Twenty-five years ago, Don Zimmerman took over a Johns Hopkins team that hadn't won the national championship in three years -- ages, back then, for Hopkins (and still somewhat so). He and his team then compiled one of the most memorable seasons in history, taking the 1984 national crown after blowing through the season.

On Monday, at halftime of the D-I championship, the 1984 team was honored, and we were there. Click on for the video!

The stadium's empty at Gillette, except for the cleaning crew weaving its way through the 41,935 abandoned seats -- the sixth-largest crowd in D-I championship history. So, it's time for some notes:

Syracuse's senior class leaves behind a legacy marked both by a painful fall and, more importantly, a brilliant rise.

The cover of Inside Lacrosse's 2005 recruiting issue featured the magazine's second, third and fourth-ranked recruits, all three staring out at the camera and into three futures that looked, at the time, like perfection. All three were in Orange.

Four years later, those three men, Syracuse's Kenny Nims, Pat Perritt and Dan Hardy, are All-Americans - Nims, the country's leading scorer, on the second team with Hardy, and Perritt on the third team; And on Monday, they and eight other seniors will walk onto the Gillette Stadium field for their final game in Orange, taking on Cornell in the D-I national championship game. It's a chance to end a career that could have gone so wrong - and for a time, did, with the Orange hitting an almost unprecedented trough in 2007 - by clinching the team's second straight national championship, a feat that hasn't been accomplished by Syracuse since 1990, when the Orange finished a string of three straight titles under legendary coach Roy Simmons, Jr.

Gillette Stadium might not be the most likely place to find somebody who can count pi out to about 40 digits (3.1415925...?), but...we found him. Click here to see more.

The Men's Lacrosse Championships at Gillette Stadium officially opened up with Media Day and the team dinners on Thursday, a day packed with wide-eyed players looking up at 69,000 vacant seats at Gillette, All-American attackmen sporting Lady Gaga sunglasses, a buffet that was designed for 500 people that was easily dispensed with by about 200 lacrosse players and coaches, a delayed flight from Durham, some Cornell-attire-bashing from John Kraft (president of the Kraft Group) and a lot more.

Check back later for video from Day One, including but not limited to tournament director Phil Buttafuoco explaining how Gillette '09 is going to blow away Gillette '08 and a Virginia defenseman counting out pi to almost 40 digits.

And also, stay tuned for a full wrap of the day and a story on a member of the Cornell team who, two decades ago, wasn't sure if he'd walk again. 

Just a few hours from now, we'll be at Media Day at the Lacrosse Championships at Gillette Field, where all eight teams -- players, coaches, SID's, pets -- will be on the field, ready to tell their stories, at least when they're not staring up in awe at the Gillette stands. It's a great time. Here, Ryan -- our intrepid video guy -- and I are going to be shooting a ton of features, gathering lots of stories for the blog and, with any luck, eating some cheddar Goldfish in the press room.