The Grow Lacrosse Experiment in Minnesota

Like Kevin Flynn, I like maps too.  And, I like Kevin Flynn's idea for growing the game in more remote areas.  Let's take a look at Flynn's idea and see how we can apply it to Minnesota.

Outside the Twin Cities Metro area, where 85% or about 71 of our total of 84 boys teams in the state reside, Minnesota is a big state as well.  With a total of 84 boys lacrosse teams in the State of Minnesota, you could say we're doing pretty darn good here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.  In fact, of states with lacrosse west of the Mississippi River, only California with 245 teams (Texas has 82 and Colorado has 66 school sanctioned teams) has more lacrosse programs than Minnesota.  But, with some relatively large cities and towns in Minnesota with almost no idea what lacrosse is, much less programs there, we can always do better.

Let's take a quick look at what Kevin Flynn is proposing to do for lacrosse in the Big Sky country of Montana.  Despite the spread out nature of cities and towns in Montana, Flynn believes if Montana can make football work for these spread out communities, lacrosse will work too.  He sees lacrosse fields everywhere.

By the end of this year, Flynn is planning to arrange and host lacrosse clinics at 50 high schools across Montana.  He'll bring a few well known friends along, teach whoever shows up and hopefully leave one or two people in each community with the inspiration to start their own team.  He'll have a team of game growers from across the state to help and enlist the support of the larger lacrosse community.  He'll bring in some big names, give away some cool stuff and bring the infrastructure to communities so they can get started.  With passion like this, I think he can get it done.

So, now let's take a look at Minnesota.  Where can we most likely grow the game here in Minnesota where it isn't already being played?  Let's first break it down into large (population 10,000+), medium (6,000 - 10,000) and small towns (less than 6,000) where we might be most likely to grow the game of lacrosse in Minnesota.  Let's also break it down into cities North of the Twin Cities and those South (using Highway 12 as the dividing line).

North:

Large Communities (7):  Hibbing/Chisholm, Bemidji, Fergus Falls, Cloquet/Esko, Alexandria, North Branch, Virginia/Eveleth (Iron Range)

Medium Communities (8):  Thief River Falls, Detroit Lakes, Little Falls, Crookston, Litchfield, International Falls, Morris, Montevideo

Small Communities (10):  Wadena, Two Harbors (North Shore), Cook County, Ely, Hinckley, Mora, Cambridge, Princeton, Baudette, Walker

South:

Large Communities (11):  Winona, Austin, Faribault, Willmar, Albert Lea, Red Wing, Marshall, New Ulm, Worthington, St. Peter

Medium Communities (5):  Waseca, New Prague, Stewartville, Kasson, Glencoe

Small Communities (5):  Redwood Falls, Cannon Falls, LaCrescent, Pipestone, Fairmont

Some of these communities may combine with other communities to form lacrosse associations and collaborate.  However, especially in the larger communities shown above, these are likely communities with enough youth to support a thriving lacrosse community with the right motivation.  Just focusing on the large communities and a couple medium sized communities in the North and the large communities in the South would be a great place to start.  Pick 25 total in the state and start there.  Hibbing/Chisholm, Bemidji, Fergus Falls, Cloquet/Esko, Alexandria, North Branch, Virginia/Eveleth (Iron Range), Thief River Falls, International Falls, Crookston, Morris, Detroit Lakes, Cambridge, and Princeton in the North and Winona, Austin, Faribault, Willmar, Albert Lea, Red Wing, Marshall, New Ulm, Worthington, and St. Peter in the South.  This would spread the game much further than its current boundaries.  Minnesota Native American communities are also growing the game and are locations that we can look to spread the game of lacrosse across the state.

The hope is that, like wildfire, once it catches on in one community it continues to spread until the entire state is populated with youth and high school lacrosse programs.  Just like the effort going on in Montana, we CAN make this happen here.

The Minnesota lacrosse community is a thriving one.  If any state can make this happen, we can.  With organizations like Homegrown Lacrosse which works to grow the game in Minnesota and provide lacrosse opportunities and the Minnesota Boys Scholastic Lacrosse Association (MBSLA) which helps communities get started with club lacrosse programs before moving up to the state high school league, Minnesota has leaders that can make this happen.  The Minnesota Swarm have also been active in growing the game of lacrosse in Minnesota particularly in the Native Communities.

Let's all say we've got it pretty good here, but we can make it even better.  Here's to growing lacrosse in the Land of 10,000 Lakes!

North Coast Jaxx Complete Successful First Season

HGL Champions

The North Coast Jaxx team composed of players from the Duluth area, Grand Rapids and Proctor completed a very successful first summer in 2012, topping it off with the 2012 Homegrown Summer Varsity Prep League championship on August 8.  The NC Jaxx topped Eastview III 5-3 in the semifinal and Champlin Park 5-4 in the Championship game.  They finished the summer Homegrown League season with an undefeated 8-0 record and the season with a 13-3-1 overall record.

North Coast Jaxx in Michigan

Along with the on-field success, the team proved to be a success in many other ways.  The North Coast Jaxx proved that a summer travel team could succeed and flourish in Northern Minnesota.  The team brought together kids and families from rival programs and forged new friendships.  Most importantly, the kids and families had a lot of fun.  The team improved greatly during the Cherry Bomb Tournament in Traverse City, MI while playing some very good competition, and they also had a great time.

Kids in Northern Minnesota are finally playing lacrosse in the off-season and improving their games.  It's a new day for lacrosse in Northern Minnesota, and the North Coast Jaxx were part of the "lax revolution" in the North!  Here's to another successful and flourishing season of summer lacrosse for the Jaxx in 2013!

North Coast Jaxx Exceeding All Expectations

The first ever summer travel lacrosse team in Northern Minnesota, the North Coast Jaxx, have begun the summer lacrosse season undefeated at 8-0.  The North Coast Jaxx are a U16 summer travel team composed of players from the Duluth area, Grand Rapids and Proctor.  The team includes 4 first year players (having only played lacrosse for less than 6 months) and 3 players going into 8th grade.  Along with 4 players just having completed their 10th grade year, the team is mostly composed of players who just completed their 9th grade year.

The team has dominated play in the early season going 4-0 to win the Star of the North games tournament in Rochester, MN.  The young Jaxx have also begun their Homegrown Prep League season 4-0 with wins over Minneapolis/St. Paul, Stillwater South, Roseville and Stillwater North.

The team is winning with superb team play.  Players from teams that competed against each other in the spring season have come together as teammates and are working seamlessly together on the field.  The new players are using their athletic ability to excel and the more experienced players have provided team leadership.  The team will take their 8-0 record on the road to the Cherry Bomb Lacrosse tournament in Traverse City, MI where they will compete with over 100 other teams from all over the midwest.

The North Coast Jaxx, in their first season, have met and exceeded the expectations of the teams organizers and have come together even better than envisioned.  They have proven that lacrosse in the North is alive and growing stronger!

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

Homegrown's First Day in Duluth

From Homegrown Lacrosse Blog

Today's classes were similar to day one of any Phy. Ed. unit but as always, they possessed a unique routine. I worked at Lowell Music Magnet Elementary School with Mrs. Bergerson and her student teacher, Mr. S. Chaun taught at Lincoln Piedmont and from what I hear, the kids loved it. Assisting me, was Alex McNamara, a junior attackmen on the UMD squad. In 2008, Mac worked as an LDP counselor at the first ever Homegrown Summer Camp I ever worked. In 2009 and 2010, I played against Mac, two times each year. Today, we were working to introduce our sport to the students in Duluth, with the goal of facilitating the continued growth of lacrosse in the area.

Day one is always interesting. Some of the kids are intently focused on observing every detail of the introduction, while the rest of the kids can barely sit still, impatiently waiting to get their hands on a lacrosse stick. Either way, our sport is growing with the one by one accumulation of ambassadors to the sport. For every student who has a great experience with lacrosse (especially for the first time), we've developed a constituency who will positively advocate for the sport.

Read the rest at Homegrown Lacrosse Blog

Homegrown Lacrosse to Spend Week in Duluth P.E. Classes

Homegrown lacrosse, a world class non-profit organization dedicated to growing the sport of lacrosse in Minnesota and encouraging positive change in the lives of youth lacrosse players, will be bringing their In School P.E. Program to Duluth elementary schools during the week of March 14-18.  The In-School P.E. Program is a week-long unit that introduces elementary, middle school and high school students to the sport of lacrosse.  Students are taught the history of the game, the evolution of the game, and lacrosse basics with both boy’s and girl’s lacrosse sticks.  The innovative program gives girls and boys a chance:

• To discover something new
• To be part of an emerging sport
• To be engaged
• To have fun  

Homegrown measures their success by the students’ and teachers’ enthusiasm, as well as by the number of students who want to participate in after school lacrosse programs.

Along with the in-school programming, Homegrown will offer two after-school youth lacrosse clinics during the week.  The first youth clinic will take place on Wednesday March 16 at the downtown Duluth YMCA starting at 6:00 p.m.  A second clinic will be conducted on Thursday March 17 at Lowell Elementary school also at 6:00 p.m.

Homegrown is providing Northern Minnesota with a great opportunity to grow the sport of lacrosse in the Duluth area.  Homegrown's efforts should significantly help the area youth lacrosse programs and give them a major boost in numbers.  In Minnesota, we're very fortunate to have an organization like Homegrown Lacrosse working hard to grow the sport of lacrosse across the entire state.  Please visit their website, check out the wide array of things they're doing and consider donating a little to them if you feel strongly about the growth of lacrosse in Minnesota.