"Chicken Head" seems an unlikely moniker for longtime athletic director Bob Scott '52, the man known as the ambassador of lacrosse, but in fact, that's what his coaching staff called him. "He's a slim guy, and when he'd get upset during a game, you could see all the veins from his chin to his neck," recalls alumni relations director Jerry Schnydman '67, a former player and assistant coach.
During the 20 years Scott was at the helm of the Hopkins team,
from 1955 to 1974, he led the Jays to seven national
championships, including Hopkins's first NCAA championship in
1974; 42 times his players earned first-team All-America
honors.
But perhaps the work he's done promoting and teaching the sport in the United States and throughout the world will be Scott's most enduring contribution. A pioneer of the sports camp concept, he established a lacrosse camp for boys and girls at the Gilman School; this summer the lacrosse camp will celebrate its 27th year. In 1986 Scott traveled to Japan to introduce that country to the sport. He taught young players the art of shooting, catching, scooping, and passing as part of a Hopkins-sponsored conference on lacrosse, and today it's Japan's fastest growing sport.
Scott's book, Lacrosse: Technique and Tradition, which he wrote in 1976, is still considered to be the premier guide to the game. It recently became the first book about lacrosse to be published in Japanese.
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