The Monster Will Return

8/30/10 4:47 PM

The Monster Will Return

By Derek McLean

The all-time leading goal scorer in Major League Lacrosse history is not ready to call it a career just yet.

“I’m coming back,” says Long Island Lizards attack Tim Goettelmann. Next year will be his 11^th in Major League Lacrosse. He has spent the first 10 with the Lizards.

While leading Long Island to the 2010 MLL Championship game there was talk that Goettelmann might retire. “It would have been a nice send off,” he said. “It was a great season and if I finished Championship Weekend holding the trophy, then I definitely would have said goodbye.”

But following a loss to the Chesapeake Bayhawks in the title game, Goettelmann says he had a change of heart. “Especially the way it went in the fourth quarter. I don’t think I could grow old and go into my 40’s and 50’s and knowing that that last quarter really was a really bad quarter to end on.”

According to Goettelmann there were several factors in his decision to return. The most important was the blessing of his family. “The wife is giving me the okay,” he said. “At least for now, we’ll have to see what happens when the third baby comes and I’ll have to run off to practice out east and not come back all day.”

Another factor was the impact retirement would have on Goettelmann’s charity Monster’s Kids. The charity has raised over $100,000 to the Cohen Children's Medical Center of the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System.

Goettelmann donated his entire 2010 MLL salary to the Monster’s Kids, and for the second straight year he won the New Balance Sportsman of the Year Award, which earned a $5000 donation from New Balance to Monster’s Kids. “Winning the New Balance Sportsman of the Year again was great and New Balance was awesome,” he says, “but the players this past weekend and how they responded to Monster’s Kids, that’s another reason.” A number of MLL players donated a portion of their checks from Championship Weekend to the charity.

Goettelmann has played in a league record 122 career games. This season he broke the record for most career goals, finishing the season with 251. Fourteen of those goals have been game winners, which is the most in MLL history.

“The competition, the thrill to compete and to keep playing this game that I love,” he says, “I can’t just walk away from it.”