The Rules That Keep the Game Pure

    

    This is a photo from the 2023 Kenyon mens lacrosse alumni game. Every year in the fall, Coach Doug Misarti hosts an event where any graduated Kenyon mens lacrosse player can come back and play with the current team. The event is hosted at Kenyon on Benson field which is the home of many Kenyon sports teams. It is great for the program because it keeps alumni connected to the school and the team. The alumni also get to suite up and play the sport they love. In the picture, all the men in the white pines with the purple crest are current players on the Kenyon lacrosse team. All the men in the gray jerseys and a couple not wearing pads are the alumni. It was really interesting to see which alumni came back to participate. There were people I knew from the year before, and a few who graduated when I was in high school. The coolest part was seeing people who graduated from Kenyon decades ago coming back and playing lacrosse agin. I got to learn their stories of what Kenyon used to be like, why they love the game of lacrosse, and what they are currently doing after college. 

    In Purity and Danger, author Mary Douglas explains that within a society boundaries and created and maintained to separate what is considered pure and impure. Separating what is pure and impure is important because it keeps the society in order. Douglas talks about how purity is moral goodness. The opposite in impurity being moral danger and a threat to social order. If people know the boundaries of what lines they can and cannot cross, it keeps people in check. She also talks about dirt in the sense that it represents disorder within a society. "Eliminating it is not a negative movement, but a positive effort to organize the environment"(Douglas 1966: 2). Dirt can be scene as impurity whiten a society. I think while dirt can be scene as a bad thing, it is also a necessary part of society. Without dirt there is no area to grow. 

   The lacrosse community and Douglas's ideas on purity and dirt have a lot more in common than one may imagine. Like any other community, there are morals that each athlete should uphold. In sports it is called sportsmanship. It is engraved in every athlete at a young age that you should respect your opponent. You should treat them as an opponent, not an enemy. Though that is not always the case. In lacrosse, like every other society, there is dirt that can be found. People may say mean or hatred thing to an opponent. Treating them without respect. This is where the boundaries come into play. Like any society, there are rules. If you get caught talking "smack", you will be penalized. If you are playing dirty and are not respecting the rules, you will be penalized. This is where dirt can be scene as positive to keep order within a society. The rules of lacrosse keep the game from getting out of control. The rules make the players respect each other. Linking these ideas to the image above, the alumni that used to play the game learned very valuable lessons that they will take on to the rest of their lives. The ability to stay pure within a society.