In my sermon yesterday, I mentioned some of the great work that former Virginia Lacrosse player Wyatt Melzer is doing with Harlem Lacrosse & Leadership , and just today I saw the NYTimes had run this great article about the growth of lacrosse in various areas of New York City:
Dave Sanders for The New York Times
The Whitleys on their way to lacrosse practice at Brooklyn Bridge Park.
By LIZ ROBBINS
Published: September 27, 2013
When Joshua and Jordyn Whitley walk out of their apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, on Sunday mornings, carrying lacrosse sticks almost as tall as they are, they often draw questions from neighbors.
“They say, ‘Is that like tennis?’ ” said their mother, Shekeithra Foster.
Her children’s father, she added, was blunt when Joshua, 8, began playing last summer. “He’s like, ‘What are we putting him in lacrosse for, that’s a white person’s sport!’ ”
It is a perception that still resonates in urban communities. But across New York City, the image of lacrosse is shifting. Nonprofit groups have been attracting a racially and economically diverse population to play a sport, created by Native Americans, that has long been associated with elite prep schools and colleges.
Fall is the sport’s traditional off-season, but last Sunday, Joshua and Jordyn, 6, joined 300 other children on a turf field at Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier 5, for practice with Brooklyn Lacrosse.
The club is a two-year-old nonprofit group offering instruction at a reduced cost. It broke off from the Brooklyn Crescents, the borough’s longest running club, which has been playing since 2006 at Poly Prep Country Day School, in Bay Ridge. The Crescents, still thriving, enrolled 250 players this fall.
Mat Levine, 61, known as lacrosse’s godfather in New York City, started his club, Doc’s NYC Lacrosse, in 1996, when his children were playing. Since then he has expanded the club from Manhattan to the Bronx and Queens. Mr. Levine, who grew up on Long Island and played lacrosse at Williams College, also founded a nonprofit group, CityLax, eight years ago to introduce the sport to high schools in underserved neighborhoods.
Harlem Lacrosse and Leadership, founded in 2008 by Simon Cataldo, a Teach for America fellow, operates in two middle schools, Frederick Douglass Academy and Sojourner Truth, incorporating academics, leadership training and academic advising. To pay for a girls’ program, the group recently ran an Internet campaign that raised $22,000 in less than a week.
Participation in lacrosse in city high schools has nearly doubled since 2009, mostly because of girls’ teams, said Eric Goldstein, the chief executive of school support services for the Education Department (who played in the city’s first public program, at Jamaica High School in 1985). In the last school year, 1,169 public school students played varsity or junior varsity lacrosse, up from 679 in 2009. In the same period, girls’ varsity programs grew to 21, from 10; only girls’ wrestling is growing faster, Mr. Goldstein said.
With the proliferation of social media and ESPN broadcasts that increase the visibility of sports, Mr. Levine said, all the elements were there for growth. “All you need is a ball and a stick, add on a field and kids gravitate toward its action and competitiveness,” he said.
When Joshua and Jordyn Whitley walk out of their apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, on Sunday mornings, carrying lacrosse sticks almost as tall as they are, they often draw questions from neighbors.
“They say, ‘Is that like tennis?’ ” said their mother, Shekeithra Foster.
Her children’s father, she added, was blunt when Joshua, 8, began playing last summer. “He’s like, ‘What are we putting him in lacrosse for, that’s a white person’s sport!’ ”
It is a perception that still resonates in urban communities. But across New York City, the image of lacrosse is shifting. Nonprofit groups have been attracting a racially and economically diverse population to play a sport, created by Native Americans, that has long been associated with elite prep schools and colleges.
Fall is the sport’s traditional off-season, but last Sunday, Joshua and Jordyn, 6, joined 300 other children on a turf field at Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier 5, for practice with Brooklyn Lacrosse.
The club is a two-year-old nonprofit group offering instruction at a reduced cost. It broke off from the Brooklyn Crescents, the borough’s longest running club, which has been playing since 2006 at Poly Prep Country Day School, in Bay Ridge. The Crescents, still thriving, enrolled 250 players this fall.
Mat Levine, 61, known as lacrosse’s godfather in New York City, started his club, Doc’s NYC Lacrosse, in 1996, when his children were playing. Since then he has expanded the club from Manhattan to the Bronx and Queens. Mr. Levine, who grew up on Long Island and played lacrosse at Williams College, also founded a nonprofit group, CityLax, eight years ago to introduce the sport to high schools in underserved neighborhoods.
Harlem Lacrosse and Leadership, founded in 2008 by Simon Cataldo, a Teach for America fellow, operates in two middle schools, Frederick Douglass Academy and Sojourner Truth, incorporating academics, leadership training and academic advising. To pay for a girls’ program, the group recently ran an Internet campaign that raised $22,000 in less than a week.
Participation in lacrosse in city high schools has nearly doubled since 2009, mostly because of girls’ teams, said Eric Goldstein, the chief executive of school support services for the Education Department (who played in the city’s first public program, at Jamaica High School in 1985). In the last school year, 1,169 public school students played varsity or junior varsity lacrosse, up from 679 in 2009. In the same period, girls’ varsity programs grew to 21, from 10; only girls’ wrestling is growing faster, Mr. Goldstein said.
With the proliferation of social media and ESPN broadcasts that increase the visibility of sports, Mr. Levine said, all the elements were there for growth. “All you need is a ball and a stick, add on a field and kids gravitate toward its action and competitiveness,” he said.
See it all HERE
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