Lawler Mixes Passions for Sport and Archaeology

After a women's lacrosse season that included a Colonial Athletic Association tournament championship and a trip to the NCAA tournament, senior midfielder Brooks Lawler shifted her focus from one passion to another.

For the third straight summer, Lawler went back to Alaska, where she was born, to work as an archaeologist. And while her dedication to lacrosse is perhaps simple for fans to quantify with her 30 draw controls, 16 goals and seven assists last season, Lawler is also dedicated to her career path.

"I'm very devoted to pursuing a career, and I know that lacrosse is going to end, and it's not going to be able to help me that much in the future," Lawler, an anthropology major, said. "But archaeology will."

Working with the University of Alaska Museum of the North this past summer in Fairbanks, Lawler helped to teach high school students excavation techniques and other skills, starting in Talkeetna, Alaska, and then Denali National Park and Preserve.

Later in the summer, she worked on another project with the Museum of the North, this one involving the collection of data on a type of volcanic rock called rhyolite. This work got her out hiking through Denali and also Wrangall-St. Elias National Park and Preserve in search of information.

"Archaeology is a profession that, at least for part of the year, it'll keep you outside," Lawler said. "And that's really what all archaeologists look forward to. Because in the winter, especially in Alaska, you're inside doing your lab work and research. But, summer comes along and you get to be outside camping every day."

Lawler can thank her parents, and some members of her extended family, for her passions in sports and the outdoors. Her parents, Norman and Anne, both played lacrosse at Roanoke College. Her mother also played field hockey and swam there and was inducted into the school's athletics hall of fame.

Other family members, such as Lawler's aunt, grandfather and cousin, also played collegiate lacrosse. Lawler's parents are from Maryland, but moved to Alaska because Norman is a mountaineering enthusiast.

"They both got teaching jobs in Alaska, and that allowed them to work the winters and then have the summers off to do some major backpacking trips and mountaineering trips," Brooks said. "My dad, I think, also would do mountaineering trips in the winter during winter break. They definitely instilled that sense of adventure in me as well."

Brooks did all of her schooling in Maryland, though, so that she would have the opportunity to be close to her grandparents, but she went back to Alaska each summer.

She said that she was about four or five years old when she picked up a lacrosse stick and started passing. By the time Brooks was in seventh grade, her father had started doing running and shooting workouts with her. She said he has continued to be a coach and trainer for her.

"My mom has always been there for kind of the emotional support and kind of the mental side of the game," Brooks said. "And my dad has actually essentially been my coach."

Growing up, Brooks also played some soccer, field hockey and ice hockey. But even though she was heavily involved in sports, her parents made sure that she kept her academics in check too.

"We just always hounded on this. Basically, at the beginning of every season, of whatever sport it was, that as much fun as the sports are, and as far as you want to go with goals and things like that, that in one instant it can all be over," Norman said. "So you have to have academics to rely on in the end."

Brooks played her high school lacrosse at the McDonogh School in Owings Mills, Maryland, which is one of the top programs in the country. And not only did Brooks play on the varsity team all four years of high school, she made the Dean's List all four years too.

The McDonogh School also won Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland championships each of Brooks' four years on the team. She was an Academic All-American and an Under Armour All-American her junior and senior seasons.

Brooks said that she had wanted to play college lacrosse since she was young, and she chose another top program in Northwestern University coming out of the McDonogh School. The Wildcats won the national championship her freshman year and were semifinalists her sophomore season. She was on the Dean's List both years and was Academic All-Big Ten her sophomore year.

But Brooks decided that the system there wasn't for her and chose to transfer. She went back to Alaska and enrolled at the University of Alaska Fairbanks looking to make connections in the archaeology field.

While there, Brooks also played club ice hockey.

"I took advantage of that moment to pursue my career, and it was a great choice," Brooks said. "And it just happened that I could play ice hockey as well."

Lacrosse wouldn't get left behind so easily though. The itch to play was still there.

"I really had to make peace with lacrosse, and I think if I just walked away from it after so many years, without just finishing and following through with that dream, that I would have regrets," Brooks said. "So I came back to it."

At JMU, head coach Shelley Klaes-Bawcombe said she was well aware of who Brooks was going back to her time at the McDonough School. Then it turned out that former JMU goalkeeper Schylar Healy played club lacrosse with Brooks in Maryland. After Brooks left Northwestern, Healy told her that she might like JMU.

"There were a lot of aspects about JMU that I really loved," Brooks said. "The first one is I just loved how honest Coach Shelley was. And, she wanted to make me love lacrosse again and give me the opportunity to just play free and understand me as an individual, and I really appreciated that. And then I also really like being in this area."

JMU's anthropology department was a good fit for Brooks too; she made contact with it while still at school in Alaska. Finally, she started at JMU for the fall 2014 semester.

Brooks said the transition was fairly easy. But she loaded up with 17 credits that first semester in case some credits didn't transfer. At the time, she wasn't living with any teammates, but a transfer women's soccer student-athlete and a transfer women's swimmer instead. She said they also were in positions where they had to really focus on their academics, which created a good space for her to get her work done.

"I think that was very important last year," Brooks said.

This year, Brooks is living with sophomore teammates Kaitlin Martindale and Elena Romesburg while working on a thesis. She finds a workspace balance to make sure she's being productive.

"Sometimes I have to separate myself again," Brooks said. "Go to the library and just where I can be in a quiet place to work when I just need to get something done. And then there are other times when I can sit at my kitchen table."

Meanwhile, Brooks made the President's List each of the last three semesters. She won the Colonial Athletic Association Commissioner's Academic Award last year, and has also won the JMU Athletics Director Scholar-Athlete Award.

That success doesn't go unnoticed by her teammates.

"She has found a way to push herself academically on her own, which I think is really impressive," senior midfielder and team captain Jaci Gordon said.

While continuing to perform in the classroom, Brooks started all 20 of JMU's games her first season last year, even after taking time off from lacrosse.

"She still is the hardest worker on this team," Klaes-Bawcombe said. "And, everyone has to rise to her level of energy, intensity, aggression. And so, she was an immediate impact with just our overall work rate as a program."

With a year in Harrisonburg under her belt, Klaes-Bawcombe has noticed that Brooks looks even more polished now.

"Which makes sense, she had that gap year playing hockey, and needed to pick up a lacrosse stick again," Klaes-Bawcombe said.

Brooks led the Dukes with 16 goals in fall season play, and she also led in caused turnovers and draw controls.

Her senior season officially begins when JMU hosts second-ranked North Carolina on Saturday, Feb. 6. With graduation just three months after that, it perhaps comes as no surprise that Brooks has her sights set on what's next. She hopes to return to Alaska and attend graduate school at Alaska Fairbanks, then turn that into a full-time career in archaeology.

And through all of the twists and turns her collegiate career has taken, one lesson stands out.

"I think that people should recognize that there's not just one way to do things," Brooks said. "And, I definitely had the mindset I'd do four years of lacrosse, the same school, and then graduate and then go on to life. But it doesn't have to be that way."

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Players Mentioned

Jaci Gordon

Schylar Healy

Brooks Lawler

Kaitlin Martindale

Elena Romesburg

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