Every Stick has a Story. And, so Does the Person who Holds it
In August of 1938 my father, William Wallace Fenn (better know as simply, Wally), began his freshman year at Harvard. He ran cross country that fall and was pretty good. He was always a fast runner. I am not sure if he played a winter sport but in the spring of 39, he was introduced to the game of lacrosse, a game that required speed and agility but wasn’t so dependent on the size of the player to be good. Dad wasn’t a very big guy, in fact he was a little on the small side. He would end up playing lacrosse all of his four years at Harvard and by the time he left in 1942, he would be captain of the team.
Like all young men of that era, my dad laid down his lacrosse stick at the end of his last season and shortly after graduation, headed off to fight in World War ll. Thankfully, he survived the war and went off to have a peaceful and productive life. He passed away in January of 2014 at the age of 93.
As a kid, I remember my dad’s lacrosse sticks propped up in the corner of the basement. They were always there my entire life. Occasionally, he would bring them out in the back yard and run around with them tossing the ball in the air, mostly playing with himself. I remember him asking me one day if they played lacrosse at my school. I remember saying “no they don’t” in a rather abrupt, teenager-kind of way. He said “too bad, lacrosse is a great game.”
After my dad passed away, we hired someone to come in and help clean out my parents house and have an estate sale. My dad’s lacrosse sticks ended up on eBay where they were purchased by a self-proclaimed lacrosse nut, a real historian, and owner of several lacrosse stores across the U.S. In the video that follows is the story of how Jason Ellison purchased the sticks and more importantly, the story they told.
Every stick has a story. And, so does the person who holds it. Enjoy!
Paul Fenn, Take a Shot Media 