The good Cornellians can do: Ken Kupchak ’64, JD ’71

On a February day in 1961, Ken Kupchak ’64, JD '71 heard some strange thumping sounds outside his Cornell dorm room in U-Hall 3. He went to check it out and met Tom Peters ’64, MEng ’66 practicing lacrosse in the hallway. Tom introduced Ken to the game—explaining that lacrosse was considered the ‘creator’s game’ by North American Indigenous peoples. He invited Ken to team tryouts the next day.

“They handed me a BIG stick (what clumsy defense men wielded—wooden—in those days) and said, ‘Don’t let’em score!’ From that day on I fell in love with lacrosse, and as long as I had a big stick in my hands, they weren’t going to score,” Ken says.

1961 Cornell freshman lacrosse team: Ken Kupchak is No. 57, and Tom Peters is No. 72.

 
Ken’s love of the game never faltered, though he took a long break to serve as a meteorologist in the Air Force, earn his Cornell law degree, and practice law in Hawaiʻi (which he’s done for the past 54 years). He was reintroduced to lacrosse at his 25th Cornell Reunion, and returned home to Hawaiʻi with a new metal lacrosse stick and a box of balls.

Soon after that, he met Jay Bloom ’81 playing lacrosse in the Kapiolani Park in Honolulu. Ken says he was hooked again, playing with a small group informally every weekend. In 1991, the players decided the time was ripe to form a club.

“Jay, I, and a few others soon started the Hawaiʻi Lacrosse Club (initially named the Honolulu Lacrosse Club, but we grew to include the whole state),” Ken explains. “As an attorney, I incorporated the club as a nonprofit and served on its initial board and as treasurer, with Jay as president.”

At the urging of his wife Patty Kupchak ’67, Ken is now retired from lacrosse, but he is pleased to report that the club recently started a youth league, with the club supplying the coaching and officiating.

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