A story about Positivity, Resilience and Community

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Welcome, welcome, welcome to another episode of In the Crease with Danny and Kevin, a coast-to-coast discussion of Deep Two Men's Lacrosse. I'm your co-host, Kevin Stenstrom, and with me as always is my long-lost co-host, Danny Moran. Hey, Danny.

SPEAKER_03 0:28

Kevin, it's been so long since we've spoken. I feel like we're strangers. How's everything going in northern Virginia this evening?

SPEAKER_02 0:36

You know, I'll just tell you the summer is flying by. I looked on our podcast on um Apple Podcast the other day, and we haven't done an episode since like June 19th, and it's August 1st as we record this. So we got a hard chop in there. Yeah, we had to take a little summer time off, you know, uh and and go from there. How's the summer been for you?

SPEAKER_03 0:55

You know, the summer's been busy, uh, Kev. A lot of work, and thank God. You know, I thank God I have the work, it's been busy, but things have been real good. It's been a beautiful summer, a lot of a lot of rain, but uh just just loving summer, going to the beach when I can, and you know how it is.

SPEAKER_02 1:12

Yeah, there you go. I don't get to the beach. You live a lot closer to the beach than I do. Yeah, I'm pretty close. I'm pretty close. Can't complain there. Hey, but it is good to be back on one of our summer episodes. And I think tonight we have a very unique episode, and it was actually recommended to us by one of our listeners this past spring. Of course, you know, during the spring, we're a little bit busy with uh doing our weekly, our weekly where the teams are, how the games are. You know, this this listener's son plays at limestone, but this is not a story about his son or the current team. You know, Danny, we have seen and we've talked many times on the podcast about the lacrosse community rallying in support of a family or a person. And really, that's what this episode is about. And so we're bringing in a guest that can really help us do that, and it's an amazing story. This person actually is a not only a former uh limestone player, Hall of Famer at Limestone for lacrosse, but he also played in the MLL as he was he played for the Charlotte Hounds. Uh to begin with, that's who he was drafted with. So why don't we just welcome in to tell a story, Devin Spilker? Hey Devin.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Hey Devin, how you doing, Devin and Danny? How are you?

SPEAKER_03 2:28

Thank you so much for uh taking the time to be on the uh in the crease podcast with the two knuckleheads. Uh we really appreciate you taking the time with us.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

I appreciate you guys having me on and and uh want to know about the story about my son and myself and uh been following you guys for for a good while. I love the D2 support and the D2 love you guys got, and uh especially having a couple boys that played at Wingate, you know, which was uh one of our competitors, and uh so I'm looking forward to to sharing the story and my story and and uh you know sharing the love for of uh D2 D2 lacrosse.

SPEAKER_03 3:02

Devin, I know that you got your limestone shirt on too, man.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

I'm wearing I'm wearing my love, and I of course of course I gotta have my bottom oroles hat on right now for more Orioles representing against booking up on the Yankees and there you go.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

There you go.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Red Sox.

SPEAKER_02 3:19

So you can keep doing it against the Yankees, but you know, I hope the Red Sox can turn it.

SPEAKER_03 3:24

I know Devin's been on 30 seconds and he's already shooting jabs at us.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

I know this interview is over.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

I love it. Hey, that's that's how we do it as brothers, right? Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

Hey, so why don't we just start off, Devin? I mean, I gave you the quick, uh, very brief bio. Why don't you just tell us about your kind of your background in lacrosse in D2 and go from there?

SPEAKER_01 3:50

I'm getting kind of old, so guys go's pretty back now. Um, so you know, I grew up one of three boys uh in a town called Glenbury, Maryland, just outside of Baltimore, north of Annapolis. Um, I started playing lacrosse at five, six years, five years old because that older brother that was uh seven, eight. And of course I was forced to to play on his team with him. So I always had to play up a couple years. Um, but who started us in lacrosse? Um, obviously my dad pushes him, but the guy that started my father, it's a guy who's in the hall of fame uh for U.S. lacrosse, his name is Oki O'Connor. Okie O'Connor was uh played at St. John's back, won a national championship back in this. I had notes here, back in the in 1930. He was the AD of Boys Latin from 30 to 60. Um, and he was a Glen Burney high school teacher and uh lacrosse coach from 61 to 76. And then at 76 he started the youth program. Um and he did it all the way to the till he passed. Um, so that's who started all of us and he's Glen Burney and lacrosse program with me and my brothers. Um, and then from there went to uh, you know, I got recruited um the middle school era, especially growing up in Anon County. It's pretty pretty hotbed for you know um for for lacrosse.

SPEAKER_04 5:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

So you had you had Annapolis, Spauding, uh, Severn, uh, Mount St. Joseph. Boy, I mean there's there's a lot of MIA schools. Um, and I was actually gonna go to CM Aries with some of the Anner County boys, and then uh the last minute we decided to change choose to Mount St. Joseph. Just um, you know, I thought it was better for me academically. Um, they had a learning disability program with my ADHD that that really helped. Um, and uh so I went to St. Joe, four years of RC soccer across there, and uh, you know, uh was a great career. I loved that school, it did so much for me. And then uh talking about D2, you know, I got recruited from all the big schools. I was an all-state, which now is like the underarm or all American. It was called Bay States back then. It was like the best of Maryland versus the best of New York, right? Um, so I was on that team for uh my sophomore and junior year. So obviously I was recruited from all the big schools. Um, just didn't have the SAT score until the end of my senior year. Um, you know, and I I could have gone to Towson, University of Maryland, a couple of schools locally didn't want to, uh, even though I got in later, um, you know, I thought about my brother was a junior captain at limestone at the time, and uh had a bunch of other friends from Aaron County down there. And uh, you know, they gave me a great, great opportunity. And I just thought of it that uh, you know, being 30, 40 years old, and I didn't go play with my brother, I made it maybe Ruda regretted it, you know. Um, and being a St. Joe, we were always middle, bottom of the pack MIA. She kind of got her butts whooped a lot, and I didn't want to go to a smaller D1 just to say I went to D1, like a lot of kids do, right?

SPEAKER_04 6:44

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

Like, hey, I I wanted to go to Princeton and Hopkins, but I couldn't get in there, so I'm gonna go to Mount St. Mary's, nothing against their programs, I'm not bad mouthing, but just meaning I didn't want to go somewhere and be middle of the pack and get and be at the bottom of the barrel. I wanted to go somewhere and win and play and have fun. And I thought that if I didn't go with my go play with my brother and some friends, you know, I was gonna regret it. And my plan was always to go there for two years, then transfer to Hopper Princeton where all my friends were playing from, you know, all-stars at Anor County or or from uh private school, and and uh, you know, it I didn't I didn't that didn't happen and ended up being great. I mean, four straight championships and you know, won two rings and uh I was MVP of the junior my junior year, which was an amazing team. That was the by far not the best team on paper, but we were the best team on the field, you know what I mean? I mean each other's back. I mean, that was pretty much you know, the two years we lost were two years of probably our best teams and just didn't pull it out because of some oddball reason, something, you know. So pretty much uh, you know, 40 years of lacrosse and about six minutes or three minutes, however long that was.

SPEAKER_02 7:52

I love it. I love the story. I love the story of could have gone D1. I'll tell you, my son played in a public high school and they were middle of the road. Yeah, and one of the reasons he picked the D2 school he went to was because he wanted to win and he wanted to to play and he wanted to try to compete for championships, whether it's the conference championship or it's the natty, right? He never got to the natty.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

So the other thing, Lamstro being so small. Um, I mean, as you guys, I don't know if you guys know this, but we're still the the to this day the NCAA smallest co-ed school to everyone in a national championship. So when I was in school there, it was 900 day students. You know that, right? Yeah, yeah, wow. So very small. So, you know, to to think about you know how small the school was then. It's it's grown, you know, by triple amount now, the football and all kinds of stuff. But you know, you can imagine you're in a small town and it's only lacrosse, that's all you have is your brothers. You know, I have a text list, an email group that doesn't stop by the day, you know. I mean, reminiscing, whether it's making fun of somebody, talking the story, or you know, hey, where's everybody got lacrosse tournament this weekend kind of thing, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:10

You know, so that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

We are so tight and such a great family. And some of my uh some of my things that talk about different from D2 to D1, you know, um, the connection that you have of a small school in a smaller um, you know, town compared to a big, big school, a lot of people, you know. You only have my friends that went to play big time ball, they only have four or five buddies they talk to on a regular basis. I got 30, 40 of them that just we all we have was us.

SPEAKER_03 9:39

Right, right, right. My little son uh got looked at by Michigan, went out there, and he's like, That it's just too big, man. Yeah, it's just like it's a city. I can't be here, you know.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

For me, biggest was when you're a number to the teacher.

unknown 9:54

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

That makes sense. Like, yeah, so I'm in a study hall and I gotta go, you know, I have questions about this report, and I can't even get into the see the teacher or the teacher assistant because I'm my number date in pool. Like that to me is ridiculous, right? I don't want to have that, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:10

Makes sense. Yeah, so let's switch topics here a little bit and get into your some of the challenges you're dealing with now. You talked about starting playing lacrosse when you were around five years old, and you have a son, Alex, who is right around that age right now, who is going through some things that make it tough for him to even he can maybe play a little bit, play catch, but why don't you walk us through that and where he's at right now?

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Okay, uh, I know you mispronounce it, but his it's his name's Axel. Um Axel, Axel, it's all right, it's all right, it's all right. Love it. Um, so Axel George, he's uh he was diagnosed a year ago with uh T cell ALL leukemia and also look uh in his spine. So uh we've just got done a year through his treatment, and uh, you know, we've uh to give you an idea, you know, we have on average, uh, and I've learned this from obviously what we've been going through. Um, you know, average person has between 10 and 12,000 white blood cells in your body. Um when he was diagnosed, he had 108,000 and 80 percent was cancer, including a spine. So um believable. We've been uh, you know, it's it's been uh it was a rough road early on. He's he's making the turn. We still have a long road. We have a year and a half still treatment left, but um, you know, we're at the Randall Students Hospital, and uh they've been great. And uh, you know, teachers, I mean, teachers, the the doctors have been amazing, the nurses have been even better, and all support from our family and neighbors has been amazing. So um that's what we have going on right now.

SPEAKER_03 11:44

Devin, let me ask you something. How did you realize that there was something wrong with Axel?

SPEAKER_01 11:50

There we go. It's a great, great question, especially for all the parents out there. Um, it's our third kid, so you know, you know, the first one you're kind of like, uh, you don't really know what's going on, but you know, about your third kid, you know when something's not right and you have that feeling, right? So yeah, uh it started with an ear infection in March. So uh went in for regular checkup, his ear was hurting, got some antibiotics. A couple weeks later, those antibiotics weren't working. I mean, it was like literally it was hurting him worse. When then he woke up uh the following day, we scheduled an appointment to go back in, and his face was all swollen. So, like his glands and his glutes and all that stuff in his face was all swollen. And uh, so we took him in, they, you know, was demanding that for blood work and like something's also not right. They're like, no, we're just gonna change it to a steroid, it's just uh infection, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So that steroids, one of the steroids he's actually getting right now in his uh oral chemo that he gets twice a day that we give him. And um that chemo um was it it helped, right? So it took that swelling down. So, you know, we went through a month of that medication, it went away, and boom, the day before our 15-year wedding anniversary, I'm supposed to go taking my wife to Tulume, Mexico. We got a chef on the beach, and you know, for for cooking us breakfast and lunch, and then going out and wake up and his face is all swollen again, and rushing to the to the doctors. And within uh couple of minutes being there and pulling the blood work, they sent us to the children's hospital um and said that you know, you need to go there, the doctors need to talk to you. And uh that was uh May, I think I said 18th earlier, but May 16th was was the day of that. So we just got through his you know first full year of treatment, and and uh he's uh but he's he's doing pretty good now. He's he's he's he's a rock star. His hair is starting to grow back, he's starting to gain a little bit of weight. So we're awesome.

SPEAKER_03 13:47

That's awesome. That's great.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

So we talked about that a little bit before we started recording. Actually, you know, I have some experience being a cancer survivor myself, but when I hear that you are in treatment for three years, I run marathons, and this is kind of like a marathon of life, really, a marathon of life. How has Axel responded to that? How has he done? Tell us some stories about that.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

Oh man, so uh just give you an idea. I mean, we early on up for this first 10 months, uh, we basically lived in the hospital five days a week, and the first couple we didn't really even leave.

SPEAKER_03 14:26

But Jesus Mary, God, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

So you can imagine long days being there, but um, he's just such a rock star. We when we go in, um, you know, he's a joy, even when he's you know, got pumped of four or five hours of chemo the day before, and and you know, tired, but he still goes in and we make it like it's a normal thing. We don't try to make this big, huge, you know, um, you know, that we're we have to get going. Like, no, let's hey, we're just we're going to the hospital, we're going to see the clinic. And what what nurse do you want today? Actually, he's like, and the craziest thing is the first favorite two nurses is one's Katie, which is my wife's name, and the other one's Maggie, which is my my wife's sister's name. Wow. So two, you know, and pretty, pretty wild. So um, you know, that since the since probably two months in going in, the nurses, uh, you know, when he's on the clinic on the board, just because he's so, you know, in a good mood and and uh cheerful and and and just a happy kid, even though it has what's going on. The nurses are paper rocks box scissors are in for fighting over, you know, who gets him for right, right, right. Um, so for instance, we we weren't two months ago was our first month, like not being in the hospital for daily, is when we started this main stage. So it's like thir 28 days of oral chemo at home, and then we go in for five days of of of chemo straight. Um, and uh these nurses haven't seen Axel in 30 days, and it was two hours after the nurse shift change is over. There was three of his nurses there waiting for him to see him two hours after the shift just to see him, see how he's doing.

SPEAKER_03 16:02

Yeah, nurses are awesome, man.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

I mean, it just tells you. Uh, and that day even also surprised me where he's got a port in his chest, we call it his buddy, right? So he has five days, he's got his buddy out, right? Yeah, but we have to put a numbing cream on it and some saran wrap on his chest, right? Right an hour before we go in. That needle's about yay big, and you have you've seen it, you've gone through it. Yeah, and you know, for the first six months or whatever, like you gotta hold his arms down because if that nurse is if it's a nurse not used to it or they miss, whatever, it can be painful.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Well, that day, because he trusts Katie and Maggie and these nurses so much now, he won't even let me hold his arms down while the while the nurses put his port in. He's like, Dad, I got this. I got this. Well, I'm like freaking out trying not to cry whole because I'm a big softy, you know, I'm holding it together in front of him. And I walk out when she walks out, I'm like, like Maggie, did you think what are you? She's like, Devin, I've been here 20 years, I've never seen a kid under 13 ever do that.

SPEAKER_03 17:07

That's amazing, man.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

It gets even better. It gets even better, guys. We walk back in the room, he's already has port and he's got a syringe. They gotta open up the alcohol pad, count 20 seconds, cleaning it, and it's put a syringe in. He already has a syringe in pulling out blood out of his own, out of his own port. He's like, guys, I got it. I'm at four and a half millimeters. I need to go to five millimeters. And she's like, Did you clean that first? He's like, Yes, look, look down, Maggie. He already he did everything. I mean, the kid's five, just turn five years old when he's doing that. Are you kidding me? That's phenomenal. They're gonna get him. That's the same.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

He's so n by then, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

He's so observant, so smart. I mean, and she's like, there you go again, Devin. The first if anyone under 15 years old I've ever seen do that.

SPEAKER_03 17:56

So that's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

I mean, even when we were not going, he asks every once in a while, like, are we going to the hospital today? We have a bit a little bit, you know.

SPEAKER_03 18:08

So right now, you mentioned you had three kids. What what other do you have boys? All boys?

SPEAKER_01 18:13

So no, I have he gets beat up by two older sisters.

SPEAKER_03 18:16

So he's a survivor. He is definitely a survivor.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

He's gonna be a tough little guy. He's got two daughters.

SPEAKER_03 18:22

I bet you they're great with him, though. I bet you they're really good throughout this thing with him, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:27

I would say my older, my daughter's uh Livia's nine, Aurora's seven. Aurora being a little closer in age, she's been fights back a little bit here and there, like, you know, why does he get to be, you know, this, or why did he get ice cream? I'm like, well, he just got chemo for four hours, and you know, he took them early on. This is what they do too. Early on, the doctors allow us to bring them in so they can see him get. I mean, he got put under anesthesia every Monday for 10 months, pretty much. So, like, I mean, you know, you get put under a backpoke and you were there for 12 hours every Monday, you know. Um so it Mondays were long days. I mean, uh, we we my um wife and I's company have been been great, but you know, that's where we raise money to help for our time off and to help with bills, and you know, I mean, it's uh you think 50 grand was a lot, but it it they come and come and go with the bills and and time off and everything else.

SPEAKER_02 19:20

So yeah, yeah. So let me ask you this. You talked about this earlier, uh, having a text with 30, 40 of your closest friends, your brothers from Limestone. And I I just have to remind the the listeners out there that before we started recording, he was giving us shit about beating Wingate all the time. I just want to point that out. But yeah, sorry, they had the best things. Things are changing. It's been a good rivalry recently, really good games. But so with that brotherhood, what's been the reaction, the lacrosse community, to what uh your family and Axel have been going through?

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Uh, it's been amazing. Um, so he was diagnosed in the middle of May, and that was supposed to be um in Boston or I sorry if you're yeah, right outside Hartford. Hartford, yes, Connecticut, which was being Connecticut for our O2 team was uh had our 20-year celebration from winning the national championship, um, which I wasn't able to go to 2001 a couple years before with uh the COVID thing still kind of going on. But um no, uh, you know, that was uh going, you know, going out there for for the national championship. Um, and he was diagnosed a couple weeks before. So that weekend, he was able, uh we were able to see all the support. I mean, uh the hashtag AxelStrong, hashtag spoker strong, photos, pictures, um, text messages, you know, um, it was unbelievable support from all of my, you know, teammates, um, you know, even uh alumni that are younger uh and older, obviously, you know, limestone, we have a tight, tight-knit family. Um, and then all lacrosse family, you know, we we did a we did a benefit and it was amazing. Um, you know, how many people that were friends of lacrosse or or uh friends of friends that we didn't even know that donated, and you know, we were able to raise $50,000, which has helped us throughout this first, you know, excuse me, year and a couple months.

SPEAKER_03 21:19

Well, I'll tell you right now, anything that Kevin and I can do in the podcast to help in the future with fundraising, you just let us know and we will get the word out, and uh a lot of people will hear about it, you know. They'll appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

Well, we will I'll I'll you know send something to you guys and we'll get uh my wife once was we're gonna open up another uh benefit here. And I think this next go this next go around, we're gonna we're gonna also um you know donate part of that to the Leukemia Foundation. So you know something that we've talked about and you know early on it was uh you know harder, but this this go around with the support and and uh you know we're not having to be in the hospital five days a week. So the bills aren't going to be as bad. So what we what we raise, we're going to we're going to um you know donate um half or large part of that to to Leukemia Foundation.

SPEAKER_03 22:10

Again, uh let us know, and uh we'll put the word out there and we'll put it on our Instagram pages and our Facebook pages, and you know, a lot of people see that and a lot of people hear it. So, like you said, the lacrosse community is special when it comes to stuff like that, you know, and it's a small community and very tight. And like you said earlier, everybody knows each other.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

Everybody knows you can go to lacrosse term and sitting, sitting talking to someone next to you, and they almost you can almost guarantee they know somebody who knows you or you know somebody who knows them from lacrosse. That's what's so great about the family, you know.

SPEAKER_03 22:45

It's it's it's that's what's so great about this sport, too, the sport of lacrosse. It's different, it's a spiritual game, comes from the Native Americans, and it's been handed down, and you know, it's it's it's it was a medicine for them.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

The medicine game, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:04

And the the lacrosse community has always been great about pulling together in times like that, and um, that's great to hear that they just stepped up to the plate again for Axel.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

Yeah, all I can say is first of all, I apologize for getting Axel's name wrong. You can tell him that from me personally. I will never screw that up again.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Danny and I are infamous for screwing up names on this podcast, but hey, yeah it's it's all right, it's all right, you know. Yeah, it's all good. Age is catching up to all of us.

SPEAKER_03 23:37

That's so true, Deb.

SPEAKER_02 23:39

I hate to say how much I I'm above you in that age category, but we'll just keep it at that. But I just want to say just talking to you tonight and being able to talk to you a little bit before we started recording, like I said, it's a marathon, it's amazing to see your resilience, your family's resilience, thank you, your son's resilience. It's uh it's a testament and a testimony to the the human spirit and what you've been able to do. And I and like Danny said, anything we can do to help, we will do that.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

It's all positive mindset, guys. I mean, it's a big, big part of it. You just you can't sit around a baker and bitch and complain. It's you you got it just like you know, competing and training, um, working right now, you know, for me, you know, brother my new gig and what I'm what I'm doing for work. So um, and everything you do, just uh you know, I try to be the same, attack a full force, positive mindset, you know, work hard, play hard, mentality, man. Right?

SPEAKER_02 24:40

There you go. Right, right. There you go. Well, thanks so much again, Devin, for coming on. And and please I appreciate it, guys.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

I appreciate it. I love support of Division II, as you guys know. Uh, you can tell I got a got a big heart for the sport uh and uh for our for our division two, you know, uh fellow players, you know. I mean, it's always great seeing some of these guys right now in the PL. There's there's a there's a list of D2 guys out there I love seeing, and you know, constantly giving them a shout out, or you know, um, but uh the the game of the lacrosse has grown so much and and the family and support and guys like you is what what what makes the game great. So I appreciate this opportunity and very thankful and uh you know wish you guys have a great year.

SPEAKER_03 25:24

Well, thank you so much for coming on. We wish Axel nothing but the best, and your wife Katie and the girls and uh cool stuff. Um, you've been a phenomenal guest tonight, Devin. I would love to meet you someday and shake your hands. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

Well, let's sit, let's sit down and have a cold beer one day and talk some well lacrosse. That would be the idea for me, right? So I'm hoping, I'm hoping this year, uh, you know, the boys can make a run, and I'll tell you the next one they're there. My son will be with me. So uh we'll we'll have to sit down and and talk some relax, and you guys get to meet my son, you know.

SPEAKER_02 25:58

That would be great. That would be great. That'd be that would be awesome.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

Make sure you guys stay in touch, man. Let me know what you can do. I'd love to jump on and talk some D2 lacrosse to it, right? You know, I'm I'm obviously I follow, I follow the the games and and what's going on, and you know, with all the guys that are my coach, my boys that are my coaches, you know, between Marty and and Barrett and Stoyer and Steve Guttelman down at Frostburg. The list goes on and on that uh you know, I'm constantly talking trash to those guys and keeping them on their toes. And uh, you know, it's a way to be, right?

SPEAKER_03 26:32

We've had all of them on the pro on the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

I've I've seen, I've seen I went back and we're doing some research on you guys. I saw that.

SPEAKER_03 26:39

So and we hung out with Barrett, we hung out with Chris for a little bit um at uh the NCAA's in Philly. We he came over to us, we were hanging out and talking with him. He's a great guy.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

He's Mr. NCAA, yeah. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:51

But he's a good guy, though, you know.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

He's the man, he's got a great, great school, great program. Um, yeah, you know, I got uh I do have a kid, there's a couple Oregon kids there now, so uh I'm I'm constantly trying to get these boys from the West Coast back out to to play some real ball, you know. I'm not the wine country of Oregon. You're living in Oregon now? How long have you lived in Oregon? Uh seven years now. My wife went to limestone and played softball, and she's from Oregon.

SPEAKER_03 27:20

Ah, you followed the wife back to the West Coast.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

We lived in Maryland, we lived in Maryland up until seven years ago. It just was time for her to be close to her father. Her bless his heart. He we lost we lost her father uh three months before my son got sick. So the rest of the year last year was challenging. So uh, but that's why we came out here because he was sick from uh from kidney cancer, and uh he you know he was but he great great man, Bob, and and uh we miss him, but uh that's the reason why we're out in Oregon. I love love the world we're living. It's beautiful, green, gorgeous. We're about an hour outside of Portland and um close to the Beats Baltimore, close to the mountain and close to the coast. It's beautiful. I mean, I miss my family and and some good eating. I do miss my good food in the East Coast, to tell you that. A good Italian restaurant, right? Or good, good, a good German or or uh in a deli, too. That's other things we don't have, it's some good delis, right? But um it makes it up with the scenery. There's all there's so much to do. We're out on the river on the boat fishing, or you know, I'm uh you know, we're kicking on the on the ski mountains and skiing Mount Hood or Mount Bachelor, and it's just a beautiful place to be. So if you guys ever get out, make sure you let you you you uh hit me up and oh let you know.

SPEAKER_02 28:35

Kevin, stay in touch.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

Stay in touch, man. It was great talking to you guys. I appreciate you taking time to hear my son's story, and I'll send I'll text you uh his uh GoFundMe and his uh Caribbridge thing that we that we sh that we share, and and we'll we'll get we'll we'll get that updated. And well, we want to start a new uh benefit. So I guess this is a good time to do it.

SPEAKER_03 28:55

That's great. Just one more question before you go. Are you still the all-time points leader at Limestone?

SPEAKER_01 29:02

Surprisingly, yes, I am. Uh uh 290, uh, look, was there anybody else on the team?

SPEAKER_03 29:14

Like, come on, man.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

I mean, uh my biggest, my best part is I had more assisting goals, right? I mean, that's and the reason I had so much talent around me as a freshman played at X. I mean, you had Chris Campbell's all-American lefty, and Jake Lawson was Canadian, badass Canadian top left, and you had John Raleigh shooting 105, 110 miles an hour. He's a Towson alumni, Towson High School, Towson College transferred, and went to Glenmarine High School, my brother. Wow and then a North County guy, which is Anorina County as well, played right, and Chris guy is an Aaron County guy. And I mean, there's so much town around us, and we had a bunch of uh, you know, D1 type guys that played there and transferred or same as me, didn't have an SCT score, whatever. But um, you know, it's it's uh just we didn't realize how you don't realize how good we all were back then until now that you know you see, you know, and uh you know all how hard it is to go to a championship, and especially four in a row, you know. Um I would be the first person to be there and tell you, I mean, until I moved, I was at a couple games a year. Um, I still try to go to a game a year if I can. Um, obviously what's going on, I haven't been able to this year, but um, you know, I'm I've always been a big supporter of the current team and uh you know I try to get all the alumni support. Um we're we're trying to get another alumni of the cross team together to go play Vale or Ocean City again. We made it to the championship a couple years ago um when I we put a team together out there. So it was pretty fun because I had to play against all my guys that I usually play on the team, you know, the team that we played against is the team that I usually play on when I play the tournaments, right? It was fun, of course. But um, but yes, that that's uh I'll be the first one to be there with so many breaks. And you I mean it's you gotta have somebody come in and have average 80 points a year, pretty much, right?

SPEAKER_03 31:03

So unbelievable, man.

SPEAKER_01 31:05

Um, it's just all all the town around me is what it came to. I mean, yeah, a lot of guys around, and uh I went from being the assist guy for a couple years to having to be the goal scorer in my junior year, you know. So um, you know, it was really changed, yeah. Yeah, but that's that it's what what it's about being a team player, right? Like you gotta be a assist man, a setup guy. And I love it's always been my favorite thing. I love setting people up, you know.

SPEAKER_02 31:30

I mean, that's always been my I always told my son that I rather see a good assist than a goal.

SPEAKER_01 31:37

I mean, my dad would my dad would always, always he didn't care about the goals much. He would always be like, Man, that new looker you had on the backside. Yeah, I like so you just knew it was there, you know, to make that true.

SPEAKER_02 31:49

I'll tell you what, even if it's a hockey assist, you know, if you know that that hockey assist, I was all you always you create the double, draw the double, swing it, swing it.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

That guy, I mean, if we had hockey assists, I probably had 500 points. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 32:04

We'll give you that. We'll give you that. We'll call limestone, tell them to update the stats right now.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

No, no, man. But no, yeah, I appreciate it. It was look, those guys, we we were so we were so talented, top to bottom, and uh, you know, watching some of the goals. I mean, I even when I see the guys once a year, when I'm gonna go to Maryland, um, we go to the Eastern Shore, a bunch of limestone guys live in the Eastern Shore, Maryland, and we'll get together and and I'll tell the guy, man, I still remember that goal against uh let's say Roanoke when you hit that high bouncer rally and it's stuck in the corner and didn't even want to leave. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 32:36

Right, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

Just something like that, you know.

SPEAKER_03 32:39

So yeah. Well, Devin, it's been a great night talking with you. It's you sound like a great guy, kind of guy I'd like to sit around and have a beer with. I think you would I think you and I would get along quite, quite, quite well.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

Show the love, you know, have high, high energy, just a happy guy, try to try to show my support and care about people. And uh, you know, if someone unlike me, it's their lost kind of.

SPEAKER_03 33:03

Yep. Well, God bless and God bless Axel. Thank you, Kat. God bless Katie and the girls, and uh, thank you so much for taking the time. Uh Devin Spilka, former Limestone All-Star, All-American, Charlotte Hounds, now uh coaching Madlax out in Oregon and uh sending kids to Limestone. God bless you. We'll see you next time. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 33:27

All right, Danny. I I got one word, it's just wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:33

I I don't even have words. Devin was an amazing guest going through an unbelievably difficult time with his young son. But they seem to be taking it in stride, huh, Kev?

SPEAKER_02 33:45

They seem to be well, I'll tell you what, I think when he said that they made it as normal as possible, like, hey, you know, we're we're just it's like almost going to school. Let's get in the car, we're going to the uh to the the clinic. And his son, uh Axel, has gravitated to that. Where now it's like, okay, I I've got chores when I get here, you know. Yeah, put in my book line, I'll start drawing blood. What what do you need me to do?

SPEAKER_03 34:10

You know, he knows what to do. Well, just an amazing story, amazing young man. And Devin, what a great guest he was. Just uh, you know, just how how he can explain things and just his energy and his his uh his level of um I don't know what you would call it, just just interesting. Yeah, his level of enthusiasm. Just an interesting guy, an interesting story, and again the lacrosse community comes together again, Kevin. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:36

And I think that's one of the things to I I got out of this once again, is uh how tight uh what a what a tight-knit small family it really is uh in a in situations like this and others.

SPEAKER_03 34:48

You know, he's gotta stay there for a week at a time in the hospital. Lord knows how much money that is. I mean, you know, so um for our listeners in the future, we'll have a link um that can help and in that situation for Axel and uh and and the Spilker family. And again, uh the lacrosse community just keeps coming together uh in in times like these, Kevin. 100%.

SPEAKER_02 35:14

So before we go, Danny, we do have a little D2 lacrosse news that just I found out last night. Actually, you texted me, then I looked it up, and it's it is sad news again. West Virginia's Higher Education Policy Commission voted to revoke uh Alderson Broadis' authorization to confer degrees in the state. So what does that really mean? It means that they can no longer essentially they cannot permit they're not permitted to enroll new students this fall. Uh and it's really the first step really uh for the school closing down.

SPEAKER_03 35:49

Yeah, yeah, it's a shame. It's a shame. But it's a small school, and I think finances are a problem there. Right. And uh, you know, the the cost of education is it very expensive and to hire professors and to keep the lights on and have the trash picked up, it costs a lot of money. Like people don't realize yeah, what goes into a university, how much money it costs to keep it going. And you know, Allison brought us just was on the wrong side of that. And right it's a shame. I feel bad for the kids, especially the seniors, you know, going into their senior year. You know, what the heck do these kids do now? It's three weeks away from school, right?

SPEAKER_02 36:27

Right. Well, then it's it's sad for all the students. Um, obviously, we have an affinity to the lacrosse programs there, the Battlers, uh, both men. Coach not being able to play, and Coach Maloney not being able to coach this year. It is sad. Hopefully, they'll all be able to land on the feet. I have read some articles where West Virginia schools in the area are are trying to get kids to fast pace enrollment, you know. Okay, no, no cost to transfer, no cost to enroll, no cost to register type thing. So hopefully that will uh help them out, at least from their education standpoint.

SPEAKER_03 37:03

Yeah, a school like Davison Elkins, who's nearby, right?

SPEAKER_02 37:06

Right, right. So our thoughts are in for those families and those students that were ready to go back to school that Alderson brought us.

SPEAKER_03 37:13

You know, it's a shame, Kev, you know, and and you know, Aldison brought us, okay, they were they were a struggling lacrosse team. They weren't like a really great team, they were less than 500. But it's not the only school that's shut down in the last five, eight, ten years. Right. I mean, we've had some

marker 2

SPEAKER_03 37:30

powerhouses shut down, you know, like Dowling New York and New York Tech. Right. You know, like they were powerhouses, you know, drawing big, big talent and getting to the NCAAs, and they shut their doors too. So it's a situation I think that small schools have to deal with, I think the finances, and and it's just a shame that uh, you know, the uh A B's got to shut their doors. It's it's it's it's just a shame. My heart goes out to those kids. Me too. Me too.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

So, how can we end this on a good note? I guess I could just say that that it was an uplifting story with with Devin and hearing his son Axel, and I will say it's been great seeing you at least on Zoom. Uh uh spent a couple months.

SPEAKER_03 38:13

Look at you, you look nice and tan, you look like you've been in the sun, smoking a cigar, maybe having a cocktail in the backyard. You look good, Mr.

SPEAKER_02 38:20

Just all just watching a few pl games, trying to sharpen my my analytical skills as much as possible.

SPEAKER_03 38:28

Did you watch the Water Dogs game? I did just that was a great game, man. Great game. Schreiber's ridiculous. It's just amazing, those guys. How how first of all, they're huge. These guys are big. You see them on the field, like, holy Mac! Well, these guys are big boys. Yeah, you know, they're the best of the best. I felt like I was watching like an all-star game on Sunday.

SPEAKER_02 38:51

It was crazy. The pace, the speed, uh, the accurate pass. It was just amazing. And just like Devin pointed out, how many D2 players that tracking that when we had them on last year, several that are on the pl. So it's just fun to watch. It's always great to watch those players plays like Charlie Bergtrand and and Connor Farrell and all the all the rest is is um it's just great. Yep. Yep. So I guess with that, Danny, we'll see you next time soon. Sooner, it'll be coming probably end of August. Until then, that's a wrap.

SPEAKER_03 39:26

That's a wrap, Jeff.