By Kim J. Harmon

 

Marc Ingerman dabbled in just about everything when he was growing up – be it soccer, football, basketball or lacrosse – but once he got to Newtown High School it didn’t take very long to find out where his future lay.

Lacrosse.

Before his senior year even began, the I-Man – as he has become known throughout the athletic community – made his commitment to play longstick defense for the Division I Towson State University Tigers in 2006-07.

But he still had three months of football, three months of basketball and three more months of lacrosse ahead of him and he threw himself into the task.

While helping lead the football team to a 6-3-1 record, Marc earned a spot on the CHSCA Class LL All-State team as a linebacker. While stepping back onto the hard court after a year away from the game, Marc gave a lift to a team desperately in need of an inside presence and in 19 games averaged 1.7 points. And in his final year of high school lacrosse, he helped lead the Nighthawks to some impressive defensive performances against Masuk, Amity, Conard and nationally-ranked Brien McMahon.

He was like a jack of all trades.

And that comes from getting involved in just about everything – playing soccer for four or five years, youth lacrosse (picking that up in fifth grade, enticed by the physicality of the sport), Pop Warner football (with the Junior Midgets and Midgets) as well as youth and middle school basketball.

No one questioned his athletic ability in either football, basketball or lacrosse but it was unclear which sport would be the one.

“I gave them all a shot to see what happened,” said Marc.

In his freshman year on the gridiron, he had a shot to play and the biggest stage was in the infamous Ice Bowl game against Masuk at Danbury High School. An early snowstorm had postponed the traditional Thanksgiving Holiday game the previous Wednesday and forced the game to be moved to the turf field at Danbury … although the turf field was concealed under a couple of inches of ice.

Marc soon became a valuable commodity to head coach Ken Roberts that Marc found himself playing a number of different positions – like linebacker, punter, and quarterback. With the arrival of Tucker Kass as the signal caller, however, Marc was able to focus on the linebacker position and earned a spot on the All-State team.

It was basketball that never seemed to take off for Marc and after playing freshman and jayvee basketball for a couple of years, he passed on his junior year in order to work on strength and conditioning for football and lacrosse.

That’s about the time when things really started cooking on the lacrosse front.

“After my freshman year,” Marc said, “after we won SWCs and won first round states against Cheshire, I kind of had a feeling about lacrosse.”

After sophomore year, teammate Tyler Law invited Marc to a lacrosse camp at Towson State (the Laws had family in the area, so the two players could stay with them).

“I did pretty well and the coach said he would send me stuff (when he was allowed to),” said Marc. “I was skeptical about that, but then in junior year I started getting letters.”

He went back down to camp after his junior year and did well again. It wasn’t took long after that when the phone rang early on Sunday morning and a coach on the other end was asking a bleary-eyed I-Man if he wanted to play lacrosse at Towson State.

Of course, he said yes.

“My parents and I went to visit the campus,” said Marc. “We liked the school and really liked the area.”

The Tigers finished 8-6-0 in 2006, losing 13-12 to Delaware (a few days after losing 11-10 to nationally-renowned Johns Hopkins on ESPNU and ESPN360) and missing out on the NCAA Tournament. The Tigers lost four games by only one goal, one a double-overtime thriller against Binghamton back in March.

But the program is under the leadership of coach Tony Seaman, who boasts a 232-122 career record (the seventh-most wins in Division I lacrosse history) and has made 18 trips to the NCAA tournament in 25 years at the helm.

It’s a great situation to be stepping into.

“I’m extremely excited,” said Marc, now 18. “I’ve tried to put this in perspective, but I can’t yet.”

The Towson State coaching staff already has Marc on a workout regimen – three days strength, three days conditioning. The Tigers play a fall schedule, training during the winter, and begin their spring season in late February.

Is he ready for Division I lacrosse?

“A lot of it is foot speed,” said Marc, who will continue to tune up in summer lacrosse in Wilton. “Strength-wise, I think I’m good but I will have to work on my foot speed.”

And hopefully he has picked that up a notch by the time be reports on August 24. That’s when the real fun begins.