**Photo Credit: Photo by Rene Schleicher**
State of the Sport
In honor of our President’s State of the Union Address, I give you the State of the Lacrosse Address.
My fellow lacrosse fans, the state of lacrosse is strong. The 2013 season was a season of parity, the 2014 season will continue with the growth of upstart programs far and wide taking our sport to another level. That’s why my fellow fans, we need to embrace growth of the sport at every level in the North, South, East and West. It is important for our sport to embrace our differences and come together to make our sport even better for our children’s children.
It is my bold vision to increase the growth of this sport at every level by 10 percent over the next three years. We have seen growth at almost every level including men’s and women’s collegiate lacrosse in the past five years, but I feel we can do more.
To do this we have to follow this simple plan:
Encourage smart growth at every level. Start with a youth program before middle school and build from there (EXAMPLE fifth grade team, sixth grade, Middle School, JV, Varsity). Start at the bottom and grow. As you grow, make sure that your town’s players help the younger generation.
At the college level, give programs time to grow. Take your time and hire a coach, let he/she recruit, bring players on campus and practice for a year. The Marquette/High Point men’s lacrosse blue print is an excellent model to follow.
Finally let’s get our local communities to buy into the sport, by aggressively seeking grants and support for startup programs. Support doesn’t have to be money, support can be volunteering your time or donating your equipment. It is a great feeling when you give a youngster a stick.
Weekend Predictions
On February 1 the NCAA season starts with two games with Lehigh at Furman and High Point at Delaware. Here at ILWT, we are going to look at the matchups for this weekend.
My game of the weekend is Furman hosting Lehigh. I’m really excited to see how both teams are going to play defense. For my experience as a coach, the defense always has an edge early in the year over offense. Lehigh is currently ranked in the top 20 and are led by All-American defenseman Ty Souders and two-time All-American Goalie Matt Poillon. Both players are expected to have huge years for the Mountainhawks.
For Furman the defense will begin with A-Sun preseason All-conference selection Ralph D’Agostino. D’Agostino is a transfer from Syracuse University and has the potential to be one of the best cover defenseman in the league.
It’s tough to predict a first year program’s success in one game, put I expect Furman to be very competitive in this contest and I would not be surprised if Lehigh is tested for all four quarters. In the end, I expect Lehigh to win by six over the Paladins.
In the other matchup of the weekend at Delaware, High Point comes into year two with strong goaltending and a well balanced offense. Delaware is the king of early season games in the past decade but, in an upset, I’m calling for High Point to defeat Delaware.
Follow me on twitter: @bchambeaux15
