the kansas city star magazine
THE KANSAS CITY STAR MAGAZINE MAY 1 5, 20 1 1
Lacrosse, the fast-paced sport for boys and girls, gains a foothold in the metro area. PAGE 8
STICK IT TO ’EM ADVICE FROM A HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE: ‘JUST KEEP YOUR HEAD UP.’ MAG INTERVIEW, 1 4 ■ ADVERTISING SPECIAL SECTION: SAVVY SENIORS, 25
FURY& FINESSE B Y S U Z A N N E P. C O L E ■ P H O T O S B Y A L L I S O N L O N G
Lacrosse is now an official sport at Notre Dame de Sion High School. The fast-paced sport is surging in the Midwest.
8
The contact aspect of lacrosse draws boys, while girls learn tactics and finesse.
W
hen Joe Vasta moved here six years ago and realized there was no lacrosse league for daughter Maddie to play in, he did what any good father and former NCAA Division 1 All-America lacrosse player would do: He started one. First there were the neighborhood clinics. Vasta would drag a goal and some old lacrosse sticks to a green space and invite girls who lived nearby to learn a new sport with him — right in their own backyard. Maddie played on basketball and soccer teams already, and Vasta invited those girls, too. The clinics were a hit. About 30 girls came to eight of them that summer and girls lacrosse in the metro area was on its way. “It was crazy how fast the word spread,” Vasta says. “I met the fathers of those first girls and learned that many of them had also played lacrosse before moving to Kansas City. It kept growing.” Next, he approached Maddie’s physical education teacher at Lakewood Middle School in Johnson County and arranged to teach the game there, too. “I took two days off work so we could hit every class — boys and girls.” Vasta’s motivation was simple: “I wanted Maddie to have someone to play with and against.” It worked. Eighty middle school girls signed up for four different teams the first year of league play in 2007, and in a testament to the sport, many from the early days of the neighborhood clinics, now in high school, still play together on the Blue Valley district team that Vasta coaches. And Vasta and and his wife, Pennie, coordinate girls lacrosse leagues for girls across the metro area. Devoted? Yes, but the Vastas, who moved here from New York, don’t seem so unusual in the local lacrosse culture. Many of the people most influential in its growth are East Coast transplants and former college lacrosse players who want to pass on their love of the game to their children. “There are a lot of very enthusiastic ambassadors in Kansas City for lacrosse right now,” says Mike Lettera, president of the Kansas City Youth Lacrosse League and former Division 1 lacrosse player for the University of Massachusetts. He moved here three years ago after coaching in a similar, but bigger, program in Atlanta.
THE KANSAS CITY STAR MAGAZINE
★
May 15, 2011
cover story
Girls lacrosse stresses finesse and is much less physical than the boys game. Boys wear helmets, and girls, including Sion’s Craigin Wilson (left) and Ali Campbell, wear goggles.
THE KANSAS CITY STAR MAGAZINE
★
May 15, 2011
9
GLOSSARY
CHECKING: Attempting to dislodge the ball from an opponent’s stick. CLEARING: Running or passing the ball from the defensive half of the field to the offensive half. CREASE: The circle around the goal with a radius of 9 feet, which only defensive players may enter. Defensive players may not take the ball into the crease, only the goalie. GROUND BALL: A loose ball on the playing field. PICK: An offensive maneuver in which a stationary player attempts to block the path of a defender guarding another offensive player. RIDING: Trying to prevent a team from clearing the ball. Source: US Lacrosse
Lacrosse players pass and catch the ball using distinctive sticks with stringed baskets. Beth Hubbard practices at Sion.
It’s a family affair at the Lettera household: all of his children, two daughters and a son, play club lacrosse in the Northland. Lettera is the coach for the eighth-grade Northland boys team. And so the leagues grew, from only a handful of teams to more than 60 area youth teams today. The number of participants has doubled in the last two years alone. On the national level, the NCAA, state high school associations, sporting goods manufacturers and the national governing body of the sport itself insist: “Lacrosse is the fastestgrowing sport in America.” That would be hard to argue, or ignore. After-school food joints and local practice fields have slowly been infiltrated with kids who dress like soccer players but have curious-looking sticks in tow. High school stadiums fill on weekends with all-day
10
lacrosse tournaments, and those in the know agree that the sport is only just beginning to hit its stride. To be fair, organized lacrosse in Kansas City has been around since the 1970s, just not so obviously and with so much participation. Rockhurst High School has an elite program — and are defending state champs — and some prep schools have been playing each other for years. But what about those of us who didn’t grow up with the sport?
Novelty “It’s a new sport, and I wanted to be a part of that, a part of the next wave,” says Annie McKenzie, a sophomore at Notre Dame de Sion who plays on the school’s junior varsity team. “It’s an official sport at Sion this year and is becoming a big deal. That’s what appealed to me.”
Her coach agrees. “In this area right now, I’m able to teach these high school girls something completely new, tactical and technical,” says Missi Hyder, Sion’s varsity lacrosse coach and former Rockhurst University soccer player. “If I get a girl here as a freshman, it is likely the sport is new to them.” Ask anyone who plays or their parents what is so great about lacrosse, and 98 percent of them will repeat the same few words: “It’s fast! It’s so much fun to watch!” Indeed, it’s fast, the “fastest sport on two feet,” as lacrosse promotes itself. And it is very, very fun to watch. Spring game days are warm, the stadiums and fields are top-drawer and your child is racing to-and-fro like a thoroughbred, having the time of his or her life. There is intensity on the field,
but also laughter. The same goes for the parents and friends in the bleachers. No way is youth soccer, volleyball or basketball quite like this. From the spectator’s perspective, much of that grandstand excitement derives from the high-velocity manner in which this hard, tiny ball is whipped relentlessly about the field. And I should mention, you get to hit other players with your stick, legally, in the boys leagues.
The particulars The rules for girls and boys lacrosse differ somewhat — mainly about the level of physical contact allowed — but for the most part, the game is well described by US Lacrosse as “a contact game where the object of the game is to shoot the ball into the opponent’s goal and to keep the other team from scoring. The
team scoring the most goals wins.” In person, it resembles many sports you already know. There’s a field about the size of a football field; goals at each end like soccer and hockey, and players who constantly run up and down the field as the ball changes hands, just like basketball. The distinctive element of lacrosse, though, is the crosse, or stick. It ranges in length from 3 to 6 feet, depending on your position and has a stringed basket, or head, at the end that protects and launches the ball as offensive players pass and weave their way down the field. A team has three main positions, plus a goalie. Attackmen stay on the offensive side of the field and score goals. Defensemen are superaggressive and defend their team’s goal. Midfielders (middies) play the entire
THE KANSAS CITY STAR MAGAZINE
★
May 15, 2011
cover story
Lacrosse coach Mike Powers talks to his Northland team after defeating a club from Prairie Village. More than 1,000 boys and girls in the metro area play on teams for elementary- and middle-school-aged students.
field and are responsible for clearing the ball from defense to offense. To draw a basketball analogy, middies play like point guards and attackmen play like power forwards. Boys wear protective equipment mainly on their upper body — gloves, helmets, mouth guards, light shoulder and arm pads — and wear shorts and cleats on their lower extremities. They look like warriors who are only half-dressed. Girls dress differently. Their game stresses finesse and is much less physical. They wear no
helmets or pads, but do wear distinctive, bug-eye goggles and mouth guards. They look like warriors, too. But because of the goggles, warriors in an insect war. Games, halves and quarters begin for the boys with a face-off. The ball is placed on the ground at the center of the field and the two toughest middies (midfielders) scrum it out for offensive control through sheer physical force and the controlled choreography of their sticks. It reminds me of two brothers scrambling for control of a
THE KANSAS CITY STAR MAGAZINE
★
May 15, 2011
dropped quarter in the living room, only a thousand times fiercer. Girls play this part of the game a little more nicely and call it a “draw.” Instead of wresting for control the ball on the ground, the referee balances it between the two opponents’ horizontally aligned sticks. This, to me, appears more like a negotiation between clever, crafty opponents in an upright, physical chess game. Players must see the field and anticipate the other’s movements a few milliseconds into the fu-
ture, and play accordingly. I should mention: everything about the girls’ game is a little more refined, and it’s obvious when you see the boys and girls games played well side by side. All players use their sticks to pass and catch the ball as they run down the field and advance on the goal. The webbing at the head of the stick supplies a nice pocket for the ball to settle into. As players run down the field with the ball, they must simultaneously rotate the stick back and forth in a motion called “cradling” to create the centrifugal
force necessary to keep the ball in the pocket. It’s hard to keep the ball in the pocket when you’re new to the sport — or young, or distracted, or being heavily defended. When the ball falls out, it’s a “ground ball,” and this is when it gets fun. Players on both sides swarm the ball like ants on a chicken wing. There are a lot of ground balls in the younger leagues, and consequently, a lot of swarming and scooping and yelling and pushing. The boys love it. And so do the fans in the stands. Like other transition sports,
11
In the beginning Lacrosse was played hundreds of years ago by Native Americans, for fun and as a way to train for war. They played it over many miles with hundreds of players, and it was sometimes the means by which inter-tribal disputes were settled. French missionaries observed the game and decided to codify some rules. They named it La Crosse because they felt the stick-and-basket combination resembled a bishop’s crosier. And, they were Christian missionaries, so the name seemed apt. Years later, a Springfield, Mass., coach by the name of James Naismith would develop another sport, one that could be played indoors, in part so that lacrosse players could stay in shape over the winter months. He was a lacrosse player and coach, and some of the elements of lacrosse can be seen in his most wellknown creation, basketball.
Broad appeal
Spencer Denney, a sixth-grader with the Northland Lacrosse club, prepares to catch a ball in a recent game. Lacrosse is fast and fun, and Spencer intends to play for years to come.
there are checks and picks and invisible-to-the stands playmaking that keep the game moving fast. Like hockey, the ball is sometimes moving so fast, up to 100 mph at the high school and college levels, that you miss seeing the actual shot taken. Harder to miss, though, is the acrobatic leaping and unnatural torso twisting of confident players who are able to sneak the ball past vigilant goalies. Goals in this sport are celebrated each and every time; it feels like every goal is a buzzer-beater in a championship game. Like many things parents and children share, it’s hard to tell who is more excited about the achievement. There is much more to lacrosse — the strategy, the penalty box, the playmaking. But the real fun for many players comes when the opportunity for physical contact presents itself, which is nearly every moment of the boys game.
12
And they’re not afraid to embrace it.
Measured contact “I definitely want to be in the middle of the contact and will run straight into the crowd if I see it getting physical,” says sixth-grader Spencer Denney, who plays for Northland Lacrosse. “You can whack someone with your stick as long as they have the ball, but not their head or below the waist.” Technically, it’s called “checking” not “whacking” and it is allowed as long as you “play the ball,” meaning the player you check should either be in possession of the ball or within 5 yards of it. Checking is not merely allowed; it’s a really good strategy for dislodging a ball from an opponent’s stick. You can even chase someone down from behind and check a player’s elbow
or bottom hand in an attempt to get them to drop the ball. Importantly, all this checking is a hallmark of the boys games. . “The checking is the animal part of it,” says Northland sixthgrade boys coach, Mike Powers. “There is an attractive element for the players and fans to that.” There is a beautiful duality to this lacrosse: It is at once graceful and berserk, controlled and chaotic. The roughness belies the agility, speed and grace required of a player who, at full gait, hopes to catch a fast-moving ball in a tiny, oddly shaped basket at the end of a stick. It is surprising to see for the first time — You can hit people with your stick? — but the checking seems to be well-measured, and the penalties and time-outs are quick when play gets out of hand. For the girls, the physicality is purposefully reduced. The
pocket of their sticks is not as deep, making it harder to keep control of the ball, which makes checking less useful as a defensive tactic. The result is a much more refined, elegant game. “In girls lacrosse, you can set a pick, but the player must see it coming. You can touch someone with your stick, but you cannot push them,” says Hyder, Sion’s varsity coach. “You must be strategic. You’ll have one chance at a check and you must take it.” In fact, body checking is never allowed in the girls game, but a restricted amount of stick-tostick contact is okay. Girls must stick check in the direction away from the body and must never penetrate an invisible, 7-inch cylinder around each player’s head. “We want to support safety in the girls game,” Vasta says. “We don’t want it to become the men’s game.”
“It’s a contact sport that’s very fast-moving and easy to learn, which is why it’s so popular,” says Holly Milledge, president of the Prairie Village and Lancer lacrosse clubs. “You can work at it — just you, your stick and ball and a brick wall — and improve all on your own.” It’s also a sport that doesn’t automatically reward an athlete just for being born tall or broad. “The size of the player doesn’t necessarily predict their talent in lacrosse,” Vasta says. “Speed, quickness and stick skills will always outweigh size in this game. It’s a contact sport that smaller kids can have great success in,” he says. Spencer Denney’s parents agree. “If you have a child who wants to play a contact sport but is a little small for football, this is the perfect sport for them,” says Spencer’s mom, Dee Denney. “But it is a little violent. The boys seem to always be thinking about how much they can get away with.” “Lacrosse is getting traction at lots of different levels right now, nationwide,” says Joshua Chris-
THE KANSAS CITY STAR MAGAZINE
★
May 15, 2011
cover story
Swarming and scooping are part of the fun for Northland Lacrosse and the Lee’s Summit Storm club teams.
A referee prepares to drop the ball in a “draw,” the equivalent of a face-off in hockey or a tip-off in basketball.
tian, managing director for sport development for US Lacrosse. This year, the organization estimates that more than 625,000 players nationwide will be picking up sticks. “It’s intriguing to players because they find elements of other
sports they already know in lacrosse,” he says. “Parents and family members are finding ways to participate as coaches and refs, too.” Also, prime-time exposure for lacrosse is increasing: A lot of cable airtime is devoted to la-
THE KANSAS CITY STAR MAGAZINE
★
May 15, 2011
crosse on the sports tiers right now. Growth is occurring mainly in the nontraditional areas — the southeast, Midwest, West and Pacific Northwest, Christian says. “We are trying to connect the dots, area to area, and feed off established leadership in those areas,” he says. “But, it is a bit like the Wild West right now. The experience is not consistent from coast to coast.” Wild West or not, growth of the leagues in Kansas City, by most accounts, is being nicely managed. According to the local chapter of US Lacrosse, 870 boys and 250 girls in the metro area play in leagues that cover grades 2 through 8. At the high school level, about 540 boys and 306 girls play. That’s almost 2,000 young lacrosse athletes in the area, all needing support, supplies and infrastructure. “All of the fields we’ve played
on this year have been turf. Our first game was even at Rockhurst University,” says Dee Denney. “It makes the kids feel special, full of pride, to play on fields like this, especially as a sixth-grader.” What do the kids see when they look at the league? For many, the beginning of a new relationship, one that their children might enjoy someday. “I’ll play lacrosse as long as I can, all the way through college,” says Spencer Denney. “Then as a coach and probably as an official when I can’t play on the field anymore. I’m going to play the rest of my life.” Suzanne P. Cole, a freelance writer in Leawood, is a regular contributor to Star Magazine.
GAME DAY Where to watch championship games: The Kansas City Girls Youth Lacrosse Final Four Championship Tournament will be May 22 at the Blue Valley District Activity Center at 135th Street and Switzer Road. Games begin at 4 p.m. The Kansas City Boys Youth Lacrosse League Championship games will be played on May 22 at Rockhurst University, 10 a.m.-8:30 p.m.
SEE A PHOTO GALLERY AT KANSASCITY.COM. 13
Lacrosse, the fast-paced sport for boys and girls, gains a foothold in the metro area. PAGE 8
STICK IT TO ’EM ADVICE FROM A HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE: ‘JUST KEEP YOUR HEAD UP.’ MAG INTERVIEW, 1 4 ■ ADVERTISING SPECIAL SECTION: SAVVY SENIORS, 25
FURY& FINESSE B Y S U Z A N N E P. C O L E ■ P H O T O S B Y A L L I S O N L O N G
Lacrosse is now an official sport at Notre Dame de Sion High School. The fast-paced sport is surging in the Midwest.
8
The contact aspect of lacrosse draws boys, while girls learn tactics and finesse.
W
hen Joe Vasta moved here six years ago and realized there was no lacrosse league for daughter Maddie to play in, he did what any good father and former NCAA Division 1 All-America lacrosse player would do: He started one. First there were the neighborhood clinics. Vasta would drag a goal and some old lacrosse sticks to a green space and invite girls who lived nearby to learn a new sport with him — right in their own backyard. Maddie played on basketball and soccer teams already, and Vasta invited those girls, too. The clinics were a hit. About 30 girls came to eight of them that summer and girls lacrosse in the metro area was on its way. “It was crazy how fast the word spread,” Vasta says. “I met the fathers of those first girls and learned that many of them had also played lacrosse before moving to Kansas City. It kept growing.” Next, he approached Maddie’s physical education teacher at Lakewood Middle School in Johnson County and arranged to teach the game there, too. “I took two days off work so we could hit every class — boys and girls.” Vasta’s motivation was simple: “I wanted Maddie to have someone to play with and against.” It worked. Eighty middle school girls signed up for four different teams the first year of league play in 2007, and in a testament to the sport, many from the early days of the neighborhood clinics, now in high school, still play together on the Blue Valley district team that Vasta coaches. And Vasta and and his wife, Pennie, coordinate girls lacrosse leagues for girls across the metro area. Devoted? Yes, but the Vastas, who moved here from New York, don’t seem so unusual in the local lacrosse culture. Many of the people most influential in its growth are East Coast transplants and former college lacrosse players who want to pass on their love of the game to their children. “There are a lot of very enthusiastic ambassadors in Kansas City for lacrosse right now,” says Mike Lettera, president of the Kansas City Youth Lacrosse League and former Division 1 lacrosse player for the University of Massachusetts. He moved here three years ago after coaching in a similar, but bigger, program in Atlanta.
THE KANSAS CITY STAR MAGAZINE
★
May 15, 2011
cover story
Girls lacrosse stresses finesse and is much less physical than the boys game. Boys wear helmets, and girls, including Sion’s Craigin Wilson (left) and Ali Campbell, wear goggles.
THE KANSAS CITY STAR MAGAZINE
★
May 15, 2011
9
GLOSSARY
CHECKING: Attempting to dislodge the ball from an opponent’s stick. CLEARING: Running or passing the ball from the defensive half of the field to the offensive half. CREASE: The circle around the goal with a radius of 9 feet, which only defensive players may enter. Defensive players may not take the ball into the crease, only the goalie. GROUND BALL: A loose ball on the playing field. PICK: An offensive maneuver in which a stationary player attempts to block the path of a defender guarding another offensive player. RIDING: Trying to prevent a team from clearing the ball. Source: US Lacrosse
Lacrosse players pass and catch the ball using distinctive sticks with stringed baskets. Beth Hubbard practices at Sion.
It’s a family affair at the Lettera household: all of his children, two daughters and a son, play club lacrosse in the Northland. Lettera is the coach for the eighth-grade Northland boys team. And so the leagues grew, from only a handful of teams to more than 60 area youth teams today. The number of participants has doubled in the last two years alone. On the national level, the NCAA, state high school associations, sporting goods manufacturers and the national governing body of the sport itself insist: “Lacrosse is the fastestgrowing sport in America.” That would be hard to argue, or ignore. After-school food joints and local practice fields have slowly been infiltrated with kids who dress like soccer players but have curious-looking sticks in tow. High school stadiums fill on weekends with all-day
10
lacrosse tournaments, and those in the know agree that the sport is only just beginning to hit its stride. To be fair, organized lacrosse in Kansas City has been around since the 1970s, just not so obviously and with so much participation. Rockhurst High School has an elite program — and are defending state champs — and some prep schools have been playing each other for years. But what about those of us who didn’t grow up with the sport?
Novelty “It’s a new sport, and I wanted to be a part of that, a part of the next wave,” says Annie McKenzie, a sophomore at Notre Dame de Sion who plays on the school’s junior varsity team. “It’s an official sport at Sion this year and is becoming a big deal. That’s what appealed to me.”
Her coach agrees. “In this area right now, I’m able to teach these high school girls something completely new, tactical and technical,” says Missi Hyder, Sion’s varsity lacrosse coach and former Rockhurst University soccer player. “If I get a girl here as a freshman, it is likely the sport is new to them.” Ask anyone who plays or their parents what is so great about lacrosse, and 98 percent of them will repeat the same few words: “It’s fast! It’s so much fun to watch!” Indeed, it’s fast, the “fastest sport on two feet,” as lacrosse promotes itself. And it is very, very fun to watch. Spring game days are warm, the stadiums and fields are top-drawer and your child is racing to-and-fro like a thoroughbred, having the time of his or her life. There is intensity on the field,
but also laughter. The same goes for the parents and friends in the bleachers. No way is youth soccer, volleyball or basketball quite like this. From the spectator’s perspective, much of that grandstand excitement derives from the high-velocity manner in which this hard, tiny ball is whipped relentlessly about the field. And I should mention, you get to hit other players with your stick, legally, in the boys leagues.
The particulars The rules for girls and boys lacrosse differ somewhat — mainly about the level of physical contact allowed — but for the most part, the game is well described by US Lacrosse as “a contact game where the object of the game is to shoot the ball into the opponent’s goal and to keep the other team from scoring. The
team scoring the most goals wins.” In person, it resembles many sports you already know. There’s a field about the size of a football field; goals at each end like soccer and hockey, and players who constantly run up and down the field as the ball changes hands, just like basketball. The distinctive element of lacrosse, though, is the crosse, or stick. It ranges in length from 3 to 6 feet, depending on your position and has a stringed basket, or head, at the end that protects and launches the ball as offensive players pass and weave their way down the field. A team has three main positions, plus a goalie. Attackmen stay on the offensive side of the field and score goals. Defensemen are superaggressive and defend their team’s goal. Midfielders (middies) play the entire
THE KANSAS CITY STAR MAGAZINE
★
May 15, 2011
cover story
Lacrosse coach Mike Powers talks to his Northland team after defeating a club from Prairie Village. More than 1,000 boys and girls in the metro area play on teams for elementary- and middle-school-aged students.
field and are responsible for clearing the ball from defense to offense. To draw a basketball analogy, middies play like point guards and attackmen play like power forwards. Boys wear protective equipment mainly on their upper body — gloves, helmets, mouth guards, light shoulder and arm pads — and wear shorts and cleats on their lower extremities. They look like warriors who are only half-dressed. Girls dress differently. Their game stresses finesse and is much less physical. They wear no
helmets or pads, but do wear distinctive, bug-eye goggles and mouth guards. They look like warriors, too. But because of the goggles, warriors in an insect war. Games, halves and quarters begin for the boys with a face-off. The ball is placed on the ground at the center of the field and the two toughest middies (midfielders) scrum it out for offensive control through sheer physical force and the controlled choreography of their sticks. It reminds me of two brothers scrambling for control of a
THE KANSAS CITY STAR MAGAZINE
★
May 15, 2011
dropped quarter in the living room, only a thousand times fiercer. Girls play this part of the game a little more nicely and call it a “draw.” Instead of wresting for control the ball on the ground, the referee balances it between the two opponents’ horizontally aligned sticks. This, to me, appears more like a negotiation between clever, crafty opponents in an upright, physical chess game. Players must see the field and anticipate the other’s movements a few milliseconds into the fu-
ture, and play accordingly. I should mention: everything about the girls’ game is a little more refined, and it’s obvious when you see the boys and girls games played well side by side. All players use their sticks to pass and catch the ball as they run down the field and advance on the goal. The webbing at the head of the stick supplies a nice pocket for the ball to settle into. As players run down the field with the ball, they must simultaneously rotate the stick back and forth in a motion called “cradling” to create the centrifugal
force necessary to keep the ball in the pocket. It’s hard to keep the ball in the pocket when you’re new to the sport — or young, or distracted, or being heavily defended. When the ball falls out, it’s a “ground ball,” and this is when it gets fun. Players on both sides swarm the ball like ants on a chicken wing. There are a lot of ground balls in the younger leagues, and consequently, a lot of swarming and scooping and yelling and pushing. The boys love it. And so do the fans in the stands. Like other transition sports,
11
In the beginning Lacrosse was played hundreds of years ago by Native Americans, for fun and as a way to train for war. They played it over many miles with hundreds of players, and it was sometimes the means by which inter-tribal disputes were settled. French missionaries observed the game and decided to codify some rules. They named it La Crosse because they felt the stick-and-basket combination resembled a bishop’s crosier. And, they were Christian missionaries, so the name seemed apt. Years later, a Springfield, Mass., coach by the name of James Naismith would develop another sport, one that could be played indoors, in part so that lacrosse players could stay in shape over the winter months. He was a lacrosse player and coach, and some of the elements of lacrosse can be seen in his most wellknown creation, basketball.
Broad appeal
Spencer Denney, a sixth-grader with the Northland Lacrosse club, prepares to catch a ball in a recent game. Lacrosse is fast and fun, and Spencer intends to play for years to come.
there are checks and picks and invisible-to-the stands playmaking that keep the game moving fast. Like hockey, the ball is sometimes moving so fast, up to 100 mph at the high school and college levels, that you miss seeing the actual shot taken. Harder to miss, though, is the acrobatic leaping and unnatural torso twisting of confident players who are able to sneak the ball past vigilant goalies. Goals in this sport are celebrated each and every time; it feels like every goal is a buzzer-beater in a championship game. Like many things parents and children share, it’s hard to tell who is more excited about the achievement. There is much more to lacrosse — the strategy, the penalty box, the playmaking. But the real fun for many players comes when the opportunity for physical contact presents itself, which is nearly every moment of the boys game.
12
And they’re not afraid to embrace it.
Measured contact “I definitely want to be in the middle of the contact and will run straight into the crowd if I see it getting physical,” says sixth-grader Spencer Denney, who plays for Northland Lacrosse. “You can whack someone with your stick as long as they have the ball, but not their head or below the waist.” Technically, it’s called “checking” not “whacking” and it is allowed as long as you “play the ball,” meaning the player you check should either be in possession of the ball or within 5 yards of it. Checking is not merely allowed; it’s a really good strategy for dislodging a ball from an opponent’s stick. You can even chase someone down from behind and check a player’s elbow
or bottom hand in an attempt to get them to drop the ball. Importantly, all this checking is a hallmark of the boys games. . “The checking is the animal part of it,” says Northland sixthgrade boys coach, Mike Powers. “There is an attractive element for the players and fans to that.” There is a beautiful duality to this lacrosse: It is at once graceful and berserk, controlled and chaotic. The roughness belies the agility, speed and grace required of a player who, at full gait, hopes to catch a fast-moving ball in a tiny, oddly shaped basket at the end of a stick. It is surprising to see for the first time — You can hit people with your stick? — but the checking seems to be well-measured, and the penalties and time-outs are quick when play gets out of hand. For the girls, the physicality is purposefully reduced. The
pocket of their sticks is not as deep, making it harder to keep control of the ball, which makes checking less useful as a defensive tactic. The result is a much more refined, elegant game. “In girls lacrosse, you can set a pick, but the player must see it coming. You can touch someone with your stick, but you cannot push them,” says Hyder, Sion’s varsity coach. “You must be strategic. You’ll have one chance at a check and you must take it.” In fact, body checking is never allowed in the girls game, but a restricted amount of stick-tostick contact is okay. Girls must stick check in the direction away from the body and must never penetrate an invisible, 7-inch cylinder around each player’s head. “We want to support safety in the girls game,” Vasta says. “We don’t want it to become the men’s game.”
“It’s a contact sport that’s very fast-moving and easy to learn, which is why it’s so popular,” says Holly Milledge, president of the Prairie Village and Lancer lacrosse clubs. “You can work at it — just you, your stick and ball and a brick wall — and improve all on your own.” It’s also a sport that doesn’t automatically reward an athlete just for being born tall or broad. “The size of the player doesn’t necessarily predict their talent in lacrosse,” Vasta says. “Speed, quickness and stick skills will always outweigh size in this game. It’s a contact sport that smaller kids can have great success in,” he says. Spencer Denney’s parents agree. “If you have a child who wants to play a contact sport but is a little small for football, this is the perfect sport for them,” says Spencer’s mom, Dee Denney. “But it is a little violent. The boys seem to always be thinking about how much they can get away with.” “Lacrosse is getting traction at lots of different levels right now, nationwide,” says Joshua Chris-
THE KANSAS CITY STAR MAGAZINE
★
May 15, 2011
cover story
Swarming and scooping are part of the fun for Northland Lacrosse and the Lee’s Summit Storm club teams.
A referee prepares to drop the ball in a “draw,” the equivalent of a face-off in hockey or a tip-off in basketball.
tian, managing director for sport development for US Lacrosse. This year, the organization estimates that more than 625,000 players nationwide will be picking up sticks. “It’s intriguing to players because they find elements of other
sports they already know in lacrosse,” he says. “Parents and family members are finding ways to participate as coaches and refs, too.” Also, prime-time exposure for lacrosse is increasing: A lot of cable airtime is devoted to la-
THE KANSAS CITY STAR MAGAZINE
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May 15, 2011
crosse on the sports tiers right now. Growth is occurring mainly in the nontraditional areas — the southeast, Midwest, West and Pacific Northwest, Christian says. “We are trying to connect the dots, area to area, and feed off established leadership in those areas,” he says. “But, it is a bit like the Wild West right now. The experience is not consistent from coast to coast.” Wild West or not, growth of the leagues in Kansas City, by most accounts, is being nicely managed. According to the local chapter of US Lacrosse, 870 boys and 250 girls in the metro area play in leagues that cover grades 2 through 8. At the high school level, about 540 boys and 306 girls play. That’s almost 2,000 young lacrosse athletes in the area, all needing support, supplies and infrastructure. “All of the fields we’ve played
on this year have been turf. Our first game was even at Rockhurst University,” says Dee Denney. “It makes the kids feel special, full of pride, to play on fields like this, especially as a sixth-grader.” What do the kids see when they look at the league? For many, the beginning of a new relationship, one that their children might enjoy someday. “I’ll play lacrosse as long as I can, all the way through college,” says Spencer Denney. “Then as a coach and probably as an official when I can’t play on the field anymore. I’m going to play the rest of my life.” Suzanne P. Cole, a freelance writer in Leawood, is a regular contributor to Star Magazine.
GAME DAY Where to watch championship games: The Kansas City Girls Youth Lacrosse Final Four Championship Tournament will be May 22 at the Blue Valley District Activity Center at 135th Street and Switzer Road. Games begin at 4 p.m. The Kansas City Boys Youth Lacrosse League Championship games will be played on May 22 at Rockhurst University, 10 a.m.-8:30 p.m.
SEE A PHOTO GALLERY AT KANSASCITY.COM. 13
