When the Illinois High School Association asked how many schools in the state would enter a state tournament for lacrosse, 43 schools said their girls’ lacrosse team would enter, and 55 schools said their boys’ team would enter. That’s not enough for the boys’ tournament, which required at least 65 schools, so the IHSA will not sanction a lacrosse tournament for either boys or girls this spring.
“We remain confident that lacrosse will become a sanctioned IHSA sport in the near future,” IHSA Executive Director Marty Hickman said in a press release. “The number of schools competing in the sport has continued to grow. However, we also know that financial restraints have prevented many schools from committing to the sport and believe it is in the best interest of the schools, and the sport, to wait until we reach the previously established benchmarks before beginning a State Series.”
He’s confident about lacrosse becoming a sanctioned sport in the near future in Illinois, and so are we. Lacrosse is very popular on the East Coast, with Maryland considering itself the home of lacrosse. According to an article that ran in The Atlantic last fall, it was the first true team sport played on North American soil.
“Invented by Native Americans, lacrosse is considered by many to be North America’s first sport, but its rich history is unfamiliar to many sports fans today,” wrote Kevin Craft. “Lacrosse was football hall-of-famer Jim Brown’s favorite sport. It is the official summer game of Canada, and Wayne Gretzky is a noted lacrosse enthusiast. American lacrosse has historically been concentrated in New York, New England, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, where it has been played predominantly at prep schools and private universities, but after World War II its popularity began to grow and that growth accelerated during the 1970s.”
It’s a fast-growing sport indeed, perhaps the fastest-growing in the US. According to US Lacrosse, the number of players of the sport went from 253,931 in 2001 to 624,593 in 2010, including 324,673 youth players.
The most popular youth sport is probably basketball, with more than a million boys and girls playing it. But not even basketball is experiencing the rapid growth spurts happening on lacrosse fields.
It’s not limited to the number of players on the field, either. NCAA Division I lacrosse championships entertain crowds that are topped only by the men’s basketball tournament and a few football games.
Despite its popularity and continued growth, however, lacrosse has a negative side in that it’s often viewed as a game played by kids raised with a silver spoon in their mouths, irresponsible adolescents who carry the feeling that laws don’t apply to them into the sport and with their fans.
An opinion piece appeared in the Baltimore Sun shortly after the murder of a University of Virginia lacrosse star from Baltimore County, Md., by her boyfriend, also a lacrosse player. “The mix of pressure, prestige, and alcohol that led to the murder of Yeardley Love by George Huguely strikes too close to home,” wrote Susan Reimer nearly two years ago.
It is something that ordinary civilians might not comprehend (though ballet parents or horse show parents might sympathize). Lacrosse can be a toxic mix of parental ambition and peer pressure. And privilege. … The boys lacrosse team at Baltimore’s St. Paul’s School was disbanded for the 2001 season after one of the players took a video of himself having sex with a 15-year-old girl and showed it at a team gathering. It is believed that the girl had to leave the state as a result.
