June 9, 2009
Speed leads Griffin to Carolina
by Lenny Megliola/
It was an iconic tableau, sort of like a father and son playing catch in the back yard, in Anywhere, America.
The father, Paul Griffin, would be in the yard with his trusty infielder’s glove, taking tosses from his kid, a fourth-grader. Yep, the father is pounding the pocket of his mitt all right, but look closer. The kid is his daughter, Jessica, and she’s wielding a lacrosse stick, firing passes to her father.
It was the beginning.
That was years ago, when lacrosse got its hooks into the kid. This would be her game. Lacrosse. Jessica Griffin was on her way to being a swimming star, the 15-meter breaststroke her specialty. The kid could really run, too. At Massachusetts’ Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, where she’s a senior, Griffin was instrumental in the Warriors winning two 4 x 800 state relay titles. “She’s tenacious,” says L-S track coach Henry Phelan.
By her freshman year, Griffin had to make a choice: swimming or track. She was being pulled at both ends, leaning this way one day, that way another. She decided on track. At least now she can say, “It was one of the best decisions I ever made.”
Here’s why. It made her a better lacrosse player. How much better? Oh, good enough to capture All-State and All-America honors, and to get a scholarship to North Carolina.
“She’s a great athlete,” says L-S girls lacrosse coach Debbie DeJesus. “Her biggest strength is her speed.” Griffin is a blur, going from one end of the field to the other. “She doesn’t look like she’s going that fast, because she’s a tall girl,” says DeJesus.
On the winter track team, Griffin also ran the 600 and the 1,000. “She’s very strong, physically and mentally, and the 4 x 800 is like that,” says Phelan. “She never slows down. She wasn’t afraid, she’d just take the baton and take off.”
Paul Griffin never played lacrosse. When his daughter took to it, he got involved, running the Sudbury youth league for years. “He loves lacrosse now,” says the daughter. A cousin, Jen Griffin, eight years older, was a terrific player at Algonquin Regional High School in nearby Northboro. Paul would drive Jessica to Jen’s games. It only made Jessica want to play more, and not just play to pass the time, either. Not just to have something to do after school. She had grander plans than that.
“She started playing with older kids, and when she was a freshman at Lincoln-Sudbury she made an impact right away,” says her dad.
Griffin had 63 goals and 18 assists that year. She says her mindset was on results, not her stats. A freshman on the varsity minded her p’s and q’s. “You just don’t know what’s going on,” she recalls. “I didn’t know how many goals I had until the banquet.”
Still, she never felt just lucky to make varsity. “I would’ve been disappointed if I hadn’t made it. I was a little nervous. It was nice to see my name on the list.”
It didn’t take long for observers to see that Griffin was an up-and-comer. Just look at her run! “Speed is everything in lacrosse,” says DeJesus. And Griffin was a burner.
Her big-splash first year behind her, Griffin began to take on a larger role each season. “I knew I had to take over the team instead of just being a follower.” She sought out teammates on the field and passed more. She began racking up assists — she had 43 goals and 46 assists with four games left in the 2009 regular season. It’s made L-S a more difficult team to deal with. For four years she’s played with Alexa Rozelle, an honorable mention All-American heading to Cal-Berkeley.
“Jessica has matured,” says DeJesus. “This year she became a better defender. She realized how important it was to get back on defense.”
The sport intensified for Griffin when she began playing for the Mass. Elite team during her middle school years. When she was a seventh-grader, the physical element came into the game. Lacrosse had suddenly turned tougher.
“It was becoming more serious now, more intense,” says Griffin. She never blinked. “I enjoyed it.”
Mass. Elite made long road trips. “The competition was amazing,” says Griffin. “We played a lot of great teams in the south.” It only made her better.
After her sophomore year at L-S, she began e-mailing college coaches “to get my name out there, and see if there was any interest. I told them what team I played for, and what [uniform] number I was.” There was plenty of interest. The recruitment of Jessica Griffin began.
She attended lacrosse camp at Northwestern. Virginia and Boston College were in the mix. But Chapel Hill stole her heart. Griffin’s sense of gratitude for all of her coaches runs deep. DeJesus. Phelan. Mass. Elite coach Leslie Frank. And her dad. “He inspired me to keep playing, keep going.”
It started in the backyard, the daughter with the funny-looking stick, the father with the baseball mitt. Something was happening. Now, they know.
