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Lacrosse at a Crossroads

Lacrosse At A Crossroads

While the game continues to grow at the professional and collegiate levels, attendance hasn’t kept pace. So what gives?

They are wearing the sky on their heads, and a game’s burden on their backs.

It’s the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, and the Johns Hopkins’ varsity lacrosse team is preparing for a late-morning practice session at an eerily empty Lincoln Financial Field in South Philadelphia. It’s a tune-up for the team’s opening salvo in the sport’s marquee event: the NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championship Weekend.

By Saturday, the stands will be sardine-packed and buzzing with excitement, the lush green grass standing in stark contrast to the distinctive shade of Columbia blue marking the helmets of the Hopkins players as they fly about the field.

“Blue” is an integral part of lacrosse — in its legacy, as well as its lexicon. Ever since its adaptation from Native American game to Gilded Age Society resort sport pastime, it has had roots branched deep within the upper social crust of the U.S. East Coast, where the best players traditionally get their start playing at elite prep schools like Georgetown Prep, Gilman, The Hill School, or Penn Charter, before moving on to the collegiate cream of the lacrosse crop: Duke, Hopkins, Syracuse, and Virginia, principally.

The John Hopkins Blue Jays are as old school and true blue a lacrosse school as you’ll find. They’ve been taking up sticks against enemy sides since 1883, with lineages of future doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, and executives manning the field over the decades. Homewood Field, the Jays’ longstanding haunt, is often called “the Yankee Stadium of Lacrosse.”

Which makes it more than curious, on this Friday afternoon, to see Big Ten logos splashed about the stadium’s interior.

Dig deeper still, the blue paint chips away even more. Are some of those Hopkins boys from Nevada? A state where, traditionally, lacrosse talent is about as abundant as water? They’re playing in the Big Ten, you say? Isn’t that a football conference?

Your eyes do not deceive you: Beginning this season, the Blue Jays participated as inaugural members of the newest lacrosse conference in America. Which also happens to be the nation’s oldest intercollegiate athletic conference, arguably its most powerful, and certainly its most popular. The Big Ten is the conference of Ohio State vs. Michigan, of #WeArePennState, of schools which reside on the tongue tip of every aspiring young athlete across the nation.

The Big Ten also has a full slate of teams that play lacrosse — Michigan having been the last team to join, in 2012.

The genesis of Big Ten lacrosse portends big things, both for the Blue Jays and for the sport at large. After years of hype, the game is finally growing up and beyond the comfortable cocoon of East Coast high society. Decades of aggressive expansion at all youth levels, the recent explosion of the women’s game, the desire of colleges and universities to garner football-like results for a fraction of the investment: all have combined to create the perfect staging ground for lacrosse’s next (and potentially game-changing) push.

There are even professional leagues — indoor as well as outdoor — figuring out how to survive. Of course, one would be misguided in thinking the Long Island Lizards or Chesapeake Bayhawks are going to talk a future CEO or governor into diverting his career path. Still, it’s easy to forget that, once upon a time, every other American professional sports league started off as similarly small and vulnerable. And while the pros still command a fraction of the prestige that Syracuse or Maryland boast, attention for the professional game has begun to swell, and in turn helped drive the game’s expansion to the South and the Midwest.

PROPER BEHAVIOR BY PARENTS

PROPER BEHAVIOR BY PARENTS

AS PER GREG DALE, Ph. D. Duke University

In Leadership and Sports Psychology

For those of you who missed the presentation by Dr. Gale last Thursday, Iwanted to list some things he had mentioned as to “The Fulfilling Ride”-A Parent’s Guide to Helping Athletes Have a Successful Sport Experience.

“I am amazed, sometimes even shocked, at what I hear some parents say about children from their son or daughter’s own team. They don’t really care who might be listening or whose feelings they might hurt with the things they say.” A Parent of a child that plays a sport…

Be Respectful of Other Parents and Their Children:Two examples: “Why is the coach putting that kid in the game? He can’t play!” or she always seems to choke when the pressure is on at the end of the game. “Coach better not put her in again or we will lose.” PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT…when you make negative statements about an athlete, his parents are very likely sitting within range to hear you. Think about how it would make you feel if you heard someone saying something negative about your son or daughter.

Another situation that raises its ugly head is when a parent of one team applauds a mistake made by an athlete on the other team.

Representing Your Child’s Team:While you are not actually a member of your child’s team, you do represent his or her team and the organization or school that supports it. As parents, we encourage our children to be positive ambassadors for their teams and all the entities that support them. They have the right to expect the same from us.

When Others Are Embarrassed To Sit Next To You. This is a no-brainer. The importance of modeling good sportsmanship and general respect for all people involved in a competition is paramount. One telltale sign that you need to police your own behavior at athletic events is when your spouse or significant other, family members or friends are too embarrassed to sit next to you because of the way you act.

WARNING SIGNS:

Do You Have a Life of Your Own, Outside Your Child’s Sport?

1. You Attend Most or All Practices

2. Your Circle of Friends is Limited to the Parents of Other Athletes.

3. The Main Topic of Conversation at Mealtime Is Your Child’s Sport.

4. You Spend Time on the Internet Discussing Your Child’s Team or Coach

5. Avoid Basing Your Self-Esteem and Ego on Your Child’s Performance.

6. Your Mood Depends on Your Child’s Performance.

7. You Have Fallen Into the “We” Syndrome

PLEASE ENJOY THE SEASON. ENJOY YOUR CHILD AT PLAY. ROOT FOR THE TEAM AND NOT JUST YOUR CHILD. DO NOT UNDERMINE THE COACH BY ASKING YOUR CHILD TO AGREE WITH YOUR PERSPECTIVES. COACHES ARE TRYING TO DO THE BEST THAT THEY POSSIBLY CAN. PLEASE DO NOT HINDER THAT.

LET THE COACHES COACH, THE OFFICIALS OFFICIATE and THE PLAYERS PLAY.

Your kid’s success or lack of success in sports does not indicate what kind ofparent you are… But having an athlete that isCOACHABLE, RESPECTFUL, A GREATTEAMMATE, MENTALLY TOUGH, RESILIENT AND WHO TRIES THEIR BEST…is a direct reflection of your parenting.

Sincerely, Jim Amen Jr.

Subject: SINCERE APOLOGY FOR INNAPROPRIATE EXPRESSION OF NATIONALISM- ARE YOU KIDDING ME!

PLEASE FORWARD THIS ARTICLE TO ALL OF YOUR CONSTITUENTS ….

I personally have been involved in this controversy since the games at Denver this past summer. Before this article came out I had spoken to Terry Foy of Inside Lacrosse…

In my humble opinion, Steve Stenersen is absolutely WRONG…..

Not one Team in the World Games complained about our US Team carrying the Flags of our Armed Forces Unit onto the field.

It is his opinion solely that we disgraced the event. Absolutely no one told Coach Meade TO NOT FLY THE FLAGS…

USL claims someone told Richie Meade he could not fly these flags….That is total BS….I have spoken with all of our US Team Coaches…and not one of them stated to me that anyone ever told them they could not fly our Flags onto the field.

In my attempt to investigate I sent e-mails to Stan Cockerton (President of the FIL [Federation of International Lacrosse]) and Tom Hayes (FIL-Development). I got zero from Mr. Cockerton. He deferred to Tom Hayes.

I had many phone conversations with Tom Hayes…He told me no one from their FIL Board COMPLAINED about Richie Meade and Team USA flying the Flags of Our Armed Forces….

Everyone on the planet knows this event is an International Event…but carrying the Flags of our Nations Armed Forces is deemedinappropriate (according to Ron Balls). If he felt it was inappropriate then why did he not tell Richie Meade that.

If the FIL sitting high in a Sky Box did not complain (as per Tom Hayes’s statement to me), then why would Steve Stenersen ask The FIL for a letter of apology to be sent to all competing Nations that participated in these games.

Does he have a personal agenda and grudge against Coach Meade. I think YES…

For Steve Stenersen (now the VP of FIL) to think that by bringing out our Flags in a contest was a disgrace to the games isOUTRAGEOUS to me.

These men and women fight and have fought past and present for our FUTURE. They protect us against the tyranny of others. One of the our own players was getting ready to be deployed.

We live good lives in our country because these young men and women fight and stand for us.

It is indeed a disgrace to these young men and women who fight for our freedom to ask FIL to send a letter of apology to the Nations that participated in these World Games. If Stenersen was looking for that to be done then why was it not done.

Apparently they must have felt….NO BIG DEAL

I guess when Mr. Stenersen becomes the President of FIL as well as the current position he holds with USL he will rule the world of lacrosse and he will be able to do all he wants to do.

Thank you for listening and if you care to comment on this article which I have enclosed please do so.

Jim Amen Jr.

Director of Physical Education, Athletics & Health Services

Manhasset UFSD

Manhasset Secondary School

200 Memorial Place

Manhasset, NY 11030

(B) 516-267-7551

(F) 516-267-7592

james_amen@manhasset.k12.ny.us

Lacrosse's Rich White People 'Problem' Is A Feature, Not A Bug

Bob Cook ,

CONTRIBUTOR

I write about youth sports.

FOLLOW ON FORBES
(96)

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

I apologize for the cliched headline, but it was the clearest thing I could think of after I saw a piece by ESPN's Quint Kessenich in Inside Lacrosse that lamented the sport’s very pale status as it noted February 13′s opening men’s varsity game by Hampton University. It’s the first historically black college to launch a Division I lacrosse program, an event that inspired SportsCenter to broadcast from the school that day. From Inside Lacrosse:

A 2010 NCAA study reported that just 1.9 percent of Division I lacrosse players were black and that fewer than 10 percent were nonwhite. …

“In order for this great game to take off, there’s got to be a continuous dialogue about how best to make this game accessible and appealing to the largest audience possible,” Chazz Woodson, a former collegiate star at Brown and in Major League Lacrosse, wrote in a Lacrosse Magazine piece in 2012. “Anything short of that makes lacrosse simply a glorified social club, with membership requirements that some people will inherently never meet, and that others will choose not to buy into.”

That’s the problem. Lacrosse is stunted because of the membership requirements. It favors those with money.

The game has shifted from a high school-based sport to being club-centric. Club programs come with a hefty price tag. They have too often replaced cheaper recreational programs, and players are being recruited out of summer tournaments, not in-school games during the spring.

Lacrosse isn’t the first sport to be whitewashed because it became club-centric and prohibitively expensive for many families. Baseball is a notable example of this phenomenon, though as I pointed out in this previous piece, you can look at the yearbook pictures at my children’s very diverse high school and figure out which sports are the most travel-team-centric at the earliest ages. Hint: they’re the sports with mostly white people in the pictures.

However, lacrosse is unique in that it seems to have perpetuated a system that makes the sport designed exclusively for the upper crust, and in fact hascolleges and corporations that use lacrosse as a way to determine who they’d like to admit to their realms (and in the case of colleges, attract monied donorsin exchange for allow their children to call themselves college athletes by playing non-scholarship lacrosse).

The growth model, intentionally or not, for lacrosse is built on white people who have seen their kids squeezed out of more mainstream sports and were happy to realize they found an activity that could ensure their children could hobnob and make connections with only the best. It’s an example of a phenomenon The Economist pointed out in a 2015 article — the upper-income bracket taking advantage of systems in such a way that income inequality only gets greater. It’s not that you can or should blame families for taking advantage, but The Economist makes the point that the overall result is that if you can’t take advantage, you’re in trouble, and by extension the country is in trouble, too.

I’m sure that everyone involved on the coaching and organizing side of the sports of lacrosse is hoping that Hampton has success on the field, and as a recruiting tool to get more nonwhites to participate in the sport and help keep it growing. I’m not sure everyone else will be quite so welcoming. Things are just fine for them.