Lacrosse - Exclusive or Inclusive?

[Mason Comets]

Lax Yappers...

Is our sport inclusive or exclusive? Do we work hard enough at getting the sport started in rural areas or in the inner cities? If not, what can we do about it?

With a great passion for this sport, it has always made me wonder if I am doing enough to promote it....Do you have ideas? Throw them out there....

How do we get sticks in the hands of kids that want them.......

 

[borolax]

I think the sport is very inclusive, but in the end, it's a matter of money. With the economic climate, the last thing a public school wants to do right now is fund a new varsity sport. And the cost to the parents to get a boy in equipment on the field is higher than most sports. I'd love to see more regional club teams set up (such as Dayton). From there, you promote the sport to kids in your district until you have enough players to break it out to your own community team (like we did in Springboro). I think we do need to continue to promote the sport more aggressively especially when we have national events like the U13 tourney being held for the second year in Lebanon. Bottom line, promote, teach the sport and help other programs get started.

 

[X-Daddy]

Of course it's exclusive, for many of the same reasons hockey is. I'm sure we'd all like it to be inclusive, but reality is reality. It's a suburban yuppie sport and that's not going to change anytime soon.

 

[eastcoast2]

Clearly exclusive, the only way it can be made more inclusive is if schools start providing a majority of the equipment (helmets, gloves, pads) like they do with football. Even then it's not cheap, a decent stick costs $100+ and cleats are at least $50, not to mention the potential cost for traveling and refs.

 

[Mason Comets]

Would it do any good to try and get an inner city league started in Cincinnati? One where we provided the equipment and the kids just were asked to show up?

I know there are at least 10 old sticks laying around my house and bags of gloves/pads that have become to small. I promise that one of the local stores would supply the pennies.

Could this work? Maybe get USLax involved (BRIDGE affiliated programs)

Thoughts?

 

[eastcoast2]

Would it do any good to try and get an inner city league started in Cincinnati? One where we provided the equipment and the kids just were asked to show up?

I know there are at least 10 old sticks laying around my house and bags of gloves/pads that have become to small. I promise that one of the local stores would supply the pennies.

Could this work? Maybe get USLax involved (BRIDGE affiliated programs)

Thoughts?

Definitely, I've heard of it working in other cities. I went to a camp once and there were a bunch of kids from Brooklyn there and I got the vibe they were from a program like this.