PHILADELPHIA — Derek Maltz doesn’t need any extra motivation this weekend. There’s a natonal championship at stake, a chance to send his senior teammates off with a title — the one Syracuse storied legacy practically demands — and repeat history like few others can. Thirty years ago this spring, Derek Maltz Sr. won SU’s first NCAA championship.

But Monday’s Memorial Day is the 10th Memorial Day since Maltz’s uncle, Master Sergeant Michael Maltz and his U.S. Air Force helicopter crashed into the Afghanistan landscape, killing him and five others.

The weekend pulses with emotions for any lacrosse-loving kid. Most are generated on the field, others in the stands, echoing in the roars of ecstasy and groans of disapproval from the legions of Orange (16-3) fans sure to pack into Lincoln Financial Field at 1 p.m. on Monday for the NCAA championship game against No. 7-seed Duke (15-5). Maltz will deal with those, and the memory of his fallen uncle.

“It’s always on your mind when you lose someone special and you try and make – you know they’re looking down on you – (you’re) always trying to make things happen,” Maltz said.

For Maltz, the holiday is layered. He grew up anticipating, celebrating and dreaming of the three-day weekend that traditionally crowns lacrosse’s national champions. Maltz and his brother, Dylan, who is committed to join top-seeded SU in the fall, attended most every final four in their lives.

They dreamed of moments like the one Maltz realized Saturday night, burying a rebound in the upper-left corner to send Syracuse to the national championship.

This is the first Memorial Day, though, when the fate of the title rests at least partially on Maltz’s shoulders.

He’ll try to block out most emotions, but like on previous less pressure-packed Memorial Days, he’ll remember his uncle.

“I know he’s looking down on me,” Maltz said

Michael Maltz didn’t play much lacrosse, but he was huge, Dylan recalls, and he could always wow the two oldest Maltz brothers by placing a ball in a lacrosse stick, chucking the stick up in the air and catching it, ball intact.

They didn’t see him very often as he was frequently overseas but on the times that they did, Derek remembers him simply as “awesome.”

In 1995, Michael was stationed at Patrick Air Force base. The pararescue had a special day prepared for his visiting nephew — the kind that requires pre-arranged security clearance from military police.

“It was one of these big days Uncle Mike planned for the family,” said Maltz Sr., Michael’s brother and Maltz’s father. “He says, ‘We’re going to go out to the planes, I want to show Derek the planes, I want to bring him out to the planes.’”

A 3-year-old Derek Maltz sat with his dad in the cockpit of a C-130 plane when Michael started yelling up from the bottom of the plane

“’D, D c’mon you got to come out, you got to come out,’” Maltz Sr. recalls Michael shouting.

When Maltz and his dad climbed out of the plane, they saw military police surrounding their family, with machine guns pointed at Maltz’s mother Patricia, holding 1-year-old Dylan.

Michael had the visit pre-approved, but communication had broken down. It’s a fond memory now, especially humorous to the elder Maltz., and one way Michael was willing to go the extra mile to entertain his nephews.

On March 22, 2003, Michael was serving in Afghanistan in an elite pararescue team. The Maltz family in the U.S. received a photo of him with his left hand waving, flying above the Afghan desert. The next day he was killed at age 42.

“My parents called us home, and we went to the family room or living room,” Dylan said. “They told us what happened, and my dad was crying. My mom was very distant.”

Since then, Memorial Day has taken on extra meaning. The Maltz family doesn’t talk about it much now. The emotion of the annual occasion is understood, Maltz said.

Still, it’s never been broiled among waves of expectation and tension with Maltz taking the field in Syracuse orange, chasing his, his family’s, his teammates’ and opponents’ lifelong dream. He’ll pore over film and scouting reports as he always does. Then he’ll take on the emotions of a day that would feel like a dream, regardless of its proximity to Memorial Day.

History is on the line, motivation overflows. Maltz hardly needs it, but it’s there.

“Playing for my uncle on Memorial Day is really something special,” Maltz said, “and I definitely want to capitalize on the opportunity.”

Published on May 27, 2013 at 1:31 am

Contact Jacob: jmklinge@syr.edu | @Jacob_Klinger_