Only MLL and World Games Remain for Retiring Star
By Nelson Coffin and John Weaver
We're not qualified to delve too deeply into the complex biology of identical twins. It's enough to say that Paul and Gary Gait were cut from the same genetic cloth, halves of one fertilized egg brimming with the DNA of world-class athletic prowess and stick wizardry never before seen. They literally changed the lacrosse world from the time the pair arrived at Syracuse for the 1987 campaign and have continued to pace the frenetic action since. Paul, admittedly suffering each morning from a career's knocks, bruises and serious injuries, announced last summer that he would retire in a year's time and has since won the MLL Championship along with the MVP award and the NLL league MVP award. He hopes to add a World Championship to his accomplishments this summer in Australia and cares little about the personal accolades these days, but will likely add more in Perth and during the month he'll spend with the Lizards before departing.
So, in the last year of Paul's career, fans old and new realize just how much they will miss this often overshadowed half of the greatest lacrosse story of all time. The story begins with Gary, AKA "The Michael Jordan of Lacrosse" seeming always a step ahead of his baby brother and while obviously competitive, Paul always accepting the fate of the stat sheet comfortably with only family ahead of him. Gary was born about a minute before Paul, started at Syracuse before Paul, and after the "Air Gait" and sequential college player of the year awards was guaranteed legendary status before graduation, before Paul and before anyone we can think of.
Paul's star shone bright at Syracuse, if only slightly dimmer than his brother's. He was a three-time First Team All-America midfielder who averaged a hair under 32 goals and just over 21 assists per season for a squad that went 51-4 over four seasons. Moreover, during his tenure the team advanced to three NCAA Division I title games in succession, winning them all. But Paul really earned his spot in history later, in every box and field league and tournament a man could have time to play in for 13 years, often battered and jet lagged, always willing to give another chunk of his body for the team and another goal. And there were so many goals. In just the NLL, Paul had 404 career goals and 301 career assists for 705 points in 124 games. He was also named MILL/NLL 1st team All-Pro from 1991 through 1997 and in 2002, while garnering 2nd team All-Pro status in 1998 and 1999. Add to all that his Ripken-like attention to fans and professional field conduct, both family traits, along with the year he is having to close out his career and his place in the lure and legend of the game is set in stone.
In the Senior A leagues of Paul's native Canada he was "the suitcase" as he puts it, journeying throughout the Ontario Lacrosse League and Western Lacrosse League over his 10 year career up north, never playing complete seasons due to obligations in the states with college and professional lacrosse. He started with the Victoria Shamrocks in 1989 and moved to the Brooklin Redmen in '90. He sat out in '91 and was back with Victoria for the next two seasons. He moved east to the Six Nation's Chiefs for the '94 and '95 campaigns and then back west again to play with the North Shore Indians in '96 and '97. 1998 he suited up as a Buffalo Gambler and then it was back to Victoria for his last year in the league which he capped off with a Mann Cup Championship along with brother Gary. The two shared the Mann Cup MVP award in '99, an award Paul won in 1990 with the Redmen.
Paul won NLL Championships with Detroit in 1991, Philadelphia in 1994 and Rochester in 1997 while also playing for Pittsburgh and Washington along the way, retiring in a Power uniform. But Paul's extraordinary success in both professional leagues this last year has provided a final chapter plot twist worthy of this great tale. In the National Lacrosse League, a dozen years after donning his final NCAA crown, the Vancouver, British Columbia native led the league in scoring and respect from a host of young bucks eager to replace a gunslinger with more notches in his belt than Wyatt Earp. His 54 goals and 60 assists for 114 points were just enough to better his brother's outstanding 50-61-111 totals.
This storybook Indoor lacrosse finale followed only the most amazing turn of events this summer. The spectacular conclusion to the outdoor Major League Lacrosse debut season featured Paul carrying the Long Island Lizards to a championship on his broad shoulders. Seven goals, including one with 0:01 left before halftime, earned Paul MVP status in the 15-11 victory over the Baltimore Bayhawks in the finale. He prepped for that explosion by netting the game winner 32 seconds into overtime against Rochester in the semifinals for the Americans Division kingpins, who led the league with a 12-4 record during the regular season. Paul admits that he gave more this season, emotionally and physically, than he might have if it weren't his last season. The longevity of the twins' careers is almost as amazing as their accomplishments, and perhaps especially for Paul who has suffered serious disk problems in his back since age 16.
Power pal and Lizard opponent Paul Cantabene, a Bayhawk middie, helped us compare the playing styles of the identical twins. "Paul shoots a little bit better than Gary," noted Cantabene, who was outstanding in the recent NLL All-Star game. "And he's a little tougher going to the goal. He likes to run through people and Gary runs around them and looks to feed a little bit more." Everyone always has and probably always will feel the need to compare the two. They usually throw Jim Brown or Frank Urso in the mix too, and that's not bad company.
"They're both equal in my eyes." ex-Syracuse teammate Rob Persing says, "They're both great, hard-nosed guys. Paul may not be as inventive as Gary. He didn't do trick shots the way Gary did. But it was great to play with both of them. They'd both get the snot beaten out of them in a game and never say a word. They made me a better player." Simmons sees it similarly. "Obviously, both boys had a great passion for the game," Simmons recounted. "I never looked at them as one better than the other. They had different styles, Sometimes Paul's style worked better in certain situations."
Simmons couldn't have asked for more than to have Paul as his version of a Stealth Bomber. Overlook him and pay the price. Take the '89 title tilt at Byrd Stadium in College Park, Md. with 23,893 fans locked in on an epic struggle between Gary and Hall of Fame Johns Hopkins defender Dave Pietramala, now the Blue Jays' coach. "They only had one Dave Pietramala to spend, and they spent him on Gary," remembered Simmons. "Paul ended up with the key plays (4 goals in the 13-12 Orange triumph). You couldn't shut one of them down and then forget about the other." Paul was the MVP of the Final Four and Syracuse prevailed in its most closely-contested final of Simmons' sparkling three-year reign at the top of Division I.
Paul's last arena introduction at Mohegan Sun Arena
Whatever the outcome of the endless comparisons by fans, friends, and computer forums, competition with each other is a driving force for the twin stars. Paul prevailed this year in the always-keen NLL scoring competition between the twins that traditionally goes to Gary, a Power teammate. "I remember once Paul was coming back from playing tennis against Gary, and I asked him who won," says Simmons, 290-96 in 28 years at his alma mater. "He said, 'Gary beat me by a point. Gary always beats me by a point.'"
The point Gary would like to make about his brother is that matching up against Paul was beneficial beyond belief for both. "I think one of the reasons we are both successful is that we're both very competitive, no matter what sport we were playing, hoops, tennis, anything," said Gary, who lives in Baltimore and is playing club ball for Team Toyota this spring before competing for Team Canada in the World Games during the summer in Perth, Western Australia. "Having somebody the same size to play against all the time meant you had to more than show up. You had to raise your level of play." Not many other people - perhaps nobody else - could consistently challenge Gary or Paul without getting his head handed back to him on a platter. They both, to be sure, took their share of back yard beatings and then used the experience to dominate everybody else.
DID YOU SEE THOSE JERSEYS?
They're sporting the new REBEL/STX Uniforms!
The two started playing at age 4 with the Victoria - Esquimalt recreation club on Vancouver Island. They excelled in the Saannich league until 1979 when they entered high school and their father started a traveling team called SeaSpray. Their next step would have been the Intermediate league as it was called in Vancouver but the Gaits skipped a level and bounded into the Junior A league in 1983. The league was held in the summer so the two could play for Esquimalt, the only Junior A team on Vancouver Island, while still claiming national titles at Syracuse back east during the school year. The Northern league was a bit more competitive than US summer leagues, evidenced by the Gaits' reaching but losing four straight finals with Esquimalt before finally winning the championship in 1988. "We weren't leaving until we won one." Paul said recently. During the years in Junior A Paul won the Minto Cup MVP award twice, in '85 and '87 and Gary won the award in '86.
Paul tosses his last NLL helmet into the crowd.
We submit that the Gaits' behind-the-back run and gun stylistics and the era that has followed represents the third stage in the evolution of the sport, along with the 1933 rule changes establishing the men's game as we know it and the introduction of synthetic and symmetrical sticks in the early 1970s. Paul hopes to be part of whatever revolutions await the game, even after retirement, as the chief designer and Vice President of Albany-based deBeer. He recently moved to Albany from Syracuse, with his wife of twelve years, Cathleen, also from Vancouver, in order to devote full attention to deBeer and next year's line of equipment.
Paul's profile as a designer has soared of late. His men's sticks have gained in popularity from the Shockwave to the Phantom and now the Wizard for up-and-coming deBeer. His protective designs have been well reviewed by E-Lacrosse. Nobody knows more about getting checked than Paul Gait. Paul also conceived the Trakker Pocket - one of the hottest products in stores today. "He really seems to know what's good out there," said Bacharach Rasin Purchaser Bob Bishoff. "Generally, deBeer is not as popular as STX, Warrior or Brine. But this year we're selling seven or eight times deBeer than we have in the past." His deBeer Apex Women's stick is the hottest product in the women's game and is seen in the hands of the majority of major college standouts.
Simmons, a sculptor and onetime stick designer himself, always felt Paul was a kindred spirit in an artistic sense. "I can talk to Paul about molds and pressure plastics," said Simmons. "He can break down those design concepts and tell you how a stick feels and what makes it work. Gary can take that stick and make it work and win the game for you." Simmons knows, more than anyone else that as much as we are naturally drawn to comparisons, the Gaits were always best as a pair. Maybe we'll all miss that the most. We still have the World Games, if you can make it to Perth and the end of the story.
April 26, 2002
