every few minutes - all weekend! - no matter where we parked, where we sat in the stadium, which hotel we stayed in, or which bar/restaurant we walked into.
Those days were awesome!
Now I turn on ESPN and listen to Carc, Q, and Anish (who managed to throw in a Hemingway quote today!), and in recent years I’ve watched with a smile as I saw old friends like John Danowski, Lars Tiffany, Joe Breschi, Dave Pietramala, Andy Shay, Brian Brecht, and John Tillman… coaches I met at those summer camps, and then also ran into them at coaches’ conventions and clinics over all those years.
I remember extreme weather, getting painfully sunburned on a Saturday and then water-logged soaked-to-the-bone on Monday - or vice versa. I remember one year when a cold front came through, lightning flashed, the game was suspended, and the temperature dropped about 20 degrees in a matter of minutes, the wind swirling through Raven Stadium (I think).
I also remember moving pre-game flyovers and field-sized American flags, and precision military drill teams at halftime. Red-white-and-blue everywhere you turned.
That’s the glad. I’m so very glad I had all those years of smiles, great lacrosse excitement, and memories.
But this weekend also had the sad; on Saturday night I received word that Jim Onacki had passed away.
Jim was a former teammate of mine at Oswego State. He was also a housemate of mine, and he was my very first assistant when I started coaching at Oswego.
He was also a great friend and an inspiration.
I’ve written RTD pieces about Jim before, and his story has been told by others as well. In September 2019, a couple weeks before he was inducted into the Camillus/West Genesee Sports Hall of Fame, I published this piece: Dan Witmer - Road Trip Dad (justlacrosse.com (NOTE: I recommend that you take a few minutes and read that piece now before you continue).
I re-read that blog this weekend, and I recalled that my very first Memorial Day national championship memory involved Jimmy…
In May 1983, I had just finished my first year of teaching at Hannibal and coaching at Oswego State, and I headed home for the three-day holiday weekend to visit my parents on Long Island. On Memorial Day, Syracuse was scheduled to play Johns Hopkins at Rutgers for the national championship, and Onack was coming down to the Metropolitan area with a bunch of his West Genesee friends to cheer for the Orange. I got together with Oswego State friends from Long Island (Rich Beshlian and Rob Zabronski) and we decided to make the drive over to Rutgers and see what this whole thing was all about.
If you’re an Upstate Lacrosse fan, you know what happened that day. Syracuse trailed Hopkins 12-5 in the third quarter and then rallied for an historic 17-16 win. We had a ball! The Upstate fans were delirious, and I said to myself, “I’m gonna do this again next year - I don’t care where the championship is!”
And just like that, a commitment to road-tripping was cemented into my future, and Jimmy had something to do with that.
If you knew Jimmy, or even if you just met him once, you knew him, you liked him, you laughed, and you were sure to remember him. The laughs and memories shared by Laker teammates, especially in the 1980-1983 era, will last forever. The locker room stories, the grocery store adventures, the laughs at practices, and the head-shaking good times at Barney’s… The annual visits each October when he and Besh would stay at our house for Alumni Weekend, and Jimmy’s signature sense of humor and candid honesty.
When we were housemates in ‘82-’83, Jim agreed to record many of my albums on cassette tapes. I still have those obsolete cassettes, and I’ll keep them if only to see Jimmy’s handwriting on the little cardboard inserts - the album title and artist, of course, but also the list of songs, too. He must’ve spent hours working on those.
Over the many years, I’ve met many, many people from the West Genesee HS community. Teachers, alumni, lacrosse people, coaches… everyone knew Onack, and everyone loved him. Seriously, I don’t think I ever heard anyone say anything bad about him.
Here is Jim’s obituary: James Onacki Obituary (2022) - Syracuse, NY - Syracuse Post Standard
As fate would have it, I won't be able to attend his funeral service next week, which makes me even sadder. My wife and I are leaving on Wednesday for Prague and my son’s wedding, which should be a happy time. Maybe cliche, but these lyrics come to mind:
“To everything, there is a season... a time to laugh, a time to weep... a time to dance, a time to mourn... a time to gain, a time to lose..." - Pete Seeger
I hope friends and teammates can attend Jimmy’s services next week. I hope people show their love for him and remember the years of laughs and smiles he brought to everyone he met.
As I wrote this newsletter, a favorite John Prine song came up on Spotify:
“When I get to heaven, I'm gonna shake God's hand.
Thank Him for more blessings than one man can stand.
Then I'm gonna get a guitar and start a rock and roll band.
Check into a swell hotel; ain't the afterlife grand?”
Godspeed, Jimmy, and thanks for the years of friendship.
Thanks for taking this drive with me. Have a great week, everyone.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t congratulate this weekend’s national champions - Maryland, Tampa, and RIT. The games made for must-see TV, and if you ask me, you can use any one of those game films to show younger players exactly how the game was meant to be played.
Congratulations go to all eight teams that earned a trip to East Hartford this weekend. Not everyone gets a trophy, but everyone gets a nod of congratulations and respect. If the underdogs didn’t win, they certainly had impressive showings.
Please consider subscribing to roadtripdad.substack.com to receive weekly RTD pieces via email. It’s free – really! No fine print; no catches.
In the meantime, please drive carefully, everyone. Donate blood. Get vaccinated, and get your boosters. Mask up if asked. Volunteer.
But most importantly, stay safe, stay smart, and stay kind.
- Dan Witmer
daniel.witmer@oswego.edu
Alumni Weekend - October 1984
