This is a question that many people throughout America and the world today ask themselves. Outside of the traditional lacrosse areas, I.E. the east coast and New England areas of the United States, lacrosse is a sport that most associate with the false accusations made against the Duke Men’s Lacrosse team a few years ago. But in actuality lacrosse is the oldest sport in North America, originally developed by the Native Americans as a type of war game. Lacrosse quickly took hold in the east coast and New England areas of the United States, as well as throughout all of the Canadian Provinces.
It was not until the early 2000’s that lacrosse began its unprecidented explosion in growth across the nation. This sudden growth can be attributed to the creation of the professional outdoor lacrosse league, Major League Lacrosse (also known as the MLL). This new organizaiton was instantly a hit among the lacrosse community and among people who were being introduced to this great game via the televised exhibition games featured on all of the major sports networks, such as ESPN, ESPN2, and CSTV. With this new exposure that the sport of lacrosse was receiving, it quickly became the fastest growing sport in the country. Lacrosse equipment retailers began popping up in the non-traditional lacrosse communities, such as in the west and in the south. With this new expansion of the sport, many colleges and universities west of the Mississippi River who had traditionally shunned away from forming lacrosse teams, quickly adopted a new thinking and began the formation of numerous collegiate teams. While most of these institutions chose to create self-funded “club” teams for their men’s and women’s lacrosse players, a select number of them decided to back the sport with school funding and join the NCAA. Some of these schools chose to join the NCAA’s Division I, such as Denver University, Stanford University, and the University of California at Berkely. Others chose to join the NCAA’s Division II & III, such as Notre Dame de Namur University, Whittier College, and Colorado College.
Antoher aspect of the growth of lacrosse that is clearly evident, is the number of players on top NCAA Division I programs from these “non-traditional” lacrosse areas. Ten years ago you would never find someone on the Princeton University of Syracuse University Men’s Lacrosse Teams from a western state. But today, some of the top recruits in the country coming out of high school are coming from these “non-traditional” lacrosse areas, an example being Notre Dame’s top recruit Will Yeatman, who hails from a small school in Southern California. One of the main factors in the sudden growth of lacrosse is the recent availability of lacrosse equipment across the nation. Not too long ago, lacrosse was consider and though of as a sport for the elite, rich, upper class kids from predominately wealthy families. But with the growth of lacrosse has come a substantial drop in the prices of quality lacrosse equipment. It has been made readily available to prospective lacrosse players of all levels of society. Lacrosse has and always will be one of the greatest sports of two feet, and will continue its growth across our nation and across the world, until one day we will see it in the Olympic Games.
