Bob Rule, lacrosse champion and innovator, dies at 73

When it came to lacrosse, Bob Rule was both a champion and an innovator.

A longtime history teacher at Manhasset High School, Rule was a goaltender on Cornell University’s 1971 NCAA Championship team, the first NCAA national title for the sport. Later, he would design and patent state-of-the-art equipment that moved the game forward. All the while, Rule was an assistant on four Manhasset High School boys lacrosse state championship teams.

“He was a great teacher of the game, especially for the goalies and with defensive schemes,” said Bill Cherry, 71, of Manhasset, who coached with Rule. “He developed so many goalies that would go on to play in college. It was very impressive.”

Rule, who grew up in Massachusetts and moved to Manhasset during high school, died of a heart attack on Nov. 6 on Rhode Island’s Block Island, where he had been living full time, his family said. He was 73.

“Bob was a lot of fun to be around,” said friend Howie Borkan, 62, of Manhattan. “He was a very smart guy, very charismatic, and a great storyteller. He was an interesting guy, very bright.”

Though Rule did not start playing lacrosse until high school, his passion for the game sparked him to invent ways to improve it. The invention of the plastic stick head, which replaced the antiquated wood ones with which Rule played, opened up a new world. Rule also patented a goalie stick with a wider net area with which to make a save.

“As a young goalie, he would always try to find a wooden stick that was within the rules but had the most surface area,” said Dorothy Conroy Rule, his wife of 32 years. “The rules didn’t talk about shape. It didn’t have to be a triangle [at the bottom of the stick]. The constraints of wood made it a triangle. But, it also had to be aerodynamic. You had to be able to stop a ball.”

Said Borkan: “When plastic molded head lacrosse sticks came into existence, the first goalie sticks were kind of a ‘V’ [shape] at the bottom. Reading the rule book, Bob figured out that it could be more like a ‘U,’ giving more surface area for a goalie to catch the ball in their stick.”

Bob Rule developed the stick independently and worked with sporting equipment companies to produce it. The stick soon caught on as the standard model in the sport, Borkan said.

“There are people that ideas just come to them,” Borkan said. “Bob was a reflective guy, and he just loved the game of lacrosse. Any way he could make the game better and anyway he could make himself better, Bob was always looking for that edge. He was a great competitor.”

Rule also designed and patented a litany of other sticks and equipment, including lighter padding that would help prevent injury.

“You can’t innovate something that you don’t deeply understand,” his wife said. “If you’re a player or a coach and you see injuries that you or your kids are getting, you get those ‘aha!’ moments.”

Said Cherry: “He was always thinking about something lighter. A lot of pads were bulky and not conducive to certain positions. He was always thinking about the game. He just loved the game and put everything he had into it … A lot of things that you see today was born out of what he did in the ’70s and ’80s."

Born Jan. 5, 1949, in Lowell, Massachusetts, Rule grew up playing hockey. When his family moved to Manhasset, he took up lacrosse.

Still, the love of hockey never left him. He walked on to the hockey team at Cornell and was on the team that won the national championship in 1969-70. When the lacrosse team won the 1971 national championship, he became the only student in Cornell history to play on national championship teams in two different sports, according to Cornell’s athletic website.

Rule missed the 1971 lacrosse playoffs after getting injured on the final day of the regular season, but still won the Ensign C. Markland Kelly Jr. Memorial Award, presented to the nation’s best goalie. He later was the starting goaltender for the USA national team that won the 1974 World Championship in Australia. He is in numerous Halls of Fame, including USA National Lacrosse, Long Island Lacrosse Metro Chapter, and Cornell and Manhasset athletics and lacrosse.

“Bob was an excellent goalie,” said Alan Lowe, 76, who played with Rule on the 1974 national championship team and later coached with him at Manhasset. “He had great movement, great anticipation, and was quick. He just did everything right.”

In addition to his wife, Bob Rule is survived by his daughter, DK Rule, and his brothers Jack Rule of Oyster Bay, Dicky Rule of Florida and Paul Rule of Florida. Rule was cremated. A private memorial service will be held on Block Island, and a Long Island memorial service will be scheduled at a later date, his wife said.