Sarah Sedgwick starts her story with a childhood memory: A girl, no older than 8, went with her father to the Carrier Dome to watch men play lacrosse. Her father, Doug Sedgwick, once played there. So he would drive his daughter 10 minutes east to the stadium whenever he could. And Sedgwick once fell asleep on its bleachers – where the girl found comfort – where Sedgwick was home. Near the field her father once stood, Sedgwick looked back and smiled.

A midfielder on the No. 7 Syracuse women’s lacrosse team has returned. After two years with Boston College women’s lacrosse team where Sedgwick was significant – but not spectacular – the junior is a first-year transfer for Syracuse. Her fourth game in the Dome comes Friday against Louisville.

But amid the shuffle, Sedgwick recalled how her father helped her come back. Doug was a captain on head coach Roy Simmons Jr.’s 1980 team. In the city where the Sedgwicks became educators, businessmen and athletes for seven generations, Doug became a salesman shortly after college.

The graduate would settle in Fayetteville, N.Y., with three daughters he raised with a constant reminder: That he was an Orangeman. That he once played lacrosse. There was always a reminder in the backyard of Sarah’s suburban home, a lacrosse net Doug had paid for with office furnishings. There, Sedgwick learned to play lacrosse. And at night, after practice, the father would remind his child that great lacrosse players slept with their sticks.

Before the adolescent Sarah fell asleep he would come in and place that stick at the foot of his daughter’s bed. Lacrosse was a part of her home.

It was late midsummer of 2006 when Sarah was recruited by Boston College. In Boston, Sarah could help a team in development. She could start in every game, like the 17 her sophomore year. She could lend goals, like the 12 she scored her last year with BC. And if she felt homesick, Syracuse was just four hours away. So the decision was made on the way home from Boston in a rented car.

‘She said, ‘OK, I’ll go to BC,” Doug recalled. Hours before Sedgwick’s first Atlantic Coast Conference tournament game, she dropped by her parents hotel room. Then Doug knew, that the freshman would eventually return.

‘She was on the edge of playing one of the biggest games she had the opportunity to play, and she just wasn’t happy,’ Doug said.

Doug would watch the Eagles play and saw signs of underachievement. It became apparent that Boston wasn’t what Sarah had expected; it wasn’t the team on the verge of winning championships. Boston College wasn’t Syracuse.

‘I didn’t just want to have fun,’ Sarah said. ‘I wanted to accomplish something, so I guess that’s where the difference was.’

So Sarah made phone calls, and Doug drove four hours to pick up his daughter. ‘She was relieved,’ he said, about Sarah’s drive back home.

Syracuse head coach Gary Gait picked up Sarah’s call. He could use a pair of legs that would race up and down the midfield that would allow the attackers to focus on net. Sarah could do that.

He saw that, remembering the scrimmage against BC at Princeton when a freshman who lived minutes away from Syracuse stood out on the field.

‘She’s a hustler,’ Gait said. ‘Someone who left it all on the field. Every ounce of energy and effort.’

Unlike former coaches she had worked with, Gait knew Sedgwick’s transition would come with time. His advice was simple: ‘Just do what you have to do.’

On the first game on the road this season, midfielder Christina Dove recalled how the new midfielder would trace the ball as it was played on the field. How Sarah had an affinity with anticipating where the ball went. She’d pick up draws. Drew possession.

‘Then it became obvious,’ Dove said. ‘That she was in her place.’

Doug flew to Evanston, Ill., to watch his daughter play against No. 1 Northwestern Sunday afternoon. He sat in the bleachers swelling with pride, as Sarah marked her first assist in Orange.

‘She’s a different kid now,’ Doug said. ‘She’s enjoying herself. She’s much more comfortable.’

It reminded him of when he used to play lacrosse in the city his family adopted seven generations ago, where he raced up and down the field he called home, where Sarah’s white Nikes now met FieldTurf as she concentrated on nostalgic things.

‘I think it was after my freshman year that my parents knew that Syracuse was probably the best place for me,’ Sedgwick looked back. ‘It just took me a year to realize that.’

edpaik@syr.edu

Published on March 23, 2009 at 12:00 pm