Princeton University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Men's Lacrosse Trip: The Magnificence Of Glendalough, Jack's Back And Rob Toresco
June 11, 2008 | Men's Lacrosse
The bus ride was awful. The Princeton men's lacrosse team bounced through rush-hour traffic in Dublin and then up a winding mountain road. Despite the best efforts of Harry, the amiable bus driver, hardly anyone escaped at least a minor bout of car sickness.
Then there was the walk through the remains of a 1,300-year-old monastery, followed by a hike trough some woods where bugs called midges, who are related somehow to mosquitoes, attacked every one.
And so it was a cranky, tired, queasy group that arrived at a clearing, where, to the amazement of everyone, the Princetonians came upon a reminder of what Mother Nature can do when she puts her mind to it.
"This is," said assistant coach Greg Raymond, "the most beautiful place I've ever been."
He was not the only one who thought that way. John McPhee, for instance, was asked where he would rank this place on the aesthetic scale of 1-10.
"It's pretty high up there," said McPhee, who has been all over the world and who has written extensively about the Alaskan wildnerness.
Princeton traveled about an hour-and-half south of Dublin, Ireland, Wednesday morning, to the town of Glendalough. First there was the visit to the remains of the monastery, where St. Kevin set up shop around the year 700. The structure has held up remarkably well, and, in keeping with the Irish tradition of burying the dead on holy sites, the surrounding grounds were punctuated by headstones ranging from the 1700s all the way up to after the year 2000.
Then it was on to the walking path, which took the Princetonians through some dense woods, where the midges were everywhere. There was a little stream and then a small lake, called the Lower Lake. Eventually Princeton reached the clearing, and the immense beauty was just overwhelming.
The Upper Lake of Glendalough sits in a valley between two mountains, the Lugduff Spink to the south and the Camaderry to the north. The water stretched about a mile into the distance, and the slopes of both mountains were covered in a hundred different shades of green. It was a cloudy morning, and a strong breeze was blowing off the lake. It was a rejuvenating place, as the first glimpse of it washed away all of the fatigue and dizziness.
Aside from that, there is no way to adequately describe the sheer beauty that was in every direction.
"This is what I think of when I think of Ireland," said Princeton's Greg Seaman. "How many pictures do you think were taken in the first five minutes there? A thousand?"
Indeed, every Princeton player was snapping away in almost every possible permutation of teammates in the pictures, facing in all different directions.
One of the people who was featured prominently in the photos was Rob Toresco, a running back on the Princeton football team who gained more than 1,400 yards in his career. He also made the famous pitch back to Jeff Terrell in the second overtime against Penn his junior year, a play destined to become one of the most famous in Tiger football history.
Toresco played lacrosse until his sophomore year at Hunterdon Central High School, and after six years away from the sport, he returned as a walk-on for the final half of this his senior year. He never appeared in a regular season game, but his transition to the lacrosse team and his acceptance by his teammates was remarkable. Watching him interact with the rest of the Tigers makes it seem like he's been a team leader for four years; he has enjoyed this trip as much as anyone.
It won't be his final travel experience of the summer, as he if off to Hong Kong next month to work for former Princeton football player Michael Lerch's company.
"It's been a lot of fun," Toresco said. "I knew a lot of these guys before, and it's been great to be their teammate."
Those teammates tried to get a goal for Toresco in the 15-4 win over the English Under-19 team Tuesday morning, but it was not to be. Toresco took it good-naturedly, as he does everything else. For their part, the Princeton coaches seem to love him, and they are intrigued by what kind of lacrosse player he could have been had he played all four years.
Toresco's presence has been one of the many subplots of the trip. Another has been the tour guides, first Pedro Martinez in Spain and now Jack Burke in Ireland. Burke is in love with Ireland, and the sheer joy he gets in talking about the history, traditions, locations and everything else about his homeland are evident.
Burke gave Princeton a small tour of Dublin on the way in from the airport Monday, and he was on the trip to Glendalough Wednesday. His background is the kind that not many can rival.
He left school at the age of 14 to join the Dutch Merchant Marines, and he was at sea for more than a decade. After that, he worked for British Airways, rising to an Irish managerial position before taking early retirement. Then, at the age of 57, he enrolled in college and went on to earn a bachelor's degree and then a master's.
Today he is a walking encyclopedia of Ireland, and like many in this island nation, he will never run out of quips. A sample came as Princeton's bus drove past a pub on the street, where four men stood outside smoking.
"Smoking is now illegal in all public places in Ireland," he said. "It used to be that you'd go in for a smoke and a pint. Now you have to go outside to smoke. Men like to tell their wives they're going to pub, but only for a breath of fresh air."
Burke and Harry returned Princeton to the hotel by mid-afternoon. For the first time in three days, there was the typical Irish weather, with off and on rain and temperatures in the 60s.
It's the final night for Princeton on this trip. The Tigers will fly home Thursday afternoon, returning to JFK Airport in New York. They will be leaving Ireland, just as they left Spain behind Monday.
Even after they're home, of course, they will always have a piece of the Upper Lake at Glendalough with them. None of the players who were there will ever forget it.