Written by Bill Tully
Bill is a former lacrosse player at Villanove University and current assistant coach at Lyons Township High School in Chicago. He is spending this summer working the camp circuit at Denver University, Yale, Notre Dame and Princeton.
According to Sports Illustrated, lacrosse is the fastest growing sport on two feet in the United States. Organizations are starting leagues in cities all over the country. There is no doubt that lacrosse has come a long way in the last fifteen years. As recent as 1995, lacrosse was a sport mostly played along the east coast and specifically in New York and Maryland. The colleges that are traditionally considered lacrosse powerhouses: Johns Hopkins University, Syracuse University, University of Maryland, Princeton, and University of Virginia mainly recruited in these two states. The rosters of most elite college teams during this time period were very similar. Everyone on the team was from Maryland or New York and then a few players might have been recruited from Connecticut, New Jersey, Virginia or Pennsylvania. Almost every year these five teams contended for a national championship against each other leaving all the other schools in the NCAA behind. The elite schools dominated recruiting in New York and Maryland and there were only a certain number of great players to choose from. Those days of lacrosse are over.
The growth of lacrosse across the United States has affected the game at the college level in a number of ways. Recruiting has become a national job for college coaches. The best players are still from the east. However, colleges are able to find great players outside of New York and Maryland in just about any state along the coast.
The rosters of college teams are vastly different and more diverse than in years past. Fans will also notice players on college rosters from the Midwest, South, and Western parts of the country. According to college coaches, they are now recruiting in Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Georgia, Florida, Texas, and California, as well.
The most important positive effect the larger pool of athletes has on the game is that bigger, stronger, faster athletes are choosing to play lacrosse instead of other sports. As a result, more college programs are able to compete for a championship. In the last five years, the teams that have reached the NCAA final four have proved that great lacrosse players are being recruited from all over the country.
Duke is now considered a powerhouse because they have dominated for the past five years, even though they do not have a championship. Notre Dame, Navy, Delaware, and Cornell are a few other programs that have recently made appearances in the final four and competed for championships. All these teams have benefited from the influx of quality players around the country. High school lacrosse players nationwide have college opportunities that did not exist only ten years ago. This certainly is an exciting time for lacrosse fans.
