LAX HEADMAGAZINE

INSIDE TOP 25 NATIONAL SUMMER PROGRAMS

SUMMER LAX PROGRAMS IN THEIR FINEST DAYS

SUMMER BALL

JUNE 2012

SUMMER TIME

NO TIME LIKE

What are You Doing to Improve Your Game this Off Season?

Will Hazlehurst

I bet a lot of you thought the high-octane portion of am-ateur lacrosse ended several months ago. If so, riddle me this:

What would you call a physical activ-ity schemed-up by adults for children as young as 9 years old in which the little dudes scramble around an agro-asphalt complex of fields for up to a full day in temperatures as high as 105 degrees? If nothing familiar fits the description, your visceral response should probably be child abuse. This might apply, but in the North-east and spreading across the country like a seductive whisper, we call it youth sum-mer club lacrosse.

When you finish reading this, you may consider me the biggest hypocrite going or the whistleblower whose time is long overdue, or maybe both.

I have bought in big time, helping ad-minister and coach a youth club team. I have also observed this athletic megalith with all of its grasping hands exposed. If you are totally unfamiliar with the enter-

prise, I was equally blissful three years ago. Now I am going to show you what has developed while you weren’t paying attention.

How big is this activity? Taking the measure of anything today is a euphemism for how many Google hits it returns. Try typing “summer lacrosse tournaments” — the preferred venue of the clubs — into this cloaked arbiter. I quit counting after 25 pages, with most of these containing 10 or more entries. Some are duplicative, but the sheer number of hits renders this negligible. In the end, I have no idea how many summer tournaments there are, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it topped 100. The average tournament attracts 50 or more teams. Some attract several hundred. Each team typically pays $1,000

STARTING EARLY

a pop. You’re talking a $2,500,000 industry. It is probably at least twice this amount, perhaps exponentially larger, so realistically we have somehow spawned, without much swimming upstream, a $5 million-plus summer economy. Now you know why people are hold-ing the tournaments. The real question is why parents are paying and the kids are playing.

When I was growing up at the neo-plastic end of the Glory Days, if we played competitive lacrosse in the summer, it was in a local summer league. This didn’t start until my early high school years, 1969-1970, and it was pretty raw.

My first experience was at the dell — now mostly parking lots — at Loyola High School in Towson, Md. The field was a series of low hills, but it was hard to tell because it appeared they were trying to grow wheat grass in the same location. There were no coaches and no goalies. The hockey-sized goals were filled with discarded pieces of plywood, distinguish-able by their splintered edges and Paleo-lithic paint markings.

I was just old enough to drive myself, so I must have been a ninth-grader. I wasn’t nearly the best player in this beta version of summer lacrosse, so I am glad the Division I coaching fraternity didn’t line the field in their Boca Raton retirement chairs. I cer-

tainly wouldn’t have been offered the sophomore scholarship, but I weighed 50 pounds less than two years later in my junior year of high school. But who could anticipate a high school freshman growing?

“He is too good for this, he needs to play against better teams”

SPOTLIGHT- SWAG Adrenaline Trpoics

Usually referencing long, wavy or curly hair. (AKA Crispy Lettuce)

SICK FLOWFlint Michigan Tropics style CPX-R

BUCKET

Flint Michigan Tropics colors and logo

UNIS SWAG

Orange and Yellow colors with a textured design

SHORTS SWAG

Insane Yellow and Black Warrior Riots

DANK MITTS

Vibrant Green and Yellow Under Armor Highlight cleats

FANCY FOOTWEARBlack nike mid-calf socks showing fierce style

MIDCALFS

Mathcing uniform colors and shaft colors

TWIG

Tap ForMore Info

LAX HEADMAGAZINE

INSIDE TOP 25 NATIONAL SUMMER PROGRAMS

“THEGOODOLDDAYS”

SUMMER LAX PROGRAMS IN THEIR FINEST DAYS

SUMMER BALL

JUNE 2012

KEY ELEMENTS

OF TERRIFFIC TEAM SWAG

8

SUMMER TIME

NO TIME LIKE

What are You Doing to Improve Your Game this Off Season?

Will Hazlehurst

I bet a lot of you thought the high-octane portion of ama-teur lacrosse ended several months ago. If so, riddle me this:

What would you call a physical activity schemed-up by adults for children as young as 9 years old in which the little dudes scramble around an agro-asphalt complex of fields for up to a full day in temperatures as high as 105 degrees? If nothing familiar fits the de-scription, your visceral response should probably be child abuse. This might apply, but in the Northeast and spreading across the country like a seductive whisper, we call it youth summer club lacrosse.When you finish reading this, you may consider me the biggest hypocrite going or the whistleblower whose time is long overdue, or maybe both.

I have bought in big time, helping administer and coach a youth club team. I have also observed this athlet-ic megalith with all of its grasping hands exposed. If you are totally unfamiliar with the enterprise, I was equally blissful three years ago. Now I am going to show you what has developed while you weren’t paying attention.

How big is this activity? Taking the measure of any-thing today is a euphemism for how many Google hits it returns. Try typing “summer lacrosse tournaments” — the preferred venue of the clubs — into this cloaked arbiter. I quit counting after 25 pages, with most of these containing 10 or more entries. Some are duplicative, but the sheer number of hits renders this negligible. In the end, I have no idea how many summer tournaments there are, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it topped 100. The average tournament attracts 50 or more teams. Some attract several hundred. Each team typically pays $1,000

STARTING EARLY

a pop. You’re talking a $2,500,000 industry. It is prob-ably at least twice this amount, perhaps exponentially larger, so realistically we have somehow spawned, without much swimming upstream, a $5 million-plus summer economy. Now you know why people are hold-ing the tournaments. The real question is why parents are paying and the kids are playing.

When I was growing up at the neo-plastic end of the Glory Days, if we played competitive lacrosse in the summer, it was in a local summer league. This didn’t start until my early high school years, 1969-1970, and it was pretty raw.

My first experience was at the dell — now most-ly parking lots — at Loyola High School in Tow-son, Md. The field was a series of low hills, but

it was hard to tell because it appeared they were trying to grow wheat grass in the same location. There were no coaches and no goalies. The hock-ey-sized goals were filled with discarded pieces of

plywood, distinguishable by their splintered edges and Paleolithic paint markings.

I was just old enough to drive myself, so I must have been a ninth-grader. I wasn’t nearly the best player in this beta version of summer lacrosse, so I am glad the

Division I coaching fraternity didn’t line the field in their Boca Raton retirement chairs. I certainly wouldn’t have been offered the sophomore schol-arship, but I weighed 50 pounds less than two years later in my junior year of high school. But who could anticipate a high school freshman growing?

“He is too good for this, he needs to play against better competition.”

SPOTLIGHT- SWAG Adrenaline Trpoics

Usually referencing long, wavy or curly hair. (AKA Crispy Lettuce)

SICK FLOWFlint Michigan Tropics style CPX-R

BUCKET

Flint Michigan Tropics colors and logo

UNIS SWAG

Orange and Yellow colors with a textured design

SHORTS SWAG

Insane Yellow and Black Warrior Riots

DANK MITTS

Vibrant Green and Yellow Under Armor Highlight cleats

FANCY FOOTWEARBlack nike mid-calf socks showing fierce style

MIDCALFS

Mathcing uniform colors and shaft colors

TWIG

TapMore Info

For