Follow Your Passion and Maintain Grit through Adversity

WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH: Female youth football player and Fenwick alumna drew on real-life inspiration to write a best-selling children’s book.

By Laura Enriquez ’08

I learned this lesson at the young age of 11, when I became the first female to play football for St. Mary’s of Riverside. Initially, I wanted to play because I love the sport … and really, who wouldn’t want to take out their pent-up aggression in a channeled way? But what I didn’t understand was, as the first female in the league, playing football became something much bigger.

The first sign of obstacles appeared during sign-ups when the head coach pointed in the direction of the cheerleading table. What he didn’t realize, and what Fenwick would learn during my freshman year, is I would be the worst cheerleader. Just ask anyone present at my poms try-out, when I kicked up too high and fell backwards. Needless to say, I didn’t make it to day two. 

Ms. Enriquez as a Riverside youth football trailblazer 20 years ago.

I soon learned the pressure of being “the first” at something. While there were many who supported me, there were also others who had more traditional views. These naysayers became vocal in their opposition. There was even an instance when a father approached my mom on the train and criticized her for allowing me to play. 

As a female in a male-dominated sport, there were other challenges. Naturally, boys and girls are built differently, but this difference was exacerbated during my experience. For example, it was difficult to find and create appropriate protective equipment. The biggest introspective challenge I faced was how I began to perceive my body. I wanted to be a running back, so I could feel the ball and know the glory of scoring a touchdown.  But, I became a lineman who are generally known as the “bigger guys” and equivalent to playing right field in T-ball, or so I thought. And then there were challenges that every athlete faces: balancing friends and sports, getting homework done, and caring for your physical being.

While playing, I worked harder than I’d ever worked before. There were many times I thought about giving up, but I knew I could not. When you are the only female surrounded by males, there’s added pressure to not just do well, but be the best. I accepted this as a challenge and spent the season proving my worth so that my experience could open up doors for other females in the future. 

Two-way “iron woman”

During our 2001 season, I played both offensive and defensive line, as well as contributed to special teams. As a captain of the team, I helped lead the Demons to the Chicago Catholic League Championship. And because of my relentlessness and hard work, I ended the season with the most tackles in the league. But the most rewarding accomplishment was what I learned about myself.

When it was time to choose a high school, my mom knew Fenwick was for me. She chose mine and my siblings’ schools based on our personalities, and we’ve attended almost every Catholic school from St. Ignatius to Trinity. Naturally, she thought Fenwick would be a good fit for my competitive nature — and, let’s be honest, all Friars are competitive!

On the first day, we sat in the auditorium and Borsch gave his “look to the left, look to the right” spiel. Seeing as I was sitting next to two very intelligent people, I became worried about what to expect. And in the next four years, I would find that Fenwick had its adversities as well. 

The academic rigor was something new for me. Prior to Fenwick, school came easy. It wasn’t until Denise Megall’s Spanish class did I realize how hard I was going to have to work to earn good grades. Also, … most of my classmates were perfectly petite — a mold I didn’t fit. At times, I felt lost and didn’t know how or where I “fit in.”

Thankfully, Fenwick’s educators are heavily invested in their students, which allowed me to create strong relationships with my teachers. In fact, the thing I admire most about Fenwick is its ability to develop not just well-educated, but well-rounded humans. 

As a Friar student-athlete, Laura was a member of Fenwick’s softball and debate teams (2007-08 yearbook photo).

Fenwick taught me how to interact with people. In Andy Arellano’s speech class, I learned irreplaceable communication skills, like the importance of “hitting the corners” and when to use the KISS method. If you haven’t taken this class yet, my advice is: don’t make tiramisu for your “how to” speech when your Italian classmate is performing the same speech and has samples.

As a Lincoln-Douglas and Public Forum debater, John Paulett and Mary Beth Logas taught me the artistic way to weaponize words. And as a senior, Paulett facilitated my desire to build a larger community outreach program when he helped me found the New Orleans Humanitarian Trip. I am honored to learn that it is still ongoing. 

I attribute my passion for literature to Kim Darkes (Kotty), whom I had the pleasure of being one of her first students. She often took time to lend me books and engage in literary conversation outside of class. I even once asked her to grab coffee so we could chat more about literature. In hindsight, I see why my sisters thought (well, think) that was so weird. By the way, I’m still waiting for that cup of “Joe.” 

And so, while there were many times I wanted a more familiar path, Fenwick showed me how hard work coupled with support can produce the unthinkable. The passions I developed became the foundation for the journey I embarked on as an adult. 

I returned to Fenwick after graduating from Sacred Heart University because Peter Groom was kind enough to allow me to student-teach under Kate Whitman while attending graduate school. I felt compelled to give back to Fenwick (in any way I could) and, thanks to Mike Marresee, I became the head JV softball coach along with Peter Gallo.

Writing a book

Demons, published in December 2020, is fiction inspired by the author’s reality.

In the recent zeitgeist, there has been more encouragement and female involvement in male-dominated sports. I knew my story needed to be told to a larger audience because young women deserve to “see themselves” in every walk of life. After spending several years in the classroom, trying to instill the same values in my students as my teachers instilled in me, I decided to leave teaching to pursue authorship, a big risk.  Luckily, Therese Hawkins and Debbie Tracy (Nazareth Academy Principal and President) are fierce supporters and advocates, and gave me their
blessings to do so. 

Writing a novel itself is not an easy feat. There’s brainstorming, writing, editing, rewriting … we all know the writing process we tried so hard to short cut in high school. There were many times I wanted to give up. Each time these thoughts crossed my mind, I reflected on why I was doing this to begin with. Inevitably, the thought of quitting was the antithesis of not just my message, but also the values that have been ingrained in me. And so, it is through passion and grit that my novel, Demons, was published in December 2020. It soon became a best-seller on Amazon and has been featured by several sports organizations, including AAU Sports.

Overall, it’s important to examine what skills we have and how we can use them to uplift others, no matter how difficult the journey may be. Afterall, great leaders want more great leaders, and because that’s what Fenwick does: produces go-getters who strive to make the world better.

About the Author

Fenwick alumna Laura Enriquez taught English and was an assistant girls’ softball coach at Nazareth Academy (La Grange Park, IL) from 2017-20. Since publishing her first novel this past December, she has been working on related marketing and speaking engagements. Demons is the No. 1 new release for Children’s Football Books on Amazon and is featured by AAU Sports, SGIS and The Landmark.

READ THE ARTICLE ABOUT DEMONS IN THE RIVERSIDE/BROOKFIELD LANDMARK.

Lacrosse Is on the Fast Track in the Chicago Area – and at Fenwick

Two new LAX coaches have lofty visions for the Friars’ boys and girls programs in 2020 and beyond.

By Mark Vruno

It should come as no surprise that lacrosse is one of the fastest-growing sports in the United States. The sport’s participation numbers have been on the rise for the better part a decade. Nationally, more than 210,000 high school student-athletes now played organized lacrosse (as of 2018), according to statistics tracked by the National Federation of High School Associations. Some 113,000 of those participants were boys, while nearly 97,000 were girls. At the youth level, more than 825,000 children age 13 and under now play “LAX,” reports US Lacrosse.

Molly Welsh, from Elmhurst, will be one of the Friar’ senior leaders in the spring.

People from the East Coast know lacrosse; most of us from the Midwest, not so much. More than 30 years ago, some college boys were playing catch — with nets on sticks — an hour north of Chicago. “What is that?” asked a local, curious observer while his friends from Boston, New Jersey and New York looked on and laughed.

“Lacrosse is a great game,” attests new Fenwick Boys’ Head Coach Dan Applebaum, who grew up in Oak Park, IL, playing baseball as a kid since the age of six. Applebaum worked at New Wave Lacrosse in Naperville and assisted the staffs at Oak Park-River Forest (his alma mater) as well as Lyons Township high schools in La Grange. He was a Friars’ varsity assistant coach for several seasons before accepting the boys’ head coaching job at Northside College Prep in Chicago (2018-19). Athletic Director Scott Thies ’99 tapped Applebaum as the Fenwick boys’ head coach earlier this year.

Dan Applebaum is the new head coach for Fenwick boys’ LAX.

Applebaum first picked up a lacrosse stick as a freshman at OPRF in 2005-06. “I wasn’t good enough to play baseball in high school,” he admits, adding that perhaps he had outgrown America’s so-called pastime, which was beginning to bore him as a young teenager. What he liked most about lacrosse is that it is “such a skill-based sport,” the coach explains. “You don’t have to be the biggest, fastest or strongest [athlete].” The blend of athleticism and physicality appeals to many boys. It may sound overly simplistic, but “if you can pass and catch, you can be on the field,” he insists.

Molly Welsh ’20, a senior leader on this coming season’s team who hails from Elmhurst, has been a member of East Ave. for the past two years. “I started lacrosse when I was in fourth grade but quit because I had other sports,” Welsh explains. She picked up a stick again as a freshman and has “loved it ever since. Lacrosse is very different from other sports,” she says. “It is one of the fastest and most competitive sports I have ever played.”

Junior teammate Maggie Chudik (Western Springs) had a similar experience. “I had tried lacrosse in elementary school, but it wasn’t until my freshman year at Fenwick that it became my main sport,” she says. “The Fenwick lacrosse team is such an amazing, supportive group of girls that I feel so lucky to be a part of. “

Fellow junior Declan Donnelly ’21 adds: “Lacrosse has been a large part of my life at Fenwick. My lacrosse experience started at a young age playing for the local lacrosse team,” says Donnelly, a two-sport student-athlete (he started at linebacker this season for the Friars’ varsity, playoff football team) who lives in Berwyn and attended St. Mary’s School in Riverside. “Not only has lacrosse helped me to make the transition into high school, but it has allowed for me to develop skills that would be helpful to me in other sports,” the defenseman points out. “Being a lacrosse player has allowed me to develop skills that have helped me greatly while being on the football field.

Coach Applebaum with some of his East Ave. kids.

“The summer of seventh grade I decided to attend the Fenwick Lacrosse Camp because I was hoping to play for the Friars,” Donnelly recalls. At the end of the camp, Jerry Considine (then coaching at Fenwick) asked whether Declan might be interested in playing for the combined youth and high school lacrosse [U14] team that he was putting together. This was the start, in 2015, of the East Ave. program, which added a girls’ division two years later headed up by Tracy Bonaccorsi, who now is the new girls’ HC at Fenwick (see below). Donnelly plays for Fenwick and East Ave., the latter of which he describes as “a thriving program with teams of all ages, for both boys and girls hoping to play lacrosse for sport or fun. The best part about having an elite, club program in the local area, notes Coach Bonaccorsi, is that it gives kids “the opportunity to improve their game and play more than just the three-month high school season.”

Donnelly, now a junior, formed a close-knit bond with his IHSA Super-Sectional Champion teammates from two seasons ago.

Donnelly credits the East Ave. program and coaches for most of his high-school lacrosse success. “When I came to Fenwick I was nervous to play lacrosse,” he admits, “but once I met the team, I never looked back. I was on varsity my freshman year when we made it to the Super Sectional Round. To this day, I am friends and stay in contact with many of the guys on that Super Sectional team. Fenwick lacrosse is a family and always will be.”

What is lacrosse?

“Lacrosse is fast-paced … engaging and exhausting,” says Coach Applebaum.

“Lacrosse is fast-paced,” adds Coach Applebaum, who helps to direct the East Ave. club program (he is one of three founders), now in its fifth year. “There is a lot of running up and down the field. Guys [and gals] get gassed, even in practice! The game is engaging and exhausting, which is partly why parents love it,” he laughs.

All kidding aside, Applebaum notes that the sport’s creativity was a lure for him. Lacrosse is “a very individual team sport.” What does he mean by that paradox? “What I mean is that every person on the field has his or her own style of play – but there still is a team around you.” He acknowledges that much of the game’s strategy is similar to basketball. However, the skill set is very different. “I didn’t need anyone else to go out with me to practice,” he continues. “I figured out ways to make wall-ball fun.”

Tracy Bonaccorsi is the new girls’ LAX head coach at Fenwick.

He expects to see as many as 45 Fenwick boys out for the two teams (varsity and junior varsity) this coming spring. The girls’ squad has even bigger numbers: “There are 70 [female] names on my list for JV and varsity,” reveals new Head Coach Tracy Bonnacorsi, who comes to the Friars by way of East Ave. and Trinity High School in River Forest, where she built up the Blazers’ program over the past three seasons. Five of her players have gone on to play collegiately.

The girls’ version of the game features more finesse and less body checking. (The boys wear helmets.) “We have 20 to 30 girls consistently showing up for [weight] lifting and open gyms,” Coach Bonaccorsi says. One of those players is junior Caroline Finn (Western Springs), who was an All-Conference selection last season as a sophomore.

“I have played with Coach ‘Bono’ [at East Ave.] since I was a sophomore,” Welsh notes. “She is a very encouraging and determined coach. I believe she will push us more than we have been in the past in order to go far in playoffs.” Teammate Chudik adds: “Coach Bono brings a positive energy to the field that I think drives my love and my teammates’ love for lacrosse.”

Playing, coaching experience

Between its two teams (varsity and JV), Coach Bonaccorsi expects approximately 70 girls to play for the Friars’ program this coming spring.

Bonaccorsi was a multi-sport athlete who graduated from Montini Catholic in Lombard. She became interested in lacrosse when her older sister, Annie, instituted the first-ever lacrosse team at the high school in 2005-06. After playing for the Broncos, the younger Bonaccorsi played and studied at Concordia University in Irvine, CA. Before returning to the Chicago area to take the job at Trinity, she coached at Beckman High in Irvine for two years (while still attending college) and with the Buku club team in Southern California. Her degree is in business administration with an emphasis in sports management. At Fenwick, Tracy’s full-time role is as an assistant to the athletic director.

As for Applebaum’s LAX “pedigree,” after his All-Conference senior season at OPRF, he played junior-college lacrosse in Pennsylvania — and then at Mars Hill University (NCAA Div. II) in North Carolina. As a midfielder there, he garnered second team All-Conference recognition. Applebaum also has played internationally at the Indoor World Championships, coming in fifth place as a member of Team Israel.

Future Friars? Applebaum and Bonaccorsi coach youth clinics together.

Increased media visibility is aiding lacrosse’s popularity among American youth, Applebaum believes. Fifteen years ago, “there were like four games on TV all year,” he remembers. “Now, they broadcast college games four to six times per week! You just have to know where to look for them.”

Like ice hockey, lacrosse has a reputation of being an expensive sport to play: Buying a new helmet, stick, gloves, elbow and shoulder pads can cost upwards of $500 per player. However, organizations such as US Lacrosse are making it more affordable, especially for rural as well as inner-city kids. (US Lacrosse is the national governing body of men and women’s lacrosse in the United States.) Its “First Stick Program” grants sticks and protective gear for up to 20 field players and one goalie. Heading into its ninth year, First Stick has leveraged the support of generous individual, foundation and corporate donors into $10 million worth of equipment to give more than 22,000 kids on 760+ teams (448 boys, 320 girls), in every region of the country, the opportunity to play lacrosse — many for the first time.

In early November, coaches Applebaum and Bonaccorsi ran a clinic with the OWLS kids – and Fenwick & East Ave. players volunteered to help.

Locally, Coach Applebaum cites the OWLS sports-based, non-profit youth development organization, which creates opportunities for underserved youth in Chicago. With lacrosse as its foundation, OWLS provides impactful mentorship and access to scholarships, improving the academic and social outcomes of the youth it serves. Bonaccorsi serves on its executive board.

LAX Facts

Source: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

Did you know that lacrosse has its origins in a tribal game played by eastern Woodlands Native Americans and by some Plains Indians tribes in what is now the United States of America and Canada? European colonizers to North America extensively modified the game to create its current collegiate and professional form.

The Friars in 2020

“I am excited for this upcoming lacrosse season and highly recommend anyone who is considering playing, even in the slightest, to come out and try it,” Donnelly encourages. “There is always room for new players, and all are welcome. You won’t regret it, and I know this because I didn’t.”

Donnelly says he is eager to see how Applebaum plans to take the Fenwick program to an even higher level. “I have now known Coach Dan for many years,” Donnelly concludes. “He is a great coach who I know has the skills and ability to lead us on the right path. I have great faith in him and the coaching staff that he is bringing in to help him. Coach Dan … is a large reason why I have become the player I am today.

Student-athlete Declan Donnelly, a junior from Berwyn (St. Mary’s Riverside), plays football and lacrosse for the Fenwick Friars.

“If you would like to play, don’t be shy, contact me or any of my fellow teammates.”

Follow Fenwick Lacrosse on social media:

Boys Twitter: @FenwickLacrosse
Boys Instagram: @fenwickboyslax

Girls Twitter: @FenwickGirlsLAX
Girls Instagram: @fenwickgirlslax

Read also:

Collegiate Friars: August 2019

Catching up with two young alumni from the Class of 2017: Rachel McCarthy, recently back from Japan, and Ellis Taylor, an American footballer in NYC.

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Rachel McCarthy (shown here in Tokyo) will be a junior at Illinois Wesleyan University in downstate Bloomington.

Fenwick Graduation: 2017

Hometown: Riverside

Grade School: St. Mary School

Current School:  Illinois Wesleyan University

Current Major: English Literature and Psychology

Summer Internship: This summer I was a teaching assistant at Technos College, where I spent an unforgettable seven weeks living in Tokyo and helping English students practice conversations/interviews with a native speaker. I also did a lot of behind-the-scenes planning for the college’s annual cultural exchange event with 10 other sister universities from around the world. 

Career aspirations: I’ve looked at a few different career options in the past two years, but right now I’m exploring the possibility of being an English professor. I’ve always had an interest in academia, and my experience at Technos College taught me the joys of working one-on-one with students to help them blossom. 

Fenwick Achievements/Activities: Lawless Scholar, Illinois State Scholar, Girls Cross Country, Blackfriars Guild and Novel Writing Club co-founder.

Fenwick teacher who had the most influence on you: A better question might be who didn’t inspire me, but one teacher I do think of on a regular basis is Mr. Arellano. Though his speech class was tough, the way he cared for each and every one of his students was readily apparent, and I still think of his encouraging feedback whenever I have to give a major presentation.

Fenwick class that had the most influence on you: My junior year AP Language and Composition class was pivotal in shaping me as a writer. That class pushed me to write critically about a wide range of fascinating, real-world topics, and I loved the freedom we were given to pursue our own interests. As I prepare to spend a year studying English as a visiting student at Oxford University, my heavily annotated APLAC textbook remains a valuable guide to this day.

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