Whack from the defenseman. Ball's still in the stick. Double whack. Ball's still there. Shot. Goal.

This has become a familiar sight -- a flurry of futile attempts by a defender to knock the ball loose, followed by a goal.

Are the offensive players that masterful? Or is it their equipment? The NCAA Men's Lacrosse Committee's position is that skill should be the reason for such control, but the committee isn't sure that's what's happening. An important survey that the committee sent to coaches and officials last month may find a consensus and possibly lead to a rules remedy.

"The equipment appears to be driving too much of what is happening on the field," said Phil Buttafuoco, committee chair and commissioner of the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC).

Don Zimmerman, coach at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, echoed that sentiment, adding that the defender's stick -- not just the offense's -- plays a part.

"It's becoming more of a one-on-one cradling game instead of a ball movement game," he said. "On the other hand, the defensive stick has become lighter, which has allowed defenders to swing it like a weapon, which has almost forced the offensive player to go into more of a protect position."

Perhaps not since the stick head evolved from wood to plastic in the early 1970s has there been such a hullabaloo. But most coaches can't describe the problem any better than knowing it when they see it.

"The changes in the stick have affected the game, but I can't pinpoint exactly how," said Tom Postel, longtime coach at perennial Division II contender C.W. Post Campus/Long Island University and an outstanding attackman during his playing days. "The narrower pocket seems to make it easier to hold the ball, which can compromise the game.

"It's hurting the credibility of the game. I knew a lot of good stick handlers when I played, but they could never do some of the things that they can do today, and it's not because the kids today are so much more talented."

University of Notre Dame coach Kevin Corrigan has observed the same thing.

"It's gotten so it's next to impossible to dislodge the ball," he said. "You almost have to knock the stick out of someone's hands to get the ball out."

Yet some say only the means has changed.

"When I played, everyone had illegal stops so you couldn't get the ball out anyway," said Bill Bergan, coach at Clarkson University and a player for Hobart College in the mid-1970s. "Now at least there are stick checks (field tests) to prevent that. I think it is more difficult to catch the ball with these new sticks, so it all evens out. I don't think it's a big deal."

Style of play changes

As adamant as Postel is, he conceded that the withholding features of offensive sticks are mitigated by what he perceives as officials' liberal view of defenders' actions, perhaps to atone for any offensive advantage gained. But that makes the game rougher.

"Sometimes you have to kill a guy to get the ball loose," Postel said. "Maybe there is an unwritten rule not to call that (sort of foul) now, but 33 years from now they are going to find that a lot of these kids have bursitis because they are taking a beating."

The late Eamon McEneaney, a three-time first-team all-American attackman for Cornell University from 1975 to 1977, was quoted in a 1998 article in Lacrosse Magazine on wooden sticks, and he noted the difference modernization of equipment has made.

"Today's players don't have to cradle (keep the ball in their stick) like the players of yesteryear," McEneaney said. "In fact, the art of cradling is not nearly what it used to be.

In the days of the wooden stick it took quite some time to learn how to cradle. Now with the modern stick it's done effortlessly and easily."

Manufacturers say that's good because it makes the game more accessible to the masses, which increases the market for their products.

One manufacturer, in a letter to the men's lacrosse committee, drew a parallel with the growth of other sports and their equipment.

"If anything, the evolution of the equipment designs have made (lacrosse) more user-friendly and have resulted in increased popularity, much like the evolution of golf and (ice) hockey equipment," the manufacturer pointed out.

Bill Tierney, coach at defending national champion Princeton University, said that overall, he supports creativity by the manufacturers, although he would like to add one more measurement to the specs: a width limit at the bottom of the head (near the stop), one of the ideas presented on the survey.

"We're so far behind other sports in terms of technology in many ways that I think that we should catch up so that we are coaching in the 21st century and not in 1970," he said. "Manufacturers are so far ahead of us on this stuff that we will never catch up."

Lelan Rogers, coach at State University College at Cortland said the fact that today's sticks withhold the ball is not necessarily bad.

"As technology advances, people are going to take advantage of it," he said. "As long as it's available to everyone, it's not a problem."

Some coaches and most manufacturers think the issue is self-governing, simply because over-emphasizing one feature compromises another.

"I think a lot of these things find their own center point," Tierney said. "You can do whatever you want to the sticks, but eventually you have to be able to catch and throw. If sticks get to the point where you can't do that anymore, they will have to change them because no one will want them."

Evidence sought

At issue is a line in the rules book under the heading "Crosse (commonly known as stick) -- Prohibitions," that reads "crosses in which the construction or stringing at the bottom is designed to withhold the ball from play ... are prohibited."

The possibilities of what's really happening equal the variety of ways to string a stick -- a figure somewhere around the Avogadro number. And some say stringing is the main dislodgement factor, which makes any solution dealing solely with the head as effective as rowing a boat with one oar.

The standard for determining dislodgement is the officials' field test, in which a ball is placed in the stick, which is then held both vertically at a 90-degree angle with the ground and horizontally. If the ball doesn't roll out freely from either position, the stick is illegal.

Chuck Winters, secretary-rules editor for the committee and former director of athletics at Gettysburg College, said a few extra specs might be necessary.

"We need a top (or front) and bottom (or back) inside measurement (of the head) at about the 5-inch mark from the stop," Winters said. "This is the only way we can preserve the V formation of the side walls from the stop to the top of the stick."

Although opinions on what needs to change vary even among committee members, the group, bolstered by a one-time equipment meeting in November, has decided that the current specs aren't enough.

Through the survey, the committee hopes to gather opinions, although it is not required legislatively to mirror the results. At the November meeting, the committee measured every stick submitted by the primary manufacturers to determine limits that would have minimal effects on current sticks. If adopted, those limits would take effect in a number of years, allowing manufacturers the opportunity to re-tool, if necessary, for the college market. Manufacturers have objected to some past committee decisions about stick specifications and could again threaten legal action; however, through the survey, the committee hopes to demonstrate that it is making reasonable decisions that are in the best interests of college lacrosse.

"Coming up with scientific evidence of the things we believe about the sticks has proven to be very difficult and very expensive," said the ECAC's Buttafuoco. "To a lesser extent, the committee wants to examine products on the market now to see if they are adversely affecting the game, but primarily we want to come up with specs for the future that will serve this committee, student-athletes, institutions and manufacturers for many years to come."