I H 2016 Navy Lacrosse H I * 81 *
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I H 2016 NAVY LACROSSE H I THE HISTORY OF NAVY LACROSSE Of the 33 varsity sports which thrive at the Jay mentors coaching to turn the tables on Johns Memorial Award in 1947, given to the most outstand- Naval Academy, none surpasses lacrosse’s win- Hopkins, winning 7-6 in 1910. Head Coach George ing attackman in the nation. ning tradition that includes eight-consecutive National Finlayson, took the reins as Navy’s extraordinary James “Lee” Chambers was only a plebe on that Championships among a total of 17 to date. Navy’s mentor from 1911-1935. He quickly brought Navy ’46 championship squad, but his contributions earned rich and storied heritage owes its origin to former its first two undefeated seasons in 1912 and subse- him First-Team All-American honors. Chambers was Johns Hopkins players Frank Breyer and Bill Hudgins quently in 1914 (with a tie in each of those seasons). also named a First-Team All-American twice again who volunteered in to help organize and coach Navy’s The outbreak of WWI led to the cancellation of before he graduated with numerous other awards first collegiate team in 1908. Navy lacrosse owes its the latter part of the lacrosse season in 1917, but including the Navy Sword for the most outstanding “Glory Years” largely to a Rutgers University graduate ironically, the beginning of WWI also marked the start athlete in the graduating class. Captain of the ’49 named Willis “Bildy” Bilderback whose record of nine of a saga unique in college annals. Coach Finlayson Midshipmen, Chambers led the squad through a National Championships in 14 years as head lacrosse expanded the cornerstone of Navy’s winning lacrosse perfect 11-0 season; however, Navy was forced to coach is likely never to be matched. In addition to tradition with seven undefeated seasons from 1917 share the title that year with the Blue Jays. The 1949 winning outright or sharing the collegiate national through 1923 (one tie), a 40 game winning streak. In recipient of the Turnbull Trophy, Chambers’ 143 championship eight years in a row (1960-67), “Bildy’s” that seven–year span, Navy stood supreme among goals scored over four seasons still stands as a Navy 1965 team was the first college team in 42 years to college lacrosse teams in the nation. In 1920, Navy record. win both the National Collegiate Championship and surrendered just six goals in nine games, the launch- After a four year absence from the spotlight, the National Open Championship. ing of Navy’s reputation for outstanding individual and Moore’s 1954 squad made winning the national More than 400 donors from the extended Navy team defense. The following year, Navy’s defense championship appear comparatively simple. The Mids lacrosse family composed of current and former was stout, giving up three goals in seven games and opended the season with an 18-0 rout of Washington players, coaches, trainers, equipment managers, turning in five shutouts, while its powerful offense College, followed by a 21-2 thrashing of Harvard, team managers, and of course Navy lacrosse friends scored 84 goals. and a 23-1 dumping of Penn State. Maryland fell to and parents around the globe made possible the Coach Finlayson piloted the Mids through two Navy 12-7, and that five goal spread was the closest Bilderback-Moore Navy Lacrosse Hall of Fame that more unbeaten seasons, but in 1924, Navy’s in-state any team would come to the Mids in a perfect 10-0 opened in the summer of 2007. It honors heroes and rival Maryland handed the Mids their first defeat in season. While the winning may have seemed easy champions who “carried a lacrosse stick” while they eight years, 5-3. The highlight of the 1924 lacrosse on the field, the coaching took on a new angle—liter- were Midshipmen, but it also signifies both the Naval season was Navy’s first game against, and victory ally—during a mid-season contest with Duke. One Academy’s and the alumni’s commitment to support over, its top rival- Army. The Mids beat the Black of Dinty’s own attackmen accidentally hit him on the and extend Navy’s winning lacrosse tradition. Fittingly Knights 5-0 at West Point, handing Army its only loss sideline as players went out of bounds, breaking the named after two superb gentlemen who left their that season. coach’s leg. Only after Navy had disposed of the indelible legacy in both the sport and Navy’s winning Finlayson’s 1925 and ’26 lacrosse teams domi- Blue Devils, 17-3, was Moore carried to a hospital for tradition, hundreds of heroes, champions, coaches nated with back-to-back undefeated seasons. In just treatment. He was confined to bed for three months, and exceptional friends of Navy lacrosse have been the second game played between Army and Navy, the and permitted to use a wheelchair only once weekly. enshrined. Included are two Medal of Honor recipi- Mids handed the Cadets their only loss, 3-2. Although From that wheelchair, Dinty coached his ’54 team ents, 31 Navy Cross honorees, and 50 Silver Star low scoring, the 1925 game was described in a radio to a national title over Army. Ten members of his winners among more than 400 former All-Americans broadcast as “the most tense, the most thrilling, the team were accorded All-American honors, including in whose ranks are 14 National Lacrosse Hall of most beautiful athletic contest ever seen on a field of first-team selection Stanley Swanson, another Navy Fame inductees, 10 state Lacrosse Halls of Fame sport.” defenseman awarded the Schmeisser Cup. members, and 21 National Individual Award winners. By the end of the 1926 season, Coach Finlayson Moore had three undefeated squads during his Many more Navy Lacrosse alumni are recipients had eleven undefeated seasons (including three career, with his teams losing only 10 games in his final of Distinguished Flying Crosses, Bronze Stars and with one tie), but had not yet won a National five seasons. Dinty retired after the ’58 campaign, Purple Hearts. James Carrington, has special recog- Championship. In 1928, Navy shared its first National taking with him an impressive 23-year record of 159 nition in the Bilderback-Moore Lacrosse Hall of Fame Championship with Johns Hopkins, Maryland and wins, 50 losses and two ties. He helped mold 146 as both a player and coach as he remains the only Rutgers, followed by its second in 1929 when Navy All-Americans, while his teams were outright national Midshipman since 1850 to receive All-America honors and Union College were both presented gold medals. champs four times and co-champs twice. He was in three sports (lacrosse, football, and swimming). Of George Finlayson completed his Navy coach- Navy Lacrosse’s ambassador and head coach who course, among the four National Coaches of The Year ing career in 1935 with a remarkable 82.9 winning did it for the love of both the game and his players’ recognized in the Bilderback-Moore Hall of Fame are percentage (140-25-10) over 25 years, second only work ethic. National Lacrosse Hall of Fame members William H. to Navy’s Willis Bilderback who recorded an 83.0 “Dinty” Moore for whom Jim Carrington played, and winning percentage (131-26-2) between 1959-72. His The Bilderback Years (1959-72) Bildy, for whom Jim coached. record of 13 unbeaten seasons is unprecedented! It was the “Glory Years” or “Decade of Dominance” Many Navy lacrosse players have “given back” to in Navy lacrosse, an era never to be equaled. The this sport in a variety of ways that have clearly helped The Moore Years (1936-58) 1960s belonged, undeniably, to Navy. Plebe coach make lacrosse America’s fastest growing sport more Dinty Moore, a lacrosse icon, founder and coach for 12 years, Willis Bilderback, or Bildy, succeeded than 100 years later! Among them are Ed Gibbons. of St. John’s College lacrosse, succeeded Finlayson Moore in 1959. From 1960-1967, the Midshipmen Charlie Guy, the 1945 recipient of the Schmeisser in 1936. Over the next 23 years, Moore added six won eight consecutive national championships, win- Award, is one of nine Navy players to win the coveted national lacrosse championships and national coach ning outright in ’60, ’62 ’63,’64, ’65, and ‘66, and shar- award and also the former University of Virginia head of the year honors to his stellar resume. His 1938 ing it in ’61 with Army, while in ’67, Navy stood along- coach who led the Cavaliers to their first National squad registered a 7-0 slate to claim the Wingate side Hopkins and Maryland as the tri-champions. Championship. Jimmy Lewis ‘66 was the first college Trophy which the USILA first awarded in 1936 to the During that eight-year span, Navy produced a 79-8 lacrosse player in Div. I history to win the Turnbull collegiate national champion. (.908) record and a decade mark of 96-14-1 (.869). Award in three consecutive years and more than 40 It took only four years for Moore’s Mids to reach The Mids won 25-consecutive games beginning with years after graduating from the Academy, he is one the top again, as his 1943 squad won the national a season-opening victory over Rutgers on March 28, of only three players to achieve the feat (Tim Nelson, title outright. R.J. Booze ’44 established an Academy 1964, and ending four games into the 1966 campaign Syracuse 1983-84-85; Michael Powell, Syracuse record for goals in a game with eight in a 20-6 vic- season.