March 5, 2008
by Tom Borrelli, Special to Lacrosse Magazine Online
All it took was the right situation.
And presto, Andy Secore is transformed from bit player to National Lacrosse League All-Star.
Secore, the third-year forward with the high-flying Minnesota Swarm (6-2), is tied for the team lead in scoring with 16 goals, 25 assists and 41 points in just seven games. In his first two seasons combined, he accumulated 10 goals, 15 assists and 25 points in 17 games with the Arizona Sting.
"Andy has been a big part of our offense," said Swarm head coach Duane Jacobs, whose team is averaging 14 goals per game, up from 12.5 a year ago. "He's really helped establish our five-on-five attack. That's something we really wanted to improve from last year. He's helped bring fluidity to an offense that was lacking it at times."
Minnesota has qualified for the NLL playoffs two straight seasons and was off to a 6-0 start this season before back-to-back losses. The Swarm visits Buffalo Saturday night hoping to snap a two-game losing streak.
Secore, a 5-foot-11, 190-pounder from Hamilton, Ontario, was in the same boat as all of his Arizona teammates after the NLL season was saved following a short cancellation caused by the labor disagreement last fall.
While the season was resuscitated, the Sting was kaput. In a heartbeat, the Arizona players were in limbo.
"We didn't expect it at all after going to the Champion's Cup last year," said Secore, who is studying law and security at Mohawk College in his hometown with the hopes of getting into police or corrections work. "We had a great team, and we thought we were coming back. We found out three weeks before the season was to start that we were a no-go, so that hurt."
Secore, who will miss Saturday's game with a slight knee injury, said he was informed of the Sting's demise via e-mail. But a few days later, while surfing the Internet, he learned he'd been selected by the Swarm in the NLL dispersal draft.
At the time, little did Secore know that Minnesota general manager Marty O'Neill had been busy working the phones to acquire his services.
"Andy was somebody I'd tried to trade for last year, but Arizona had been pretty cagey about it," said O'Neill. "We went after him, and it was great for us that we got him. He's that guy we'd been looking for, because he puts the ball in the net."
O'Neill traded veteran goaltender Matt Disher to the Edmonton Rush for the fifth pick in the dispersal draft. He grabbed Secore after Portland went for forward Dan Dawson, New York claimed defenseman Patrick Merrill, Philadelphia took goaltender Rob Blasdell and Chicago tabbed defenseman Scott Self.
Blasdell has been one of the big reasons the Wings are off to a 6-1 start and looking good to make the playoffs for the first time since 2002.
Merrill's leadership and steady play has helped New York shore up a defense that allowed a league-high 14.56 goals per game last season. The Titans have seen that mark drop to 12.78 this year, as the team has already matched its expansion season's wins total.
Dawson, considered the ultimate prize of the dispersal draft, leads the LumberJax in scoring with 17 goals, 24 assists and 41 points, the same as Secore, but in two more games.
"We're a lunch-bucket team and pride ourselves on not being a superstar team," said Secore's teammate, fifth-year defenseman Mark Miyashita. "But Andy has stepped in and is playing great lacrosse. He does all the little things right for us, nothing really flashy. He's scored quite a few big goals and gelled really well with the guys. It's been a seamless transition."
Secore loves playing for Jacobs, the soft-spoken second-year head coach of the Swarm who boasts a 15-9 career record.
"He just doesn't panic," Secore said of Jacobs, who is a lawyer by day. "He knows mistakes are going to happen, and he doesn't [bawl] you out. He's a good guy to play for."
Except for the success both teams have enjoyed, things have been very different for Secore this year. Dressing for St. Paul's winter weather is a bit more challenging than packing for a weekend trip to Phoenix.
And the fan base at the Xcel Energy Center is bigger and louder than he heard inside Jobing.com Arena.
"It hurt the body traveling so much all the time," Secore said of the past two seasons. "Being in the East is much better in that way. And we've got a lot more fans than we did in Arizona. They're very loud and that definitely helps us. They love their hockey in Minnesota, but lacrosse is really coming on."
The Swarm has attracted an average of 10,517 to its three home games this season, which ranks sixth among the 12 NLL teams. Arizona drew 6,049 per home game last year to stand 11th out of 13, and 6,477 in 2006, which was 10th among 11 teams.
"We were doing a lot of appearance work in Arizona trying to promote the game," Secore said. "But it was really a tough sell there. The people who live there aren't really from there. A lot of them would rather hang out on the golf course because of the nice weather they have."
Secore, like all the Arizona mercenaries, faces an uncertain future after this season. The league announced that the Sting franchise was suspending operations for a year and that Arizona would have the opportunity to reclaim its players if and when it returns to the league.
While that had also been planned by other defunct NLL franchises, it has never happened. The original Boston Blazers suspended operations following the 1997 season and never returned, nor did the New York Saints, who left after the 2003 campaign.
"It's tough putting in time anyplace and then getting the rug pulled from underneath you," said O'Neill, who spent five years with the Blazers, then played for the Syracuse Smash and the Buffalo Bandits during his final three seasons as a player. "You don't know where you're going to be or what the future holds. I can't predict the future, but we have four first-round picks next year, and I'm going to do everything I can to keep him."
Tom Borrelli is a sports writer for The Buffalo News
and a regular contributor to Lacrosse Magazine
and Lacrosse Magazine Online
. In 2007, Borrelli became the first media member honored by the National Lacrosse League Hall of Fame. He has covered the NLL for 16 years.
For more on the NLL and from Borrelli, check back to LMO each Wednesday throughout the 2008 season, or contact Borrelli at tbwrite@aol.com.
