By Frederick N. Rasmussen
The Baltimore Sun
In conjunction with the opening of the World Lacrosse Championship this Thursday in London, Ontario, the Canadian postal service has issued a 51-cent stamp that honors the sport that was declared the nation’s official summer sport by Parliament in 1994.
The inspiration for the action-filled stamp, designed by Tom Yakobina and illustrated by Yvan Meunier, is based on a photograph not of a Canadian lacrosse game but one between the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland.
“I wanted the stamp design to be suggestive of a poster advertising the Championships,” said Yakobina in a recent interview with Canada’s Stamp Details, a quarterly magazine published by Canada Post, the country’s postal service.
On the stamp, the figure in red holding the lacrosse stick is Dino A. Mattessich, who went on to serve as head lacrosse coach at Maryland from 1980 to 1983, and was assistant athletic director at Towson University from 1983 to 1995.
From 1995 to 2001, he was at the University of Maine, and for the last five years Mattessich has been assistant athletic director at the University of Connecticut at Storrs.
“How do I feel about being on a stamp? That’s a good one, however, it really is very flattering,” said Mattessich, 53, in a telephone interview yesterday from North Carolina, where he was vacationing.
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