SLP’s Lincoln Norfolk looks to make a play during a game against Franklin Academy (Malone) at Schroeter’s Field in Saranac Lake on April 14, 2024.
(Enterprise photo — Parker O’Brien)
LAKE PLACID — Lincoln Norfolk wondered if he’d ever be able to play sports again after a spinal arthritis diagnosis in June 2023.
Sports have always been a big part of the recent Lake Placid Central School graduate’s life — whether it’s been lacrosse, ski racing or soccer.
But luckily for Norfolk, the journey didn’t end there … and it’s still not over. The 18-year-old is set to play NCAA Division I lacrosse at Mercyhurst University this spring.
He’ll be the second member of his family to play the sport at this collegiate rank. His father, Matt, played collegiately for Cornell University in the 1990s.
“He’s always wanted to pass that down onto us,” Norfolk said. “And for me to be able to do that and go on, continuing his legacy is amazing.”
–
How it happened
–
Last April, Norfolk and his father were watching Cornell’s men’s lacrosse team take on Syracuse in a game in Ithaca.
It happened to be the greatest lacrosse game Norfolk had ever seen … and a bit inspiring. The Big Red came back from a 7-0 deficit to top the perennial powerhouse Orange in overtime.
“On the way home, my dad and I were talking and he goes ‘If you commit to it, I guarantee you that we could get you on to a collegiate team,’” Norfolk said.
After his diagnosis, and the effort he’s put into the sport, Norfolk believed he could compete at the next level.
“I was like ‘I might as well try it, I have nothing to lose now,’” Norfolk said. “We just went full-blown over the summer with it.”
Alongside his father, he traveled more than 5-and-a-half hours to try out for the Long Island Legacy. However, that practice didn’t go well.
Feeling a bit disheartened, Norfolk decided to give it another shot.
“So we went back the next week again for another practice and I ended up doing well,” Norfolk said. “And I ended up going to the games with the team.
“(Then) I started playing and then I became the starter for the team,” he added. “I just played with them throughout the summer and every game I play for them is at a showcase tournament, so there are college coaches on the sidelines.”
Norfolk also sent various emails to collegiate coaches through a recruiting website, until one from Mercyhurst finally got back to him.
“They said, ‘Yeah we’re looking for a player in your position and we’d love to get you out here for our prospect cam,’” Norfolk said. “They invited me out and I went out for the prospect camp, played in front of them and did well enough.”
On his trip to Erie, Pennsylvania, where Mercyhurst is, Norfolk was met with a “beautiful” campus and lacrosse stadium right on Lake Erie. He knew it was the school for him.
“Everyone there was super nice and I loved their enthusiasm,” he said. “They seemed super excited and jacked up for the upcoming season, which I thought was pretty cool.”
With his dream set to become a reality, Norfolk said he wouldn’t be able to do it without his father, Matt, or mother, Darcy Rowe Norfolk.
“They drove me, they paid for it and it was a lot and I’m super grateful for that,” he said.
–
Just the kid taking faceoffs
–
Norfolk has impeccable reaction time, and it’s made him an elite-level faceoff specialist in lacrosse.
While it seems like a niche aspect of the sport to outsiders, the position happens to be a pretty valuable one, especially when you have someone dominant off the draw.
“You can kind of control the speed of the game, because in lacrosse, after you score every time it’s a faceoff,” he said. “If you go and score, and you have a good faceoff guy, you can almost immediately have possession again and you can almost prevent it from their offense from even touching the ball.”
It’s considered so valuable that in 2015 Greg Gurenlian won the Major League Lacrosse’s Most Valuable Player award as just a faceoff man. More recently, in 2020, Alex Woodall won the league’s Rookie of the Year award.
While there are lacrosse camps around the country that focus on faceoffs, Norfolk is self-taught. In fact, specializing in faceoffs sort of just happened one practice, when his father, who was coaching his youth Tri-Lakes team at the time told him to take faceoffs.
“I’d go out there and I would take them so much that I’d start to learn how to do it and my natural reaction time was pretty good, so I’d win a bunch of them,” he said. “So I became the kid who took the faceoff.”
During summer tournaments, he found out that he was pretty good at them compared to his competitors, and just stuck with it.
“I kind of just learned as I was going about how to do the right form and I’d watch videos online,” Norfolk said. “There’s camps a lot of kids go to called faceoff camps and academies and I never went to any of those. I just kind of learned as I went along.”
–
Playing lacrosse
–
Norfolk grew up playing lacrosse but eventually committed more to ski racing as he got older.
“I only played lacrosse in the summers, I definitely did not play that much,” he said. “I played all throughout youth lacrosse up until middle school and then I played two years of modified with (Saranac Lake Placid).
“Then I went away to Northwood, and I didn’t play much lacrosse,” Norfolk added. “I played in the summer of 2022 a little bit and then the next year when my health started to decline, so I didn’t play at all in 2023. Up until last year, it wasn’t a consistent time period.”
But when Norfolk returned to Lake Placid Central School, and when his health started to get better, he turned back to lacrosse, joining the SLP boys varsity lacrosse team, which returned following a three-year hiatus, because of a lack of players.
Last June, he was a big part of SLP’s impressive run to the Section X, Class D title game. Norfolk was the lead face-off man and connected on the game-winning goal in the semifinal contest to send the team to the championship contest.
“We were the underdogs the whole season,” he said. “For me, it just felt great being active and part of a team again because I hadn’t had that being a ski racer for a while. So getting back into lacrosse was great for me. Being with all those kids was great, and it was awesome to go to the section championship with them. Because we were all into it. I wish there was a team sooner. I think that there is a lot of talent up here for lacrosse that goes unnoticed because of the lack of sports at the high school level and stuff. I think it’s great that they have it now, and it was great to play with all of those kids.”
Norfolk will soon become the first-ever SLP boys lacrosse player to play at the Division I level. After everything he’s been through, he’s proud of what he’s achieved so far.
“To be able to say now that I’m going to be a Division 1 athlete just shows me that I can push on through things and accomplish what I want to.”
