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Texas lacrosse on the rise
By Andrew Snyder Staff Writer
Lacrosse is muscling its way into North Texas.
Teams are being formed, new players are suiting up for the first time and the amount of games played per year has passed the 2000 mark. The sport has found a fresh following and after long being dismissed as a state for everything but, Texas is working lacrosse into its athletic prowess.
“It’s interesting,” said Tom Fitzsimmons, president of North Texas branch of US Lacrosse. “My goal has been to make the North Texas community visible on a national scale for lacrosse.”
Alongside the 8-10,000 attendance count Fitzsimmons hopes to see there will be some noteworthy guests. Ross Perot, who has grandchildren on the participating Episcopal School of Dallas team, will take part in an opening coin toss, Air Force jets will make a fly over in support of the tournament and their team and serviceman from Sheppard Air Force base in Wichita Falls and Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene will be coming down as spectators.
The Patriot Cup’s year after year support is just another in a string of impressive stats on the area-wide growth of lacrosse. Since 2004, when the North Texas branch of US Lacrosse was formed, the organization has doubled in participants from 2300 to over 4660 and high schools have been steadily adding lacrosse programs, a trend which ex-Plano West head coach Dave Flick sees as extending out from Plano.
“It started in Plano,” he said. “Kids from adjacent cities who played on Plano club teams would go back home and once they reached a critical mass would find a coach.”
Jumping first to Allen, the lacrosse charge has passed through Murphy, McKinney and Keller, amongst other Metroplex suburbs where the sport is gaining strength. But the most dramatic interest has been shown by younger players. A few years after there weren’t any first through fourth grade programs, known as bantams, North Texas now has over 60 currently up and running with 1000-plus total members.
Questions must be raised. What’s behind this takeover? What’s the appeal of lacrosse?
Fitzsimmons can speak from experience.
“I played high school football,” he said. “And often practice was a re-drudgery for an offensive tackle. But when I got on the lacrosse field and developed a sense of passion for the game I had a blast.”
Athletes like young Fitzsimmons who have the size to play football aren’t the average lacrosse player. Accessibility stands next to enjoyment as a main draw for the sport: mass and height, some key components to football or basketball success, don’t matter much in lacrosse.
“You don’t have to be big,” Fitzsimmons said. “Just athletic.”
And those players who do have a multi-sport ability will find all their skills useful on the lacrosse field. Flick said it was a combination sport with a little bit of soccer, football and basketball involved. The techniques of guarding, goalkeeping and strategy so predominant in those sports, just to name a few, transfer over.
Lacrosse has done its share of future-building in the area by helping over 40 athletes find spots in D I, II and III colleges. But if numbers and percentage points don’t work for them, local athletes can see first-hand how far the sport can take them by attending the Patriot Cup; and if it still isn’t enough to have the tournament nearby, it can be pointed out that Plano is actually participating via West alumni Ridge Flick. A starting attackman for the Falcons, Ridge will take the field at 2:30 P.M. in the second of the DI showdowns.
With the added publicity of a major tournament held in the Metroplex, North Texas lacrosse will likely continue to build up and absorb more and more interest. If future plans work out there will be no stopping the sport. Fitzsimmons said that the Cowboys organization has put in a bid before for the NCAA Final Four in lacrosse and it might just get its hands on it soon.
Proceeds from the Patriot Cup will go to the Wounded Warrior Foundation, a non-profit organization which seeks to assist members of the armed forces who have been severely injured during conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and other locations around the world.
The following are comments from the readers.
In no way do they represent the view of Starlocalnews.com
In no way do they represent the view of Starlocalnews.com
Laxfan wrote on Mar 19, 2009 11:06 PM:
" Fitzsimmons is too humble....he has put Texas lacrosse on the map....dozens of men playing Division I and III lax across the country....the best of the best coming to Dallas for a week. "
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