Reflection on Homegrown Lacrosse's Week in Duluth

I was fortunate to be able to meet Jesse and Chaun from Homegrown Lacrosse at a couple of the afterschool clinics they put on in Duluth.  The second clinic had over 40 kids running all over the gym with lacrosse sticks in hand!  Jesse and Chaun did a great job working with the kids.  It was also nice to see several of the Duluth-Superior Chargers high school players come out one night to help work with the kids.  Judging from all of this, the future of lacrosse in Duluth and Northern Minnesota appears to be bright.

Many good things were also said about Homegrown Lacrosse and the work they did with the in-school P.E. program at several Duluth grade schools.  Homegrown was able to put a lacrosse stick in the hands of just under 1,000 kids during their time in Duluth.  As we've said before, we're very fortunate in Minnesota to have an organization like Homegrown Lacrosse here to help grow the sport of lacrosse in the state.  Without a group like Homegrown, it's not hard to believe that lacrosse would not be growing as fast as it is in Minnesota outside of a few select areas.  One needs only look to the south to the state of Iowa.  There is a small group of very dedicated individuals, led by the Central Iowa Lacrosse Association, who love the sport and want to see it grow.  However, without resources or a group like Homegrown, lacrosse is still languishing in the state with only two high school teams playing lacrosse and a couple of newly formed youth lacrosse associations.  They're working hard in Iowa, but without the organization of a group like Homegrown, it's difficult.

So, what really is the future of lacrosse in Duluth?  Hopefully a lot of those kids who had a lacrosse stick in their hand will play in the Duluth YMCA summer youth league.  If they do, it will be a really fun summer for youth lacrosse in Duluth and a great start for developing lacrosse at a young age and providing a pipeline of players for the high school programs.  The 3rd and 4th graders picking up sticks this summer will be pioneers of the sport in Duluth.  They'll be some of the first lacrosse players in Duluth that started at a young age and worked their way up to high school and perhaps beyond.  It will allow Duluth and other Northland Schools to start catching up to the Twin Cities programs to an extent.

I heard from a lot of kids who plan to play in the YMCA youth league this summer.  However, I also heard from several kids who said they might be playing summer hockey or baseball and might not play in the youth lacrosse league.  I've also heard from several kids at the middle school level who have chosen to play spring and summer hockey or spring soccer as opposed to trying a new sport like lacrosse.  In a hockey-mad town like Duluth, how do the lacrosse programs entice those hockey players who might really have fun and make an impact on the lacrosse team to give it a try?  Lacrosse is a great crossover sport for soccer, hockey, football and basketball.  The fitness level the kids will get from lacrosse is tremendous.  And, once a kid plays lacrosse, he/she's usually hooked.  It's that much fun.

Perhaps transitioning to an MSHSL team would help entice some kids.  Making it a varsity sport on par with hockey and soccer would perhaps make it more attractive to students looking for a sport to play.  And, despite all of the great work Homegrown has done in Duluth, lacrosse still needs to be more visible.  We have a quality college program at UMD and good high school programs with the Chargers and Grand Rapids teams, even a professional team in St. Paul, but you still never see anything about lacrosse in the newspaper - not even box scores.  Lacrosse has to become more visible.  Even more kids have to try it and see how fun it is.

Wayne Gretzky, the greatest hockey player ever, loved lacrosse and understood its benefits.  He said, "When I was growing up, I used to love this time of year(spring). It was when I put my hockey equipment away and I was absolutely ecstatic to see the end of the hockey season. One of the worst things to happen to the game, in my opinion, has been year-round hockey and, in particular, summer hockey. All it does for kids, as far as I can tell, is keep them out of sports they should be doing in warmer weather. I could hardly wait to get my lacrosse stick out and start throwing the ball around. It didn't matter how cold or rainy it would be, we'd be out firing the ball against walls and working on our moves as we played the lacrosse equivalent to road hockey. All the good hockey players seemed to play lacrosse in those days and every one of them learned something from the game to carry over to the other - things athletes can only learn by mixing up games they play when they are young."  If it worked for Wayne, it seems like it might work for some of the other hockey, soccer and basketball kids in town.  Perhaps having some support for lacrosse from the hockey programs would help as well.

Hopefully we'll see the sport of lacrosse begin to flourish in Duluth and Northern Minnesota.  There's still work to do, but with the help of Homegrown, we're definitely on the right path.

See Homegrown Lacrosse's blog for more about their time in Duluth. 

Photos courtesy of Homegrown Lacrosse