November 21, 2016 – As part of our Biola Lacrosse Connections newsletter, we feature a player from the current team, and ask them “Why did you choose to join the Biola lacrosse team?” October’s featured player is Jonathan Shaw. Jonathan is a freshman at Biola and will be playing his in first season at Biola in 2017. Here’s why Jonathan chose to play lacrosse at Biola:
My journey to the Biola lacrosse team began my freshman year of high school when I got cut from the high school baseball team. In the many years that I played baseball I had turned myself into a pretty capable catcher and situational hitter, but at 5’10 and 100 pounds I wasn’t the type they were looking for. In search for a new outlet I looked into club baseball and basketball, but in the spring of my freshman year lacrosse came to my high school. The next year I joined the team with all of three weeks of experience and a lacrosse IQ I got from YouTube. Outfitted with a brand new Brine Clutch 3 head I scored one goal and had three assists that year as a JV midfielder.
As a whole my high school lacrosse experience was awesome, I learned a lot about the sport and made some incredible friends. However the culture of the team was insufficient for a team of its competitive caliber. The team’s culture, stemming from the coaching staff, placed winning over player and character development. Which in turned ruined my senior year of lacrosse when we missed the playoffs for the first time in team history.
As a result of those experiences, I wanted my college team to have a different culture than the one I had in high school. Here at Biola there is definitely a different culture in which to play lacrosse, under the guidance of Coach Klett and the team captains. Whereby goals and purposes are separated, with a team goal for example being to win games and a purpose to show Christ in one’s play. Biola lacrosse culture then had a big impact on my decision to join the team because not only did I want to continue to play lacrosse but I also wanted to have a part in the team’s objectives.
CLICK HERE to learn how you can support Jonathan and his teammates.