On the wall of Albert Eldridge’s home in Syracuse hang trophies, plaques and certificates that serve as reminders to his families athletic dominance.

There are two of each kind of trophy. Half of them say Anita. Half say Alile.

In the summer, he can see his daughters’ cars parked outside, both Mazda Tributes. During the school year, Anita and Alile call home from the same Syracuse University campus. They played the same sports. They share a major. They chill with the same friends.

They look alike, too. Straight brown hair. Broad, athletic shoulders. Pretty face.

They borrow each other’s clothes. And despite the two year age difference, they both attended the same junior prom.

They’re sisters. But more than that, Anita and Alile Eldridge are best friends.

And that’s why it’s so difficult. After 20 years of being bunched together, they’re now separated by the one thing that brought them close to begin with: lacrosse.

Anita is a sophomore for the Orangewomen. When SU’s season opens on Feb. 28, she’ll start at defense. Alile, is a senior at SU. She was an Orangewoman for three seasons before walking away this season.

Anita will get to play in the Carrier Dome in front of crowds in the hundreds, a partial scholarship paying her way through college. Alile will play for the Syracuse club lacrosse team, where she’ll get to be the star again.

Syracuse women’s lacrosse head coach Lisa Miller remembers when she first witnessed the skills of Anita, the youngest of the Eldridge sisters. Anita was 13 and participated in Miller’s summer lacrosse camp.

Miller noticed her talent. But she also recognized her minor flaw. Anita hung her stick, a big no-no in college lacrosse. Maybe she was getting away with it in middle school, but she wouldn’t at Syracuse. Anita would serve as the day’s lesson. And the coach and the 13-year old would go one-on-one.

Miller tried to hack at Anita’s drooping stick. She expected to hear the sound of clashing titanium. Instead, she caught air.

‘She dodged me like I was a cone and scored,’ Miller said. ‘She made me look foolish.’

Alile, too, was a young lacrosse star. One game she found herself getting hacked with sticks. Her protests to the refs brought a yellow card. That’s when she got mad.

‘She only scored 10 goals that night after that,’ her father Albert said.

But for the first time in her life, Alile was riding the bench. She only played in two games her freshman year for the Syracuse lacrosse team. She played in three the next year, never recording even a point.

And, Alile missed her sister. They were living only 20 minutes apart, but the Eldridge sisters were separated for the first time in their lives.

‘We still talked a lot,’ Alile said. ‘But I didn’t have her like I always used to have her. In sports, we’d always be on the field together. Then, we’d see each other at home. So I’d see her all the time.’

Then Anita followed Alile to Syracuse and the lacrosse team. Little changed. Alile sat, while Anita, younger by 15 months, played. Five games into the season, Anita was planted in the starting lineup and she stayed there the rest of the year. Alile watched her sister star at defense while she sat on the bench.

She was conflicted. As a teammate and a defender, Alile competed against Anita for playing time. But they were still sisters.

‘I was really happy for her,’ Alile said. ‘It was very frustrating. To see someone come in and get that automatic playing time, it was hard. At the same time, I was happy for her because I didn’t want her to go through what I went through.’

So Alile went to practice every day and contributed. On the field, they were teammates not afraid to challenge each other. In drills they occasionally battled one-on-one. They occasionally tried to embarrass each other on the field. Sometimes one succeeded.

There was no jealousy,they say. Maybe it stems from their summers on a 35-foot boat where they’d sometimes spend weeks at sea. The sisters shared a bedroom half the size of an SU dorm room. They had no choice but to get along.

From early in their lives, Albert said, they were taught to respect each other. Even in the backyard when they’d practice lacrosse, the games never became too rough, instead, the girls tried to teach each other different lacrosse moves.

‘She was never jealous, she’s not a jealous person,’ Anita said. ‘Yeah, she saw that I played, but she was happy for me. She was my teammate, My teammates — my friends — sat on the bench. There’s nothing you can do about it.’

Anita tried to provide the same soothing attitude that Alile gave her when she was first learning the sport. She gave her tips and told her how to better prepare herself. But wasn’t it odd? Wasn’t Anita supposed to be the one asking her big sister for advice?

‘Maybe she looks up to me too,’ Anita said, ‘even though I’m the younger sister. I like how she asks me ‘What do I need to do? What am I doing wrong?’ I don’t think that’s weird at all. She was my teammate, and my teammates always ask me that.’

Alile thought about quitting the team. Lacrosse wasn’t fun for her anymore. Alile turned to Anita for advice.

‘She was really big support for me last year,’ Alile said. ‘A lot of people didn’t understand how I felt, but she knew what kind of athlete I was in high school and college. I feel like she was the one person I really could talk to about it.’

Alile made up her mind in May, after SU’s 12-7 loss to Yale in the first round of the NCAA tournament. After the game, Miller talked about the upcoming season and the roles that the seniors would play.

‘She didn’t really say anything about me,’ Alile said. ‘Every year I had that hope that it would be my year to breakthrough and I’d be able to play, but I just didn’t feel like I’d have a big role in the team. I didn’t want to waste my senior year when I had a lot of other things on my mind. I talked to my sister and my family and they were all supportive. My sister knew pretty much the whole summer but she didn’t tell anyone.’

Finally, Alile told Miller in August. She wanted to focus on academics. She was applying to grad school. But Alile, ultimately, didn’t see how she would fit in to Miller’s system.

Prior to her meeting with Alile, Miller had sent her and Anita a partial scholarship. Because the scholarship was sent to her home in Syracuse instead of her campus address, Alile had no idea of her reward.

As the offer sat on the Eldridge family table, Alile told Miller her plans. Miller didn’t even bring up the scholarship.

Two days later, Marjorie Eldridge called Alile to tell her what she passed up.

It wouldn’t have mattered. Alile’s decision would have been the same.

‘I realized (my teammates) were probably the only ones keeping me on the team anyway – my friendships with all the girls,’ she said.

For the first time in two years, the Eldridge sisters won’t be on the same team. Naturally, they don’t see each other as much. They both have different schedules. Life as a Division I athlete doesn’t lend itself to loads of free time.

But they’re happy. Alile is applying to graduate school. One of her choices is Syracuse, which, of course, would mean two more years with her younger sister. But by now, the age doesn’t seem to matter as much. They’re just sisters. Both able to offer advice, both able to take it.

‘My sister encouraged me and I looked up to her,’ Anita said. ‘I did follow in her footsteps. I played all the sports she did. I did come to Syracuse to play on the lacrosse team. We both major in the same thing, speech communications. I guess people would look at us and say I did copy her and follow in her footsteps, but it’s something I like to do.’

‘I still think she does a lot of stuff that I don’t do,’ Alile said. ‘But I think it’s an honor because she looks up to me and sometimes you tend to forget that because we’re so close. But sometimes I stop to think, ‘Yeah, I do set examples for her.’ And I always have my whole life.’

Published on March 2, 2004 at 12:00 pm