Lax Acts: Lancer Lacrosse players volunteer on weekends through their team

After nine hours of packaging toothbrushes, shampoo, conditioner, food, clothing and other necessities for the Folds of Honor Foundation, senior and varsity lacrosse player Will Feagans eagerly made his way back from his packing station to the rest of his team. 

As a way of bettering their players as people and also trying to gain back East’s respect and trust, the boys lacrosse team is participating in marathons, supporting local charities and volunteering at various drives around the city according to the players.

“This hopefully will help our reputation,” Feagans said. “We’ve had our rough years, you could say, but we’ve always been doing different things in the community to help out. But definitely to help build the lacrosse reputation for sure.”

Lancer Lacrosse first had the idea of getting the team involved in volunteer work last fall, starting with coat drives for the Starfish Foundation. They decided to officially require the athletes to do volunteer work as a part of their program before the spring season last year. 

“We have asked [the boys] to complete five hours of work, and then we’re trying to get them as many as 10 hours of volunteer time this fall and next spring, so not a tremendous amount,” Lancer Lacrosse Co-President and East parent Chad Gooley said. “We’re going to try to do something a little special for those guys that put in some extra time.”

The lacrosse team’s negative reputation comes after a game against Rockhurst High School last spring where both student sections shouted non-school approved chants.

“There was an incident at one of their games that no one wanted and the lacrosse team and our school received a lot of negative publicity,” Principal Jason Peres said. “We were contacted by multiple people who attended the game and multiple parties from the other schools that we played against. Essentially, we just agreed to disassociate our names, they can still call themselves the Lancers based on our agreement.”

Feagans and his teammates don’t agree with the decision — feeling like they have had to compensate for actions that were out of their control while they were on the field — but recognize that it was an executive decision to protect the school.

“It’s disappointing for sure considering that we’ve historically been such a successful program and made it to the state championship for the past two years,” Feagans said. “I can understand where [Peres] is coming from, but there was nothing that we could’ve really done. We can tell people to not say things, but students, especially as high schoolers, won’t listen to what we say.”

Gooley said that Lancer Lacrosse’s goal is getting their players involved in the community and to better themselves as people.

“I think the big thing as a board, because we’re not a school sport, is we’re trying to instill some good values in the boys,” Gooley said. “Volunteering is a good way to get them out into the community a little bit and helping others who were maybe a little less fortunate or doing things that might help others in the community”

One of the main foundations they volunteer for is the Folds of Honor Foundation, which provides scholarships to spouses and children of the fallen or disabled veterans. While at these events Feagans said they were happy to help other people with the benefit of bonding as a team. 

“We are a family, and it’s always kind of been this really tight knit group and it’s nice when we get to spend time together on the weekends hanging out and doing different things as a team,” Feagans said. “It’s definitely brought everyone closer together, especially the new guys in the program.”

Not only has volunteering and dedicating time to others bonded the team closer together but the players have come to enjoy their service time. 

“When the boys do the Folds of Honor Run, they seem to really enjoy it and the payoff for it was the camaraderie that the boys get from it,” Gooley said. “It’s good for them to have team building exercises and spend time together, not on the lacrosse field and for Folds of Honor, we are able to help them raise a bunch of money. But we want something the boys can look back at and really see the benefit from.”