The sticker on the back of Doug Staab's car says Georgetown University. It could have been a University of North Carolina sticker, or one for the Duke Blue Devils. He might have been partial to Thomas Jefferson's school and gone to the University of Virginia. And what about Johns Hopkins? These were each one of the five finalists for his services. He, like many of his predecessors on the lacrosse field at Garden City High, had his pick of colleges, and he chose to play for the Hoyas.

The success of the lacrosse team isn't exactly news to anyone in Garden City. It routinely sends on its stars to the cream of the NCAA Divison I crop. Lately, though, the high school halls are more and more populated with future collegiate soccer, tennis, and basketball stars, making Garden City the premier community in the area for producing collegiate athletic talent. A 1994 survey revealed that 63 percent of Garden City students played at least one sport during the year. The figures for other communities were not released, but former athletic director Bob Defliese, who conducted the study, did mention that Sewanhaka, for example, produced, "between one-half and one-fourth as many student athletes." Though that does not guarantee that Garden City kids will play in college, it does significantly increase the chances of such a development.

This year, 48 seniors, or almost 25 percent of the graduating class, submitted 48H forms for the NCAA clearinghouse, a requirement for any student with designs on Division I or II athletics. More remarkably, this is not a new number, according to Janet Pacifico, who works in the Garden City Guidance Department, and formerly served in Syosset and Kennedy-Bellmore High Schools. "That percentage is roughly the same as it was last year here," she says. "It was rarely more than 10 percent at my other schools."

Why are Garden City athletes so successful that they are able to play collegiately? After all, high schools must deal with the luck of the draw. If a good athlete grows up here, he or she will usually go to high school here. Defliese, for one, thinks the answer is more reflective of society than of athletic prowess. "The socio-economic status is different here," he says. "Blue-collar kids have to help pay for college and a lot of Garden City kids don't have to work to help support their families. We are able to let kids be kids."

Defliese's successor as AD, Nancy Kalafus, got a first-hand look at the recruiting process as the former women's basketball coach at Columbia University. Like Defliese, she agrees that the potential for athletic success starts early and often in the home. "When kids are goal-oriented, like their parents, who make things possible for them, kids learn that hard work leads to success," she says. Defliese, a high school coach who also runs youth camps, adds, "Parents are trying to get the competitive edge and sports is one way to do that. People in this community realize the opportunities sports present, and one of those is getting a scholarship."

It is also a place where, as Kalafus says, "Success breeds success." From 1993 to 1996 alone, the graduating classes of Garden City High School produced an astounding 107 collegiate athletes, including 31 girls, in 19 of the school's 29 varsity sports. Lacrosse, as always, is king, but the more obscure sports like badminton, bowling, and swimming, which may go an entire year without even a "rah" from the students or faculty, are also producing athletes for the next level.

As impressive as the Garden City athletics program is, more striking is the participation of its student-athletes at some of the best academic institutions in the country. Ivy League schools (which are prohibited from giving athletic scholarships, meaning students must meet their high academic standards even to be considered for acceptance) can claim 12 of the 107 athletes, and another 30 attend some of the top schools in the nation, including Chicago, Georgetown, Holy Cross, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Virginia, Wake Forest, and Williams, to name a few.

This year's senior class is only furthering the trend. Joining Staab as Georgetown bound jocks are Andreas Huber (golf), Dennis Williams (boys track), and Erin Elbe (girls lacrosse). Harvard has claimed three soon-to-be Garden City alums, all lacrosse players --Chris Matteini for the boys, and Heather Hussey and Erin Kutner for the women. Chris Acheson will be playing football at a "Little Ivy," Hamilton College and Gina Sambus will play lacrosse at the University of Virginia next fall.

There is a distinct pecking order among the Garden City sports. Why don't other sports like basketball and football produce the same number of collegiate athletes as lacrosse in Garden City? After all, the football team is a consistent winner with a history of players who continued to strap on helmets after they left Garden City High School. (Frank Quayle set the Atlantic Coast Conference rushing record at the University of Virginia in the 1960s. It was broken at the end of the decade by Don McCauley of the University of North Carolina, who like Quayle, honed his skills on Warren King Field as a Trojan.) The answer lies mostly in the fact that those sports are nationally competitive, while lacrosse is predominantly played in just three parts of the country --Long Island, upstate New York, and metropolitan Baltimore.

"I can only speak for lacrosse," says boys head coach William "Doc" Dougherty. "Other sports are played more around the country. There's no doubt in my mind that kids who don't start for us could be all-city at another town, but even they will play at small schools and be successful. Colleges know they've gotten good players here before and they come back."

Dougherty's defending state champions, for whom Staab is currently starring, will see all 12 seniors continue their lacrosse education next year. The post-graduate selections of the starters sound like a Who's Who of collegiate lacrosse. In addition to goalie Chris Matteini's plans for Harvard, attackman B.J. Praeger will attend Princeton, and defensemen Bill Flannery and Matt McFarland are headed for Cornell and U Mass, respectively. These players are merely fopllowing the impressive cleat-prints left by past lacrosse stars. Witness Chris Massey, a senior at national champion Princeton and a starter on the most feared attack line in all of college lacrosse, or the North Carolina team, which this year counts five ex-Trojans among its members. "I always tell the kids, 'You better walk out with a degree,' because professional lacrosse is not a career. It's just legalized mugging," says Dougherty, the former coach of the Major Indoor Lacrosse League's New York Saints.

For their part, the players recognize that they are in a unique situation, where they are more likely to get the opportunity to play NCAA lacrosse, because of the exposure and reputation of the high school's program. Says Staab, "You've got to play because you like it. Some colleges might give you an edge because of what your jersey says, but you've still got to go out and prove how good you are."

That is not to say that the other sports are completely devoid of collegiate talent, as demonstrated earlier. Pitcher Mike Bianculli signed a Clemson University baseball scholarship in 1991, Tim Glisker is currently playing football at Syracuse University, and James Mastaglio just completed his senior season as a starter on Princeton's nationally-ranked basketball team. It's simply a matter of having to excel at a level comparable to or above that of thousands of other kids nationally playing the same sport. Garden City has good football players, but they excel more as a very good team, and are not viewed as individuals as often. That makes it all the more impressive when someone can rise above the masses and stand out in a highly competitive national sport for one of the few, desired scholarships.

Garden City athletes are used to enjoying team success and the fact that so many compete after high school is an indication of that success. Both lacrosse teams are defending state champions, both soccer teams and the field hockey teams have participated in the State's Final Four in recent years, and the girls basketball team likewise advanced to states.

There is no end in sight for the breeding-ground of men's and women's lacrosse --or for the other sports, either. Junior Matt Casey has already begun the recruiting process for baseball, hearing from, among others, Duke. Freshman basketball sensation Bethany LeSueur is getting feelers from prospective colleges. These are just two examples.

It appears that Garden City High School will continue to outdistance its neighbors in producing collegiate athletes well into the next millennium. In the coming years, the parking lot of the high school will contain a lot of cars like Staab's with stickers indicating not just colleges for academic pursuits, but athletic ones as well.