Wednesday, April 18, 2001
Lacrosse . . . The furrowed brows and blank looks don't bother Billy Sullivan any more.
‘This is a cool game’
Senior Billy Sullivan has
By Jason Kaneshiro
become an ambassador
for the game of lacrosse
Star-BulletinWhen the Damien High School senior tells people of his sport of choice, it doesn't faze him that most aren't familiar with the game. After all, lacrosse barely registers a blip on the local sports radar. But rather than bemoan the sport's lack of respect, the state's top junior player has spent much of his two years in Hawaii recruiting his peers to pick up a stick.
"A lot of guys gave me funny looks," Sullivan said of his first efforts to persuade classmates to try lacrosse. "But then they'd tell me, 'teach me how to play it.'
"I think it would be a great sport here," he added, "because they love football and the hitting and everything. I think this would be a perfect game for down here. I think everybody would enjoy it."
Sullivan started playing lacrosse at age 9 in Maryland, one of the sport's hotbeds, and his skills helped him land a scholarship to the Air Force Academy Preparatory School. And the team may want to consider using the 17-year-old as a recruiter. This past year, Sullivan got 10 of his teammates on the Damien football team to play lacrosse, with a little help from a recent movie in which one of the main characters stars on his school's lacrosse team.
"They saw it in 'American Pie,' " he said. "They were like 'Oh yeah, this is a cool game.' A lot of them like to play, they love the hitting."
Sullivan took up his role as the sport's local ambassador upon moving to Hawaii with his family prior to his junior year of high school. Although he enrolled at Damien, Sullivan hooked on with a club team based at Punahou. He also joined the 15-member Hawaii Youth Lacrosse Association. And while his 5-foot-6, 160-pound stature didn't impress his new teammates, it didn't take long for him to earn their respect.
"When I first saw him I thought, 'This kid is so tiny, he's going to get hurt out there,' " HYLA coach Eddie Ayau said. "Then we started throwing the ball around and he started taking a couple shots at the goal, and his first two shots popped the bindings off of the goal."
What Sullivan lacks in size he makes up for with those qualities that make a successful lacrosse player -- speed, toughness and a complete lack of regard for his physical well-being.
"He has incredible speed and he has incredible stick skills," Ayau said. "And in a game like lacrosse, which is like hockey, you have to be able to control your fear, and he's fearless. He does not care if he gets hit after he takes a shot."
Sullivan's tenacity also served him well as a running back on the Damien football team. He earned second team Interscholastic League of Honolulu all-star honors last season and was invited to play in the HUB Goodwill All-Star Classic. Sullivan is also a pole vaulter with the Monarchs' track and field team, and posted a season-best vault of 13 feet at Saturday's ILH meet at Punahou.
Sullivan admits playing college-level lacrosse will require some adjustments, like practicing every day rather than once a week with the Hawaii Men's Lacrosse Club.
But Ayau isn't worried about Sullivan's ability to acclimate after watching him play against top level competition during junior tournaments in California last summer and in the annual international men's tournament at Kapiolani Park.
"We played some of the top Division I high schools in California, and he just shredded them," said Ayau.
Sullivan credits Hawaii Sports Network's recruiting service for helping him get noticed in a largely overlooked sport. He received scholarship offers from the University of Hartford and Canisius College before accepting the opportunity to play for Air Force. And his success could become his greatest recruiting ploy.
"If in-line hockey can catch on, lacrosse certainly can catch on," Ayau said. "It needs more exposure, and what Billy did by getting into the prep school is going to bode well for our program in Hawaii."