By PETE SCHLEHR, Director of Athletic Media Relations
In my three plus decades on the job here at Towson I've known a number of athletes who blossomed during a four-year career in a Tiger uniform, but perhaps none more than Rob Shek, a marginal high school lacrosse player who rose to the college game's highest plateau.
I've always contended that, considering Rob's background and early talent level, his selection as the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association's Division I Midfielder of the Year in 1991 was as likely as a Bedouin taking the gold in the Winter Olympics' giant downhill slalom.
Last weekend, Rob added to his lacrosse legacy as an inductee into the Greater Baltimore Chapter of the Lacrosse Hall of Fame. My only question about the honor is - what took them so long to bring him in.
I've known Rob since he was a kid. We're both graduates of Bel Air High School - obviously different eras. Rob and my nephew, Jeff Morse, were boyhood pals. For the entire 1983 Towson Tiger Football season the two of them would accompany me to all our home games to work the sidelines as ball boys for equipment manager, Kevin Holleran. I could tell they enjoyed the experience. Usually on the way home from games they were all talk about hits, plays and a new word they'd heard but weren't quite sure they should use it at the dinner table.
Except on October 22, 1983. During that particular ride home there was more giggling than talking.
On that date we hosted Mansfield State in a regionally televised game on CBS as we dedicated the stadium in honor of Doc Minnegan. As I was leaving after the game, Frank Herzog, the game's play-by-play announcer, stopped me and asked if I had seen the CBS banner. Apparently, it was missing in action from its game position.
Some time later I learned it was taken as a trophy.
I'd better not say any more about it ... statute of limitations, could be lingering legal issues. After all these years, CBS might still want it back.
A natural athlete, Rob first tried lacrosse at the recreation level while playing baseball. His parents, later regretting the decision, gave him the option to play both. He would change uniforms in the car while leaving one game for another. That lasted a year. Rob continued with baseball and shut down the lacrosse until his sophomore year at Bel Air.
After an uneventful first year of high school lacrosse, Rob scored 36 goals and had 24 assists in his last two seasons with the Bobcats. Although he was named to the All-Harford County team in his senior year, no one, including the Towson Tigers, was recruiting him.
The first time Towson coach Carl Runk ever got a close look at his future All-American middie was on a visit by Bel Air's Chris Dail who had asked Rob to tag along on the recruiting trip.
"We felt Mark Austin (Edgewood) was the best midfielder and Chris Dail the best attackman in Harford County," Coach Runk once told the Evening Sun's Doug Brown. "But Frank Mezzanotte (a former Towson great and then coach at Edgewood H.S.) told us to watch Shek."
Coach Runk was patient with Rob and did watch his development, with amazement.
"Who would have thought it would turn out the way it did," Carl said.
It turned out that way because Rob was dedicated to a work ethic that made him stand out as the top gun on the firing line. He had a shot that was clocked at 90 miles an hour whether he took it righthanded, lefthanded, standing still or on the run. At 6-1, 190 pounds he could run like a tailback which is why the Dallas Cowboys inquired about him through our media relations office in Rob's senior year.
"He's the kind of player that every coach dreams about," Coach Runk told the Evening Sun's Bill Tanton. "When we would finish a hard practice and everybody else would run for the showers, Rob stayed out on the field and worked (on his game)."
Austin, by the way, wound up attending Towson but left the program after two years. Dail went on to play four years under Dick Edell at Maryland. In their senior years, Rob got the best of his former Bobcat teammate when the Tigers beat the Terps 15-11 in the Carrier Dome to advance to the 1991 NCAA National Championship against unbeaten North Carolina. Each scored a goal and had an assist in that semifinal.
Although Towson fell short of its bid for a national championship with that 18-13 loss to the Tar Hells the Tigers had made quite the impression on the lacrosse world. In addition to Rob's first team All-American selection, five other Tigers were named All-American in 1991 including second team Steve Kisslinger (in my opinion the best long stick defensive midfielder of his time), third team attackman Glenn Smith and honorable mention midfielder Tony Millon, attackman John Blatchley and close defenseman Carl Beernink. That team was loaded.
His final appearance on the college field came in the 1991 North-South All-Star Game when Rob scored three quick goals to get the South started on its way to a 15-12 victory.
After his collegiate career, which included recognition as the East Coast Conference Player of the Year, Rob played professionally until he retired in 2003. He spent eight years in the Major Indoor Lacrosse League and the National Lacrosse League, playing for the Philadelphia Wings, the Baltimore Thunder and the Washington Power. From 2001-02 he was a member of the Major League Lacrosse champion Baltimore Bayhawks.
He played on successive United States World Teams in 1994 and 1998. He was a member of the Mt. Washington Lacrosse Club for seven years and was the United States Club Lacrosse Association Southern Division Player of the Year in 1992.
In 2005 Rob was inducted into Towson's Athletic Hall of Fame.
Rob is married with three daughters ages 8, 5 and 2. He's involved with a very successful company that supplies a medical device used in psychiatry to treat depression.
He still plays a little lacrosse, whenever he can find the time and a master's tournament looking for a midfielder. When you talk to him you sense he's putting the same kind of energy and enthusiasm into his family and career that he did with lacrosse almost 20 years ago.
Rob is the kind of person the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame should induct. He's earned it.
