Stony Brook lacrosse goalie Paar hopes this isn't last stop
On Saturday, Charlie Paar graduates. On Sunday, he will try to change the (lacrosse) world.
The Stony Brook University men's lacrosse goalie - by way of Huntington High, Towson University and Nassau Community College - now sets off in the direction of his dreams, the most immediate of those being an upset victory over top-ranked Virginia in the NCAA Tournament quarterfinals.
A guaranteed sellout crowd of nearly 10,000 - the largest in the school's lacrosse history - awaits at Stony Brook's LaValle Stadium for the 2:30 p.m. game. For Paar and Stony Brook, 13-3 and riding a nine-game winning streak, opportunity knocks. The future awaits. School's out, but education continues. A new door could open; a new trail could be blazed.
"It's been a good run," said Paar, 23. "My senior year . . . this is how I wanted it to end up. It's been something special."
Paar, the last line of defense on a team stocked mostly with sophomores and juniors, has a .565 save percentage that ranks second among goalies still playing in the NCAA Tournament, behind only Notre Dame's Scott Rodgers (MacArthur High) at .584. (Virginia's Adam Ghitelman, a Cold Spring Harbor grad, has a .560 percentage.)
Maybe this is what happens when a lad's parents both were lacrosse coaches, which is the case with Paar. His father, Mark, now an investment banker, had been a lacrosse goalie himself, and Paar can remember getting a good taste of the position as a child with "my dad winging tennis balls at me in the back yard."
To be a goalie, he said, "You have to be a little crazy. It's the highest-pressure position, I'd say. You can either make a game or break a game. Balls are flying at you at up to 100 miles an hour and you're wearing the least amount of equipment of any goalie in any sport.
"If someone scores on you, you've just got to get right to the next play. It's not the end of the game, even if it might seem like it."
Certainly, Paar has demonstrated an ability to regroup. After his football (running back and safety), wrestling and lacrosse days at Huntington High, he went to Towson for a year, "played a couple of games, splitting time with another goalie, but the grades didn't work out too well."
Back home on Long Island, Nassau coach Rich Speckmann "gave me a second chance," Paar said, "the way he's been doing for guys for 40 years. He gets everybody through."
When Stony Brook needed a goalie, Paar - the MVP in Nassau's 2008 national junior college championship - was ready, both on and off the field. (On Saturday, he gets his history degree.)
Around him this season, Stony Brook's team has hit its stride, fellow students have begun noting how they've seen him play on television and the crowds have grown exponentially. Last week's gathering of 4,262 was Paar's largest audience so far - "Just crazy; gives you goose bumps," he said - and Sunday's attendance will far surpass that.
And Paar's postgraduate work will commence.
