Taking Chances

The next year, hard as it was, McBride decided to give up field hockey and basketball and concentrate only on lacrosse.

"For her, it was a real gamble," Don McBride says. "She was willing to give up field hockey and basketball and take her chances with lacrosse."

After a two-year layoff from lacrosse (McBride's stress fractures kept her on the sidelines her senior year in high school), McBride didn't even know whether she would make the team. But she did well in indoor practice, applying some of her basketball talents--an aggressive inside game and excellent faking ability--to lacrosse.

When the weather turned nice, the team moved outside.

"I made the team, and then we went outside," McBride says. "All Carole did was yell at me--I couldn't cut worth beans. I'd never had to cut in high school."

Leelee Groome, an attack on the Crimson and McBride's teammate at Agnes-Irwin, could sympathize with McBride's plight. She, too, had had to learn a new system and develop a broader and more refined approach to lacrosse.

But like McBride, Groome could never quite free herself from her high school lacrosse habits. And one of those habits was to look for McBride.

"In high school, it was pretty much Kelly and I on the attack," Groome says. "We could do anything we wanted. When you get into a new situation, it's tough to rely on people you haven't played with. I knew what kind of moves Kelly made, so I looked for those."

"When we got here, everyone thought we passed to each other too much," McBride says. "We still get grief about it."

This year, not just Groome but everyone looks for McBride. She leads the team in goals scored with 30 and has nine assists--just a reminder that she can pass, too.

"She's not physical and she isn't very fast," Don McBride says. "It's all finesse and skill. She uses both hands well and she gets a lot of mileage out of this."

McBride would like to end her career by helping her team win the Ivy League championship. With victories over Yale and Dartmouth in the upcoming week, the Crimson would wrap up its sixth league crown in nine years.

When the season and her senior year end, McBride will begin work at Paine-Webber in New York.

"She's a leader," Groome says. "She commands respect. She keeps a low profile but she's very personable. She puts a lot of pressure on herself and deals with it well."

"And when she graduates," Groome adds, "she going to make thousands and thousands of dollars."

McBride, a Winthrop House resident, has just been pleased with the chance to play lacrosse for a good team and with good people. Being captain is a bonus. So are all the goals she has scored and all the awards she has won.

"I don't know if I deserve it all," McBride says, "but it's nice."