(05-27-2013 07:49 PM)splinters Wrote: (05-27-2013 07:13 PM)Almadenmike Wrote: What's "the X"?
The faceoff player
The faceoff spot, in the center of the field, used to be marked with an "X". That rule changed at least 10 years ago, but old terms die hard, and in fact the X still appears in reference diagrams found in web sites, game programs, instruction books and so on.
To add to the confusion, many coaches and players also refer the point just behind the goal crease as "X" (see, e.g., second paragraph of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacrosse_strategy ). Tactically, it's an important spot from which plays are often initiated. But why people started calling it X when there was already an actual X on the field in a completely different location never made sense. I mean, they could have called it "Z" (which has a good pedigree as a reference or initiation point -- it has been aviation shorthand for Greenwich Mean Time for half a century or more), or "alpha", or just about anything other than "X".
Lacrosse also overuses the word "box": it can refer to the attack area surrounding the goal; or the part of the sideline through which substitutes enter and leave the field; or a defensive formation (as in the "box-and-one" man-down defense). People could use distinct terms for each of these (e.g. the "attack box", the "gate" [which is what it's called in international lacrosse], and "square-and-one" or something like that), but they don't.
Lacrosse has many, many things about it which are appealing, but linguistic rigor is definitely not one of them.
Anyway, the point that Syracuse has not done well at face-offs is well-taken.