Title: Lakeville Park Legend

Medium: Acrylic on canvas (18” x 24”)

Date Completed: 12/5/21

Ingredients: Buffalo Trace Bourbon, Bob Dylan’s greatest hits, Lucho Bermudez greatest hits, 40+ year friendship

This painting honors one of my closest friends, Chris Galgano, who as a young middle-and-high schooler had a passion for the sport of lacrosse like no one else I knew. Growing up in Great Neck, there were no youth lacrosse leagues like our neighbors in Manhasset, Cold Spring Harbor and Garden City had. Our lax mentors were older players from the neighborhood who’d show up at Lakeville park and tell us their “lax war stories”, impart what they knew about the game on a bunch of impressionable middle schoolers and keep tabs on us as we grew up and played in high school and college. The Crowley bros (Steve and Matt) the Boesch bros (Al & John) Billy Pick, Milton Rodriguez, Ronnie Caro, Jeff Steigman, Lenny Phillips and the McCarthy family were some the folks we learned the game from.

The Boesch’s had the only lacrosse goal in town and Chris would go down to their house to borrow their goal just about every day in middle school and high school. When no one was around to help Chris carry the goal to Lakeville park several blocks away, Chris placed it onto skateboards and would push it himself down to the park and hone his “sniper” shooting skills for hours and hours.

When our crew gathered at the park, we’d play rough sandlot lacrosse on the asphalt half-court made for basketball; no helmets, no gloves, no arm pads, just lots of passion, stupidity and fun. Many of us would leave with some bumps and bruises, some may have lost a few teeth, but it was exciting and that’s where us “sandlotters” became lacrosse players. In 8th grade, led by the great Coach Dennis Sulinsky, our crew of rag-tag sandlotters beat a Manhasset team that had not lost a game in years until that day, and it was like winning the super bowl for us!

Our crew would go on to play for Coach Paul Meyer, Coach Ed Rosenthal, Coach Matt Crowley, and Coach Dutch Hess in high school, who were not only amazing coaches, but great people who nurtured and challenged us to be the best we could be. Coach Hess passed away in 2019, and many of us still stay in touch with the other coaches.

During our sophomore and junior summers, Chris led the charge for the sandlotters to get involved in a highly competitive summer league – the only catch was that the league was on the other side of Long Island in Freeport. The only mode of transportation we had was in the “Galgano Bus” - Chris’ mom’s 1980 station wagon that Ricky (Chris’ older brother who had a freshly-minted driver’s license) would drive and go around to the different Great Neck and New Hyde Park “bus stops” to pick up the team. We would pile no less than 15 guys in that car, equipment and all – getting in and out of that wagon was quite the scene!

The sandlotters from Lakeville Park grew up playing and loving lacrosse and developed 40+ year friendships that continue to this day. From our senior class, just about every senior went on to play college lacrosse. Chris won the “fastest shot contest” in Long Island as a HS senior, became a high school All-American and went on to play at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he and his team won the Division I National Championship when Chris was a freshman in 1986!

Chris inspired many of us and our younger siblings and their friends to play lacrosse, many who went on to play varsity and club ball in college. Chris continues to coach youth lacrosse every now and then in Florida where he lives with his wife and HS sweetheart, Amy, and their daughters Allison and Samantha.

Chris, here’s to you and the sandlotters you inspired!