- 16 Cross Fall Circle Sparks, MD 21152
Having traced it’s origin to 1876, the Mt. Washington Athletic Club played it’s first lacrosse game in 1904, against the Johns Hopkins University. The club, itself, was born in early 1903, when the Baltimore Cricket Club merged with the Baltimore Country Club cricket facilities. Members of the Mt. Washington community soon desired their own athletic area and so purchased the old Baltimore Cricket Club property and formed the Mt. Washington Athletic Club. This new organization launched a combined social and sport program. Early sports included cricket, football, baseball, soccer, tennis, track, roller skate polo and women’s field hockey. Through the years most of these games fell by the wayside but lacrosse remained the club’s principal sport, along with field hockey in the fall.
Early in the Wolfpack’s history, the Crescent Athletic Club of Brooklyn, NY (later Long Island), served for decades as Mt. Washington’s most powerful rival. In 1906, the Wolfpack team almost upset the world champion Crescent Club. The New Yorkers’ hotly contested 6-5 win over Mt. Washington that year touched off a spirited rivalry which culminated in Mt. Washington’s dominance of the game following World War I. The Wolfpack had previously beaten the Crescent Club only twice in 20 years. In the years that followed, the Mt. Washington Lacrosse Club established one of the truly amazing records in the history of any sport. Over the decades, the spectacular caliber of men associated with the team and the outstanding sportsmanship displayed on the field helped cultivate this record. The awesome record of the Mt. Washington Lacrosse Club from 1923 to 1990 is 591-129-4.
During the years from 1933 to 1941, Wolfpack teams reached their zenith, losing only three games in those nine years of competition. From 1947 to 1950, Mt. Washington beat Johns Hopkins four straight years during the Blue Jays’ incredible run of four consecutive national championships and an undefeated collegiate record.
Led by Coach Ben Goertemiller in 1967, the entire Mt. Washington team represented the United States in Canada in the first of the current World Games series. Winning the round robin play, the team returned home with the International Cup, symbolic of the World Championship. Today, the Mt. Washington Club continues it’s winning ways.
The Wolfpack had been the dominant team in Southern club lacrosse until the mid-70’s. It was then that a strong Maryland Lacrosse Club elbowed it’s way to the top of the Southern heap.
Mt. Washington doesn’t enjoy the dominance that it once held, for it has grown to enjoy greater competition from other clubs; and that seems to be the reason the club was formed over 100 years ago.
excerpted from The Oldest Established
by Donald T. Fritz
As a charter member of the United States Club Lacrosse Association (USCLA), formed in 1960, Mt. Washington won “Open” or “Club” championships 6 times in the 60’s. In the 70’s, they won USCLA championships in 1975, 76 and 77. The Wolfpack won additional championships in 1990, 91, 93 and 95. In 1996, the first attempt at a professional outdoor lacrosse league was created which now takes the form of the Major Lacrosse League (MLL) since 2001. Prior to that, the Major Indoor Lacrosse League (MILL) was already several years old tracing it’s origins to the Eagle Box Pro League in 1987. Both of these leagues had a debilitating effect on the players available to play at the club level.
With the increasing influence of the two professional leagues, the USCLA succumbed to losing so many players and disbanded while joining the American Lacrosse League (ALL) in 2007.
In 1999, the historic Mt. Washington social club effectively disbanded and sold the clubhouse and Norris Field located on Cottonworth Avenue to the Bryn Mawr School. Bryn Mawr has been gracious in support of the long-standing tradition of the Mt. Washington Lacrosse Club to enable us to continue to play at Norris Field (named after famed Wolfpack coach Kid Norris) where so many legendary players have performed.
Throughout its history, Mt. Washington has produced numerous US Team members and dozens of National Lacrosse Hall of Fame members. Additionally, some of Baltimore’s most influential and successful businessmen and citizens spent time sporting the distinctive Wolfpack logo.
Today, the Wolfpack’s roster is dotted with past, current and future pro players. The ALL boasts a membership of nearly 60 teams from New England to North Carolina. With the enormous growth of lacrosse nationally, there is little doubt that post-collegiate club lacrosse will continue to grow and prosper.
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