Katie Battershell, left and Mimi Kamm battle for the ball as the South Tampa Sticks take on the FishHawk Coyotes on Sunday.
By David Rice, Tampa Bay Times Correspondent
In Print: Sunday, February 19, 2012
WESLEY CHAPEL — Lacrosse may be the fastest growing youth sport in the nation, but when it comes to high school, finding a place to earn a varsity letter jacket with a stick in your hand isn’t so easy.
In Pasco County, there isn’t a single school that belongs to a Florida High School Athletic Association-sanctioned district, despite the fact that Wiregrass Ranch and Wesley Chapel have highly successful lacrosse clubs.
In neighboring Hillsborough County, there are only four schools that can play for an FHSAA title, all of which are private schools. The story is similar in Pinellas County, where the private Admiral Farragut Academy has the lone sanctioned team.
Parents and organizers of school lacrosse teams have grown tired of working under the label of “club team” and want their kids to have the right to play for a state title and letter jackets. But that decision rests with the local school district.
“The kids want to play for their school,” said Tampa Tribe coach Renee Diaz, whose daughters attend Wesley Chapel High. “They want a varsity letter. Many players, boys and girls, who would play lacrosse don’t just for this reason, or lacrosse is their secondary sports commitment. This severely stunts the growth of lacrosse in our area. The rest of the nation is booming, but locally growth is slow.”
By David Rice, Tampa Bay Times Correspondent
In Print: Sunday, February 19, 2012
WESLEY CHAPEL — Lacrosse may be the fastest growing youth sport in the nation, but when it comes to high school, finding a place to earn a varsity letter jacket with a stick in your hand isn’t so easy.
In Pasco County, there isn’t a single school that belongs to a Florida High School Athletic Association-sanctioned district, despite the fact that Wiregrass Ranch and Wesley Chapel have highly successful lacrosse clubs.
In neighboring Hillsborough County, there are only four schools that can play for an FHSAA title, all of which are private schools. The story is similar in Pinellas County, where the private Admiral Farragut Academy has the lone sanctioned team.
Parents and organizers of school lacrosse teams have grown tired of working under the label of “club team” and want their kids to have the right to play for a state title and letter jackets. But that decision rests with the local school district.
“The kids want to play for their school,” said Tampa Tribe coach Renee Diaz, whose daughters attend Wesley Chapel High. “They want a varsity letter. Many players, boys and girls, who would play lacrosse don’t just for this reason, or lacrosse is their secondary sports commitment. This severely stunts the growth of lacrosse in our area. The rest of the nation is booming, but locally growth is slow.”
By David Rice, Times Correspondent | Full Article on tampabay.com
WESLEY CHAPEL - Lacrosse is one of the fastest growing sports in the United States, and Wesley Chapel hosts two of the southeast’s best men’s lacrosse tournaments, but girls have had less opportunity to compete until now. The first I Lacrosse My Heart girls’ tournament was held last weekend, doubling…..READ FULL ARTICLE
From TampaBay.com / St. Pete Times article
Brandon Wright, Times Correspondent
In Print: Friday, June 24, 2011
Olivia Harris, 14, suits up to play goalie with the Wolfpack team during practice at Al Lopez Park
In Hillsborough County, lacrosse is a club sport. The teams often have names that allude to their geographic locations such as the Freedom Lacrosse Club, a nod to their proximity to Freedom High School. But lacrosse teams are not officially affiliated with public schools.
Until last year, the sport’s governing body allowed lacrosse players to join teams in other areas if no club team existed near their home or school. But a new rule, designed to prepare for the day when Hillsborough County sanctions lacrosse as a varsity sport, changed that. Now, if there is no team near the player’s school, that player will have to sit the season out.
That’s the case for Olivia, who will be a freshman this fall at Bloomingdale High School. With no Bloomingdale team, she won’t be able to play.
“We keep trying to find out why this is happening, and we keep running into brick walls,” her mother, Jolie Harris, said. “We feel like all the time and money we have spent over the last three years is going down the drain because of this new rule.”
Lacrosse’s popularity has skyrocketed over the past decade, and Hillsborough County is no exception. According to a study by US Lacrosse, the sport’s national governing body, youth participation has blossomed from 125,000 in 2001 to more than 350,000 today.
The Florida High School Athletic Association adopted lacrosse as a varsity sport in 2007 and since then, a number of counties throughout the state have joined, rising up from the club level.
“It’s growing across the state,” said Ginger Bean, a member of the girl’s varsity lacrosse committee leadership group for the Florida Gulf Coast chapter of US Lacrosse. “It’s big down in the southern part of the state.”
Yet Hillsborough County, where an estimated 2,500 students in middle and high schools play the sport, has yet to join. Representatives of the sport request each year that lacrosse be added in the county, but officials haven’t budged.
Adding a sport in the current economic conditions is highly unlikely anytime soon, county officials said.
“I don’t care if there are a million teams (playing), the interest level is not an indicator of our decisions,” county athletic director Lanness Robinson said. “No outside influences will affect us. We do what we feel is best for all the student-athletes in the county.”
Because Hillsborough doesn’t recognize lacrosse as a varsity sport, schools have no affiliation with the teams.
“The parents and league provide all financing for uniforms and things like that as of right now,” said Bean, who also coaches the Freedom Lacrosse team. “But the goal is to eventually have it sanctioned by the county.”
Before West Florida and Sunshine State Lacrosse merged to form Florida Gulf Coast Lacrosse in 2010, club teams that went by school names could have up to five players from other areas on their teams.
But that changed when the newly formed chapter decided players must be students at their club team’s associated school — even though the schools have no official connection to these teams.
“(The rule) came about to prepare ourselves and the teams for a possible inclusion (into the FHSAA) through the county recognizing lacrosse as a varsity sport,” Bean said.
That leaves Olivia and other players out in the cold.
“It’s sad because (Olivia) is very talented and really loves to play the game,” said Tim McGoff, who coaches her this summer with a Tampa Catholic High lacrosse club team. “And some girls are going to get caught in the middle.”
Read the full article on the St. Pete times
Johns Creek, GA – The SouthEastern Lacrosse Conference announced the 2011 SELC Awards and All-Conference Teams for Division 1 and Division 2 earlier today.
Friday, February 18th, 2011 was a landmark day in the history of University of Tampa athletics. On this truly historic day, the new men’s lacrosse program officially breathed its first breath of life with the hiring of Rory Whipple.
The USF Bulls look to start the 2011 lacrosse season with three tough home games against state schools, taking on the UNF Ospreys, UF Gators, and UCF Knights and ending the season against a top 5 ranked FSU Seminoles. New out of state opponents this year are Nebraska, Tulane, and fellow Big East (football) Conference rival Pitt.
View the game start times and full schedule on the USF Men’s Lacrosse Website.
University of South Florida Women’s Lacrosse team faced off against Florida State University in a fall ball exhibition in Tallahassee on October 2nd, 2010. The games were part of a double header afternoon where the seminoles took on the UCF Knights and the USF Bulls.
Beast Lacrosse Club of Naples is proud to announce sign-ups for our Spring Warriors Travel Program. Registration is now Open to boys in Second through Eighth Grades in Collier & Lee County and runs from Feb 1 to May 1.
(Source: naplesnews.com)
Boys & Girls High School & Middle School team lacrosse:
Sunday, October 24, 2010 - Come on over with your team on Saturday and check out Busch Gardens or the Gulf Coast Beaches and then play lax on Sunday!
Full Field Lacrosse Festival