Going to school in Baltimore has gradually scrubbed “y’all” out of Scott Ratliff’s vocabulary, but it hasn’t eradicated all of the evidence of his upbringing.
“I’ve got countless Falcons, Braves and Hawks gear,” said Ratliff, a star of Loyola’s powerhouse lacrosse team. “I make sure everyone knows where I’m from.”
A Walton High grad, Ratliff is perhaps the most startling demonstration of lacrosse’s development in metro Atlanta. Ratliff, a nominee for national player of the year, learned his lacrosse in Cobb County, far from the sport’s base in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic regions.
“I take a lot of pride in it,” Ratliff said. “I also think it helps to break down that door. It worked out for them one time, so why not take a look back at Georgia, take a look back at Walton?”
Ratliff is one of a handful of Georgia players in Division I men’s and women’s lacrosse, but the numbers continue to grow. South Forsyth High grad Brijet Mall has started 19 games this season for Navy, which plays a first-round game Saturday at North Carolina. Ironically, Mall began playing lacrosse after moving to Cumming from Virginia.
Using a roster stocked with players from metro Atlanta, Birmingham-Southern’s men’s team lost to Stevenson (Md.) 13-2 on Wednesday in a first-round Division III tournament game. In its fourth season, Birmingham-Southern is the southernmost school ever to receive a men’s NCAA tournament berth in any division.
Its 33-player roster has 15 players from Georgia, including five from McIntosh High and others from Cobb, DeKalb, north Fulton, Gwinnett counties.
“Us being there [in the tournament] is a good first step to representing the palate that is all the non-traditional areas,” Birmingham-Southern coach Andy Bonasera said.
Mercer, the only Division I men’s team in the state, completed its second season of play. Kennesaw State will add a women’s team next year. In 2010, Agnes Scott and LaGrange fielded the state’s first collegiate varsity teams. Since then, Berry, Piedmont, Oglethorpe and Reinhardt have begun play on either the men’s or women’s side. (Georgia and Georgia Tech do not have plans to add lacrosse. Georgia State is considering starting a women’s team.)
The newcomers follow the growing popularity on the youth side in the state. There were 63 high-school teams (boys and girls) seven years ago and 117 two years ago. This spring, the number rose to 143. Mercer coach Jason Childs is fairly amazed at the number and caliber of coaching colleagues who have called to ask him about attending the South region tryout for the Under Armour All-America game, to be held at Lovett in June. Five years ago, coaches might have scoffed at the value of scouting players in Atlanta.
“Now they’re talking to me about coming down and where is it,” Childs said.
It was in this environment that Ratliff’s game took shape. Ratliff played in youth recreational leagues before moving up to high school and travel teams. It didn’t hurt that his father, Randy Ratliff, was a two-time All-American at Maryland. It didn’t help enough, though, when it came to his recruitment. Before his senior year, the two Ratliffs packed a van and visited college coaches across the mid-Atlantic and Northeast.
“Never got much interest back from any of them,” Ratliff said.
Ratliff has his Walton coach, John Holthaus, to thank for where he is. A college teammate and roommate of Loyola coach Charley Toomey, Holthaus kept urging Toomey to take a look at his player. When a scholarship opened late in the spring of Ratliff’s senior year, Toomey offered it to Ratliff based on Holthaus’ recommendation.
As Ratliff put it, “Coach Holthaus had been in coach Toomey’s ear for so long, Toomey just kind of gave in.”
Toomey remembered going over the list of recruits with his assistants to get nameplates for the new players. When he brought up Ratliff, Toomey said, “they were like, ‘Who? Where’s he from?’”
Ratliff made an impression quickly with his work ethic as a long-pole midfielder, a position that requires an abundance of skill and athletic ability. He came off the bench as a sophomore and has turned a corner, Toomey said, this season. Teammates voted him a captain and he was named the ECAC defensive player of the year as well as the most outstanding player of the ECAC tournament. The Greyhounds earned the top seed in the NCAA tournament with their 14-1 record and play their first-round game Saturday against Canisius on ESPNU.
“Sometimes in the recruiting process, you just luck out,” Toomey said.
Toomey is trying to reduce his dependence on fortune. He’ll be among the college coaches checking out the talent at the tryout camp at Lovett.
Said Toomey, “We feel it’s important to get down to there, to go to Atlanta, and not wait for Atlanta to come to us.”
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