Meet Steve Field, Team Attack Cancer Member

Steve Field wears a lot of different hats – lacrosse player, lacrosse official, coach and dad in addition to his day job as a Licensed Loan Originator. And every August since 2020, a member of Team Attack Cancer in Lake Placid, NY. 

 

Growing up in Latham, NY, a suburb of Albany, Field first had a lacrosse stick in his hand in fifth grade when he got a set of sticks as a birthday gift. He played on his first team in eighth grade and went on to play at Christian Brothers Academy in Albany and then at Marymount University in Arlington, Va.

 

Field took up officiating right out of college to make some extra money and is closing in on 20 years officiating high school boys lacrosse. Then, in 2010 he became an NCAA official and hasn’t looked back. 

 

“My favorite thing about officiating is the camaraderie with my partners. We travel together or meet from different parts of the Northeast, we are the 3rd team in every competition, and we remind each other of that on the way out to the first face off. At our age, it’s great to be a part of a team in a contest with large stakes. At the high school level locally, our group of officials are a tight group of friends and it’s not like that in other sports. The fraternity of officiating spreads beyond the guys you’ve played with in high school and college and grows larger every year you can stay involved. I encourage the younger generation to consider joining as we will need them to continue to grow the sport.”

 

That role as an official is what led Field to learning about the HEADstrong Foundation and joining Team Attack Cancer. 

 

“In 2017 I was invited to come to Hofstra to be evaluated by some Division One assignors and it was my first experience officiating at the Division One level,” he said.”It was their fall tournament, so we went down and donated our game fees and in turn we were able to get evaluated by some of the best lacrosse officials and the Division One assignors. That day I met the Colleluoris and I got the chance to talk with Mr. Colleluori. We were able to share some stories about some guys we mutually knew from Ridley because I went to college at Marymount where a couple of the guys he knew went. That was the first time I ever really learned about the HEADstrong Foundation. Fast forward three years from there, I was approached by Jeff Baxter who is also a mutual friend of a college buddy of mine. He mentioned that they were trying to compile a roster for the Lake Placid Tournament, which I had already gone to for years. I was excited about it because it was a chance to get friends from Virginia all the way up to New Hampshire all together up in Placid.”

 

For Field, being out on the field still at age 46 is a blessing and one that he doesn’t take for granted as well as playing with a purpose in Lake Placid each summer. 

 

“No one’s family is immune from cancer and it has impacted all our lives at some point,” Field said. “The Lake Placid tournament provides an opportunity to team up with old and new friends on the field but also to help improve the lives impacted by the horrible disease. The support we receive from family and friends leading up to the tournament and by complete strangers at the tournament is a very positive and uplifting experience and I look forward to it every year. It used to be my favorite weekend of the year and now it’s become my favorite week of the year. I now go up on Monday and officiate all week and then the HEADstrong guys come up and we have an AirBnB that all the guys stay at. It’s four days of lacrosse vacation but you’re there, you’re serving a purpose, we feel good about ourselves doing it.”

 

Learn more and Join Field on Team Attack Cancer in Lake Placid this summer at TeamAttackCancer.com