Abington seniors Joseph Jones and Richard Rambo both inked their names on letters of intent to accept lacrosse scholarships to Hofstra University. For additional photos of the signing ceremony, please visit the Photo Gallery.
Joseph Jones – Hofstra University (Lacrosse)
Final list of colleges: Hofstra, Towson, Villanova, Lehigh
Reasons for choosing Hofstra: “Academically, I thought Hofstra was perfect for me. The coaches were awesome, and I really liked the players. For me, it wasn’t a hard decision. I just loved it up there. It just felt as though I should be there.”
Coach Randy O’Neill says: “Joseph has been a four-year player for us. He works hard on and off the field. He was a captain for us last year. Joey is a shifty, smaller player, but he has all the tools. You can tell when he’s on the field he wants to be nowhere else. He enjoys playing lacrosse, and he has all the talent to play at the Division One level.
“Joey has the ability to involve his teammates. He can score goals, but he also involves his teammates. He takes the physical abuse of the game, and he just (shakes) it off and keeps on going and has a smile on his face the entire time.”
Richard Rambo – Hofstra University (Lacrosse)
Final list of colleges: Hofstra, Penn State, Cornell, Lehigh, Delaware, Ohio State
Reasons for choosing Hofstra: “It’s a big decision – it’s where I’m going to be spending the next four years of my life, and I wanted to make sure it was the right thing. Once I visited Hofstra, I liked the coaches, I liked all the kids on the team, and they gave me money.”
Coach Randy O’Neill says: “Richard has been a big player for us. He’s worked hard on the field, and he’s been rewarded with a scholarship to Hofstra. I think he’ll do very well there. He has the size to play at the Division One level, and he’s definitely got the talent.
“He’s been a midfielder for us, and he’s got speed, he’s got strength, he shoots the ball really hard, and he has the ability to do everything. He’s got all the tools to be a Division One lacrosse player.”
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Richard Rambo and Joseph Jones have been best friends forever and teammates for as long as they can remember.
“We met through lacrosse, and our parents became friends because of us,” Jones said. “It just happened.
“When we were freshmen, we were the only two who made the Duke’s (Club team), and we became closer because we were always together going to tournaments.”
But when it came time to choose a college, Rambo and Jones weren’t planning on attending the same school. Both Abington seniors had their own list of colleges. Several – it turned out – were the same.
Still, neither could have anticipated an ending that saw both Rambo and Jones sign letters of intent to play lacrosse at Hofstra University together.
“I didn’t think this was ever going to happen,” Jones said. “It’s pretty crazy.”
Jones committed to Hofstra when he was competing in a lacrosse tournament near Hofstra’s Long Island, N.Y., campus.
“He told me to go up there and visit,” Rambo recalled. “He said, ‘You’re going to have a great time, and you’re going to love everyone – the coaches and the players.
“I went up there, and I loved the coaches, I loved all the players. I just liked the whole atmosphere. We were both doing our thing, looking at other schools, and it just came (about) that we both had the same one on our list, and we both ended up going there.”
Rambo and Jones followed similar paths to Hofstra. Both have been playing lacrosse since a young age, and when they were freshmen, both earned spots on the prestigious Duke’s Club Lacrosse team.
It was there that the idea of receiving a scholarship was planted.
“Ebe Helm, who runs the Duke’s, pretty much put it in my head that this could be great, you can get scholarships,” Jones said. “He knows pretty much every college coach, so he gave a good word.
“Coach McNeill also helped us.”
Both Jones and Rambo saw significant playing time on a Duke’s squad that has been one of the nation’s top squads the past four years. Both found themselves playing varsity for Abington as freshmen.
“My freshman year is when I knew I was going to do something serious with lacrosse, try to play it at the Division One level,” Rambo said.
Once they found their way into the starting lineup, Jones and Rambo never left.
Both athletes achieved their goal of playing D-1 lacrosse, and they will be doing it together. They say they might even room together.
It’s a happy ending for a pair of players who have been major contributors to the Ghosts’ program the past three years.
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