St. Michael-Albertville Pushing to Make Lacrosse School Sanctioned Sport

Good article about the St. Michael-Albertville lacrosse teams effort to make lacrosse a school sanctioned sport there.

St. Michael-Albertville's Lacrosse Club Pleads Its Case to Become School Sanctioned Sport

Gaining in popularity all over the state, St. Michael-Albertville players are hoping the district can find the funds to support a growing sport.

By Meghan Gutzwiller

Anna Churchill and Ethan Mark making their case

   

Members of St. Michael-Albertville lacrosse teams put up their best effort recently to move boys and girls lacrosse from a club sport to an official, school-sanctioned activity.

The club didn’t get the answer they were hoping for when school board members and the superintendents unanimously agreed that this could not be done for the upcoming 2011-2012 school year, but the team walked away with more information on the process, a sense of optimism from the board and a timeline for bringing the option up again this fall...

STMA 7/8 grade team

...Churchill said that just having league status, even without the monetary benefits initially, would be a huge help for the teams. For instance, she said Don’s Bus Service currently will not contract with them for transportation to and from games since they are not an official sport. She also noted that this would give their sport the ability to use school facilities for practices and games as well as to make announcements in school if there are any changes or cancellations in the practice or game schedule...

...Cusick said that while they are already experiencing significant growth, one big factor to bringing about even faster growth is to sanction it as an official sport. He cited neighboring Buffalo, whose participation numbers doubled the year lacrosse became a Minnesota state high school league sport. Mark noted that the Elk River-Rogers-Zimmerman team has so many players that Rogers is now considering seceding into their own team.

 “We know the numbers will double next year,” Cusick said, basing his assertions on what he has seen happen in other districts. “Kids absolutely love the sport. And you want to talk about opportunity? Eighty kids went out for freshman baseball this year and you only took 25. You turned away 60 kids, and that’s 60 potential players for us that we could be starting to develop. The numbers are there.”

Read the full article HERE