Although neither of the storied lacrosse rivals - Maryland and Johns Hopkins - will appear in this year's national championship weekend games in Philadelphia the action is guaranteed to be fast and hard hitting. Next Saturday, Duke and Penn State face off in the first semifinal game at 12:30 p.m. EDT followed by Virginia and Notre Dame at 2:30 p.m. The winners will meet in the championship gane on Memorial Day at 1:00 p.m. You can watch the big game on ESPN. The semifinals will be on ESPN2.
So what is this game called lacrosse? Lacrosse is an ancient American sport, dating from about 1000 C.E. In it's early days, the game had a religious significance. Sides could consist of as many as a few thousand players and the losing side sometimes paid with their lives. In the middle of the 19th century William George Beers, a Canadian dentist and lacrosse enthusiast, wrote rules and parameters to make the game more gentlemanly. His efforts paid dividends quickly as many clubs formed from the Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence River Valley. The Mohawk Lacrosse Club (New York, 1868) was the first club in the United States. Intercollegiate competition followed a decade later focused on universities from New York to Maryland.
Fast forward to today and you could say the game still has that religious fervor if you live from Maryland to New England, that part of the country where three-year-old boys (and some girls) get little lacrosse sticks for Christmas. These days, the teams are a bit smaller - ten players to a side - but there's still a good likelihood of some some bloodshed of the non-fatal variety. Just a generation ago the game at the college level was a virtually exclusive sport heavily anchored in the Ivy League and the Northeast. Today there are more than sixty Division I teams found on the East and West Coasts and at the flagship universities in the interior. Each year that number grows by two or three teams. Expansion in other college divisions and at the K-12 level is so great that the sport is recognized as the fastest growing team sport in the country. If you're interested in more information go to usalacrosse.com
Today around 900,000 players participate in some form of organized lacrosse. I'd say that's a sign of an outstanding future for the game. And speaking of the future, it looks brilliant for both Maryland and Johns Hopkins as they move from a building season in 2023 to 2024 when both teams should return to powerhouse status. I am so looking forward to that and as always the annual Maryland-Hopkins clash that began in 1895.
Fear the Turtle!
 |
| An Indian Ball-Play George Catlin, 1846-50 |
Fast forward to today and you could say the game still has that religious fervor if you live from Maryland to New England, that part of the country where three-year-old boys (and some girls) get little lacrosse sticks for Christmas. These days, the teams are a bit smaller - ten players to a side - but there's still a good likelihood of some some bloodshed of the non-fatal variety. Just a generation ago the game at the college level was a virtually exclusive sport heavily anchored in the Ivy League and the Northeast. Today there are more than sixty Division I teams found on the East and West Coasts and at the flagship universities in the interior. Each year that number grows by two or three teams. Expansion in other college divisions and at the K-12 level is so great that the sport is recognized as the fastest growing team sport in the country. If you're interested in more information go to usalacrosse.com
Today around 900,000 players participate in some form of organized lacrosse. I'd say that's a sign of an outstanding future for the game. And speaking of the future, it looks brilliant for both Maryland and Johns Hopkins as they move from a building season in 2023 to 2024 when both teams should return to powerhouse status. I am so looking forward to that and as always the annual Maryland-Hopkins clash that began in 1895.
Fear the Turtle!
No comments:
Post a Comment