When children start playing lacrosse, they flock to the glamour positions.
All youngsters like scoring goals, so many try to play attack. Those that like running, hitting and the chance to control the ball on the face-off opt for midfield. The big guys — the angry ones that like to hit people with long sticks — are naturals for defense.
But very few want to play goalie.
Goalie is the position where you have the opportunity to stand before a six-foot by six-foot goal wearing little more than a chest protector and a helmet, hoping that when the opponent hurls the hard rubber ball, it hits you.
For senior goalie Willis Wu, the decision to become a netminder was one made more out of a process of elimination than the desire to be a human backstop. Growing up in the lacrosse hotbed of Maryland — where many boys start playing lacrosse around age seven — Wu began his lacrosse career in the eighth grade.
"I wanted to play lacrosse with all my friends on the third team, but I really didn't know how to catch and throw," Wu said. "Playing goalie doesn't require a lot of catching and throwing, so I just did since [our team] needed a goalie anyway. I never bothered switching positions [and] I love playing goalie now."
Bottom feeder
Despite playing on a Severn School squad that produced multiple Division I lacrosse players — including the Tigers' senior captain and midfielder Josh Sims — Wu's team enjoyed little success, finishing near the bottom every year in one of the toughest high school lacrosse leagues in the country.
A versatile athlete, Wu lettered three times in lacrosse and four times in football, receiving all-county accolades in each sport. The parallels between the two sports helped his game improve. Experience directing traffic as a starting quarterback helped Wu naturally adjust to controlling the flow of players in front of the lacrosse goal and orchestrating Severn's offense.
"Being a goalie, a major part of the clearing game is seeing the whole field," Wu said. "Playing each sport helped me in the other sport. Being a goalie and seeing the open field helped me see the defensive coverage and which receiver was open. They definitely complemented each other well."
Wu has taken advantage of his natural quickness and flexibility — honed from years of Tae Kwon Do as a youngster — while between the pipes. Compared with other goalies, he relies less on positioning and more on his reactions to make saves — including the occasional, flamboyant split save in which he blocks a shot while doing a full split on the ground.
"He's a little different [than other goalies]," Sims said. "Fundamentally he's not the same, but he still makes some crazy saves."
Missing the action
Though he thoroughly enjoyed playing at Severn, lacrosse was not a priority when Wu was applying to college. A determined pre-med student — who will be attending the University of Maryland School of Medicine next year — Wu planned on focusing on his studies when he enrolled at Princeton. Within a few weeks, however, he missed the game and decided to attempt to walk on to the team as a sophomore.
Wu realized that he needed to do more than just show up in order to make the varsity squad. In fact, one of the biggest hurdles for the acrobatic netminder was the team's running test — 1.5 miles in under nine minutes.
"That summer, I trained harder than I had ever trained," Wu said. "And I had Josh shoot on me when we were home."
It is that sort of work ethic that has earned Wu the respect of his teammates, coaches and anyone else that comes in contact with him.
"What Willie brings to the team is the same as he brings to everybody on campus — an amazingly positive attitude," head coach Bill Tierney said. "Every person who has met him says the same: 'He's just a wonderful person.'"
This positive attitude combined with his innate athletic ability has made Wu one of the best backup goalies in the Ivy League. His 9.00 goals against average prior to last weekend's pair of games placed him above some starting goalies in the conference. While he won't be supplanting starting goalie Trevor Tierney anytime soon, Wu's game has come a long way since he was a middle schooler in Maryland picking up a lacrosse stick for the first time.
"His improvement has been drastic over the years," coach Tierney said. "He has really worked hard, knowing that, if needed, he would be used.
"That's a tough role to play, but to still work as hard as he does is just a tribute to him and will serve him well in life."
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