Wow, it’s like deja-vu all over again. The roller coaster of emotion repeats every year.  Two days before the All Star game I swear I’m never doing it again.  The day before I start thinking, “holy cow, this is going to happen…it’s too late to stop it.”  And then,  with a lot of help from some great people, it happens, we have a great time and I can’t wait until we get to do it again. Both games were close and every player played hard and fast.  The level of play was tremendous.  I need to take a moment to publicly thank the folks who worked so hard with me to make it happen. Lee Roggenburg, who I give such a hard time, is my conduit to the coaches and players in South Florida and made his coaching (and Snapchat-you can add us laxnewsnetwork) debut.  Thanks Lee. Mary Hopkins and Sarah Burlingame helped me get the word out and introduced me to dozens of girls coaches.  Even being the first year for the girls we ended up with representation and nominations for all over the state.  From the gulf coast to the space coast, from North Florida to South Florida. We had great referees for both games who did a great job of facilitating the game, keeping everyone safe, and letting the players have their day.  The players played, the coaches coached, the ref’s reffed, and the parents oooh and ahhed.  Just like it should happen every day.  Thanks to Tom Hopkins, Steve Pue, JC Craven, Jon Posson, and Jordan Supranner.  Jordan sustained and injury doing the FHSAA Semi-Final game the night before and was unable to hit the field but still came out and supported the cause and helped out. Our great announcers Mike Jones and James Broome did a great job, and helped make the day even more special for our All Stars. Our great coaches, Mary Hopkins, Michelle “Barefoot” Ruth, Ellyn Spangenberg, Eileen Pliske, Dominic Gilberti, Adam Bond, Bill Allen, Justin Van Tessel, Scott Richard, and Lee.  It might not be hard to run the sidelines with that much talent, but these folks volunteered their time to come out and spend the day in the sun with these great kids when they could have been anywhere they wanted yesterday. Deep South Lacrosse provided our pennies for us and provided advice on the numbers that I should have listened to.  Next year, black! The JTAA put on a great clinic to start the day, then hosted our event, and got the place ready and staffed for the FHSAA finals. What a great job they did and I hope the Final Four gets back to Jupiter again.  Fantastic job. Photos from the girls game can be found at http://photos.jamesbroome.com/School-Sports/FLN-AllStar-Game/Girls-2016/ We’ll have some boys photos available soon. And of course, my daughter.  Who finished her first year of college only to come home and get dragged across the state and forced to spend two days with her old dad, then work the gate in the hot sun all day.  Well done. The family of All Star Chandler Coons donated #JMStrong24 bracelets which we sold and were able to get 100% of the proceeds back to the family of John Michael.  All of the players signed his #24 jersey and, miraculously, organized themselves into some sort of formation then stayed on one place long enough for us to get all of our players and coaches into a single group photo.  Perhaps the crowing achievement of the entire day.  I really wish he was with us yesterday.  You can keep up with his progress at http://www.jmstrong24.com/ Most of all thanks for the coaches for nominating these great players and to the players themselves who showed up and played hard.  And those goalies!!! Wow.  What a great show.