There are three key elements to a great pick-up roller hockey game.

First, you need a goalie for one net. Second, you need a goalie for the other net. Finally, and most importantly, you need a player who can make four guys spontaneously play like a team.

You see, guys with fancy moves and blistering shots are a dime a dozen. I could pop off the name of probably 15 guys who could dominate any given game at the two little rinks wedged between Pollock and East Halls. But hockey is a team game, and it is best played that way. The special players have the uncanny knack for using their teammates, for seeing the flow of the game, for appreciating what makes hockey go.

Ron Dax, the 22-year old senior finance major killed in a car accident last Saturday, was one of those players.

The president of the roller hockey club didn't make it down for the impromptu early evening games very often. I recall playing with him no more than 10 times. But you knew when he was out there.

Dax was a stealthy guy, a player who stole room on the rink. He wasn't big enough to create space for himself, so he slipped in and out of open areas, waiting to make a play. His passing was precise and he was always positioned ahead of the play, like he had the foresight to know where the ball was going instead of chasing after where it had been. His communication with teammates was often silent -- a quick nod or gesture with his stick -- but he used the space and used them like the little pieces to the whole that they were. He was a chess-master playing hockey.

That's not to say he couldn't make a play. The kid had moves. When he got the ball, he made defensemen look silly and goaltenders helpless.

Dax once made a play I'll never forget. He cut down the middle of the rink and took a pass at the center red line. There were two defenseman back, and Dax went at the guy to his right, who responded by trying to step up and poke check him. Dax saw his feet separate and chipped the ball through his legs, eluding the defender by hopping around the outside and back around, where he met up with the ball. At the right circle, he started drifting toward the middle of the rink while the other defenseman came at him. Dax made a little toe drag and pulled the ball back just out of the reach of the flabbergasted defender, who sailed on by. Finally, Dax faked a little wrister before bringing the ball to his backhand and roofing it into the top left corner of the net.

But what happened after that was the best. He skated up the left side of the rink. The kid who gave him the pass said, "That was amazing" to which Dax replied, "As long as it goes in. Doesn't matter how." Then he shrugged and started playing again.

For every Zack Mills at Penn State there are a hundred athletes like Ron Dax. They practice 10 hours a week, hit the weights, study hard and keep a social life. But they also plan their own events, pay their own way and get no special academic advisors. Their commitment runs much deeper. They weren't wooed with scholarships by big-time colleges to play their sport, but they had the drive to keep on playing anyway.

Dax worked with tournament and league supervisors across the country, he made hotel reservations, handled all the money, scheduled practices and finally, made driving arrangements for one of the best collegiate roller hockey teams in the nation. He helped out with the three-division intramural league by getting jerseys and officiating on occasion.

As special as Dax was, kids like him are not an anomaly.

Did you know that there's a men's club soccer team here that went undefeated in winning a National Championship last spring? The women's club soccer team claimed their own title in Alabama this past fall.

Under the "Teams" section of the list of Penn State organizations found on www.clubs.psu.edu, I count 29 legitimate sports teams located at University Park. There are about ten others, including the roller hockey club, listed under "Clubs."

We've got the regulars like volleyball, basketball, and baseball, but we've also got synchronized swimming, rifle, triathlon, skiing and snowboarding. And who can forget ultimate Frisbee?

Some of these teams, like the Icers, get a lot of attention. Some of them, like the racquetball team, get none.

We live a life saturated with sports. And all too often, we open the newspaper, this one included, to find incidents of crime or athletes demanding more money or the latest Mike Tyson story. It seems that all these people have forgotten.

They've forgotten what it means to dedicate yourself in every way to a sport for nothing more than the glory of lacing up the skates for two hours and the chance to play your heart out.

That is where the true stories -- the ones that teach you something about life -- can be found.

That is the type of story that Ron Dax wrote with his life.