April 6, 2000

By Duff Durkin
The Diamondback

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - Ira Hochstadt says he left his two sons' college decisions up to them and didn't try to influence them too much.

"To be honest," Hochstadt said, "I put emphasis on looking at other schools."

Only, Ira Hochstadt played lacrosse for the Terps, he met his future wife as a campus undergraduate, and he took his sons, Scott and Craig, to many Terrapin football, basketball and lacrosse games throughout their early years. So where were the Hochstadt boys going to go to school?

"There really wasn't much of a question," said Craig, now a sophomore midfielder. "My dad didn't push us at all ... but he's happy we went to Maryland."

Craig's older brother Scott, the program's fifth all-time leading goal scorer who played his senior season last year, is now a student assistant under coach Dick Edell. Terp senior attackman Marcus LaChapelle had two brothers who were Terps, his twin brother Brian and older brother Dave. The Hochstadts and the LaChapelles have three family members who played for the Terps, though the two families have gone about it different ways.

The Hochstadts

Ira Hochstadt has carried his Terp and lacrosse loyalties with him since he left campus. After graduating, he played club lacrosse until he was 30. As soon as Scott and Craig were born, Ira bought miniature lacrosse sticks for them. Literally, from the time they were born, Ira Hochstadt's sons were immersed in the game.

Ira started by playing catch with his sons in the backyard in Columbia and coached his sons until high school age, when they both played at Baltimore's Boys' Latin High, a lacrosse breeding ground. He rarely misses their games, any time he does, it's because it conflicts with his work schedule.

"I know Ira has gotten a tremendous amount of enjoyment" from his sons, Edell said.

On one occasion last season, Ira was in Albuquerque, N.M., the Saturday the Terps hosted Duke. The game was televised on WMAR-TV, and he went from bar to bar for two hours trying to find the WMAR broadcast on a satellite feed.

"I really hate it," Ira said of missing his sons' games. "Seeing my sons play is the most gratifying thing I can do."

And Ira takes it seriously -- as soon as he gets a Terp schedule, he said he works as much of his plans around the games as he can.

Ira has stories from when he played nearly 30 years ago, a time when players used heavy wooden sticks instead of the aluminum-shafted, plastic head sticks players use now. "I hear stories about guys who played with him or against him and how he used to break arms and legs and stuff," Craig said.

Ira said he didn't break too many limbs, but added that an offensive player can't score if he's injured and on the bench. "In those days," he said, "if a guy took a shot and he wasn't knocked on his butt, the coach would be all over you."

Craig has had to handle the difficult task of following the trails blazed by his father and older brother.

"There's pressure here, definitely, because of my brother," Craig said. "It's there, but I don't really mind it at all. I just see it as a good time, place where I go to school and have fun."

The LaChapelles

The LaChapelle brothers traveled a different road. They got into the game late, as Dave, now 24, started playing in seventh grade and his younger brothers followed shortly thereafter. The boys' father, Dr. Adrian "Bud" LaChapelle, hails from Minnesota and had hardly heard of lacrosse before moving to the Annapolis area. Even now, Marcus said, Bud isn't well-versed in the terminology of the game, although he is still very enthusiastic. He is hardly the lacrosse enthusiast Ira Hochstadt is, but nonetheless his boys all loved lacrosse.

All four boys played in high school -- Dave attended Severn High School near the LaChapelles' home in Severna Park, while his brothers Pat and fraternal twins Marcus and Brian went to St. Joseph's. When Marcus and Brian were freshman midfielders and Pat a sophomore attackman, St. Joseph's played Severn, where Dave was a defenseman. At one point during the game, all four LaChapelle brothers were on the same half of the field.

"That was great," said Dave LaChapelle, a second-team All-America defenseman in 1997. "I covered whichever LaChapelle had the ball. One time Pat beat me one-on-one and I had to jump on his back" to keep him from scoring.

Pat didn't play in college and Brian, who still attends this campus, played for the Terps his freshman year. Marcus and Brian became Terrapins partly so they could play on the same team as their older brother for the first time in their lives.

"I never really thought about playing lacrosse until [Dave] picked it up," Marcus said. "Pretty much why I came here was to be able to play with Dave and be on the same team."

Bud has gotten into the fray as well. Since the early 1980s, it was a tradition that someone would lead the Terps onto the field waving a state flag before each game, but the previous flag-waver, Craig Damron, who carried the state flag for 10 to 15 years, had discontinued his duties before the 1997 season. Bud had joked about taking over the duties but never seriously considered doing it.

But just days before the Terps' May 24, 1997 NCAA tournament semifinal game against Syracuse in Byrd Stadium, Terp assistant coach Scott Marr called Bud at the Arnold, Md., pharmacy he owns and operates.

"`Hey flag man,'" Bud recalled Marr saying, "`We need you!' I said what the heck, I'll do it, and have been ever since."

The Terps won the semifinal, 18-17, before losing the final to Princeton.

"It's a real thrill for him to be involved," Edell said. "I believe in tradition. In a place like ours when things turn over so fast, traditions are important."

Bud plans to pass on the flag-waving duties to another parent for next season, as his seven-season stint with Terrapin lacrosse, since Dave was a freshman in 1994, is nearing an end.

Edell said he likes when situations such as the Hochstadts' and LaChapelles' develop.

"I like to see that when the older brother has a good experience here, the little brothers follow and become part of the Maryland lacrosse family. I love to see that," Edell said.

TERP NOTES: Freshman attackman Jim Sbarra's father Bill was an All-America defenseman for the Terps in 1967.