Cicero A. Estrella, Chronicle Staff Writer Friday, May 10, 2002

The members of the boys lacrosse team can pass and catch with sticks. They understand the rules. They play position defense and resist the urge to automatically tackle anybody within vicinity of the ball. They have learned to use the telephone.

Coach Josh Miller cannot overstate the importance of the last lesson. The real measure of progress for the fledgling players is their improved communication skills. Whenever they are unable to attend practice, they pick up the phone and let their coaches know. Six months ago, when practices began, they simply were no-shows.

Miller, 29, introduced the game to the young Portola, Bayview-Hunter's Point, Visitacion Valley and Silver Terraces residents last year. The volunteer coaches, who includes former college players Andy McDonald, Ethan Ewing and Johanna Thomashefski, started from scratch. They explained to the team of mostly sixth- and seventh-graders every aspect of the game, from rules to techniques to the subtle etiquette that govern the sport.

But beyond the crosse, body checks and ground balls are the important lessons that are the basis for Miller founding the team. He wants the team's 14 boys to benefit as the coaches have from lacrosse, and the first lessons he wanted to convey were of commitment and responsibility.

"'We're dealing with issues of discipline and self-confidence. We're not stressing wins but the hard work that is necessary for success," said Miller, who played for Princeton University from 1992 to '95. "We want them to learn how to set goals for themselves and how to take small steps toward those goals. "

Those steps have so far produced no big victories on the field, but plenty of little ones off it. The Bulldogs were winless in eight Northern California Junior Lacrosse Association games at press time. They conclude their season by hosting a six-team jamboree starting at 10 a.m. Sunday at their Palega Recreation Center home field in the Portola district.

"The biggest things for us are attendance and following instructions," Miller said. "This group here has been showing up consistently the past two, three months. It was fairly sporadic earlier. They're here now; they're living up to their word."

Two other youth teams exist in San Francisco, Stuart Hall in Cow Hollow and Town School in Pacific Heights, which defeated the Bulldogs 6-3. Both are private boys schools.

Many of the Bulldogs are athletes looking to stay busy during the offseason of their primary sport. Others are first-time athletes drawn to idea that, as beginners, everyone is on equal footing.

Demarea Barnes, 11, plays offensive lineman for the Brown Bombers' Pop Warner football team during the fall. He wanted a challenge at the conclusion of football season; lacrosse was the perfect fit.

"I wanted to learn a new sport," said Demarea, a sixth-grader at Martin Luther King Academy Middle School in the Portola district. "I didn't know anything about it. The coaches came to our school and showed us some moves, and they took us to a (high school) game. I thought it was interesting."

Dominick Murphy, 12, said: "It's exciting. It's a lot of sports put together." The MLK sixth-grader says basketball is still his favorite sport, but lacrosse now ranks ahead of football.

The Bulldogs are part of a growing trend that has been referred to as "motivational lacrosse." About 20 programs across the country, including ones from New York, Boston and Newark, N.J., use the traditionally suburban and prep school sport as an outlet for inner-city boys and girls.

The motivational programs are not affiliated with each other. They are, however, associated with the sport's national governing body, the U.S. Lacrosse Association, which provided the Bulldogs with about $8,000 worth of equipment for their inaugural season.

Miller, a Richmond District resident, has been playing lacrosse since he was 7. The former All-American spent a year coaching at Hofstra University in 1996, but even more inspiring was the few weeks he spent coaching at a summer lacrosse camp for inner-city kids in his hometown of Baltimore.

He wanted to do something similar after moving here from New York in 2000 to join a venture-capital firm. He discussed his ideas with the lacrosse association, which referred him to a Bayview-Hunter's Point activist, who then introduced Miller to James Taylor Jr., principal of MLK.

Taylor did not need much convincing.

"I joked with Josh that if he wanted to start a basketball team, football team, soccer team or a beach Frisbee team, I'm right there," said Taylor, who welcomes any extracurricular activities for the neighborhood children but also realizes the benefits of a new sport.

"It allows for growth and expansion," Taylor said. "(The children) have to understand that things that are unfamiliar aren't necessarily bad. They owe it to themselves to explore. The greatest lacrosse player on the planet may be playing basketball on the hardtop and never exposed to the game."

Persuading the children would not be as easy. Miller knew that in order to sell the sport, he had to become, well, a salesman. For his carefully planned first presentation at MLK in April last year, he donned a gray suit, tie and dress shoes.

His cynical target group included many who were unaware that such a sport even existed. So Miller baited them with the familiar. He asked his captive audience if any thought they could take him on a game of one-on-one basketball.

About 30 confident hands popped into the air.

Miller chose one of the taller students. He changed into a pair of high-top sneakers and removed his jacket and shirt to reveal his gray Princeton Tigers practice T-shirt underneath.

The student tried to dribble past Miller, but Miller stripped him of the ball, faced him up and drove by for the bucket.

He had the kids' attention then.

"It made me real to them," Miller said. "I went there looking like I couldn't do much in that suit. I was this preppy guy. More than anything, I wanted to show them I wasn't afraid to get my hands dirty and have fun."

Of the Bulldogs members, 11 are from MLK, two from Twenty-first Century Academy Middle School in Silver Terraces and one from Taylor Elementary in Portola.

The Bulldogs coaches emphasize that lacrosse is not much removed from other sports the kids play. It is physical like football. Like hockey and tennis, it is played with sticks. It requires the same quickness and finesse necessary in basketball. And the idea is to get the ball past the goalie, much like soccer and other net sports.

Demarea originally found lacrosse "kinda weird." On the first day of instructions in November, the students were told to throw the ball with just one hand on the stick. They failed to get the hang of it until the coaches incorporated another sport in their instructions.

"We were trying to throw it 10, 15 yards," said Demarea, an MLK sixth- grader. "They told us to try throwing and catching it like it was baseball. The only difference was we were using sticks instead of our hands."

The Bulldogs may not be of championship caliber yet, but they have a much better understanding of the game. Perhaps by next season they will improve on their win-loss record.

No matter, says Miller, because they have already proved themselves winners.

They committed themselves to an unproven program and stuck with it, even as they practiced in cold and wet winter weather with their initial game months away.

Coach Johanna Thomashefski did not have the same success with the girls team. Not enough could commit, so instead Thomashefski held drop-in clinics for fifth- to eighth-graders throughout the season.

A University of San Francisco graduate student and co-founder of the Michigan State women's club team in 1991, Thomashefski is not overly concerned.

Her high school experience in Ann Arbor, Mich., tells her that once a boys team is established, a girls team is certain to follow.

"The girls see that it's fun and OK, and they're a little more intrigued," she said. She expects to field a team next year.

"There's never been lacrosse in this specific area," said Miller. "The kids are not going to be considered cool because they play lacrosse. It will not give them external gratification, but they're out here because they want to play. It gives them internal gratification."

Twelve-year-old Harold Ellis does think lacrosse is cool.

"It's something new," said the Twenty-first Century seventh-grader. "I like to prove other people wrong. My family comes to watch us. Some of them wish that lacrosse was around when they were younger so they would have had the same opportunity to play."

As well as learn a few valuable lessons.