National Championship Chase

[bsquared24]

I would love to bring home some team Ntl Championship besides Disc Golf and watching Duke win LAX for the 3rd time in 5 years I couldn't help but think what a team would look like if gave 10 LAX practices to a team made up players of Nik Whitloe, Ashton Shumpert, Beni Brown, Bohanna and their immense athletic abilities. Looking at the top 10 rankings they include Denver, Loyola, Albany, Johns Hopkins and Cornell. I know we got amazingly better athletes than those places can draw.

I know a complete figment of the imagination but fun to think about. I would think we could also put together a pretty good rifle team like W. Virginia or Memphis.

http://youtu.be/p9UvE3IjCeI

 

[WayboDawg]

I used to play on the MSU Lacrosse team, and let me tell you, that game is freakin hard to play! Just keeping the ball in your net while running down the field with defenders attacking you takes weeks and weeks of practice to keep from dropping the ball every 5 steps. We actually had some great athletes on our team (one was even a former defensive back for MSU), but we would get our butts handed to us by the decent teams like LSU. But even if you have an undefeated team, you can't just play in the NCAA tourney. It takes years of winning seasons just to move up out of club sport class into the NCAA classification. Don't let the small school names like Johns Hopkins or Cornell fool you, those teams have outstanding athletes who were playing in top notch lacrosse leagues back when they were old enough to walk. Lacrosse is really only a major sport in New England among prep school kids, so lack of interest at the grade school level here in the south seriously hurts your southern universities that try to pick up the sport. MSU is just in the wrong part of the country to ever think about sniffing the Natty in lacrosse. It would almost be like Harvard or Yale trying to compete directly with the SEC schools for a football national title these days. Ain't gonna happen....

 

[patdog]

My nephew played lacrosse at Homewood HS in Alabama. Very fun game to watch. From playing around with him & my bro-in-law in the back yard, I can attest to the fact that just keeping the ball in your net while you run more than about 10 yards is not nearly as easy as you would think. A few schools in MS have played a little lacrosse off and on. St. Andrews had a team for a year or two, but the coach moved to Mountain Brook, AL and that was the end of that. Last fall I saw someone wearing a Madison LAX shirt at a Madison Central football game and I've seen some kids practicing at the Tulane fields in town, but I have no idea how organized they are or how much they're playing tournaments, etc.

 

[Optimus Prime 4]

Hardest sport I ever played, and you need to be in better shape than any other I

played. Even those in the absolute best shape from other sports couldn't play more than a few minutes without changing lines. You hit the crap out of people in minimal pads, and throw a hard ball over 120mph, not to mention all the hand-eye coordination needed.

I played in high school 20 years ago, it's a lot more of an entrenched sport now. UNC and Duke always have good teams, I think UVA does too, so it's in the south, pretty big in the Carolinas and Virginia, got some foothold in georgia. It's in the south, just not the deep south.

 

[Lawdawg.sixpack]

Our intramural team could've won the ultimate Frisbee title, had it existed (or had we known) back around 2000. Watched some of the "national championships" on espnu.

You just need a couple of guys who can really throw. Add a couple of guys who could go get the long balls like Craig Sword Bear Wilson or FTF, and guys who can get open easily on short stuff like Tubby, and you're set.

/wanna bet I can throw a Frisbee over those mountains?

 

[UnknownDawg]

Lax is currently the fastest growing sport in the US. As stated, it is slowly moving south but obviously much more prevalent in the NE & West Coast. Both of my sons have been playing for 4 or 5 years here in Memphis and play on tournament travel teams. My boys play for MUS where it is big and several private schools here in town & a few public schools offer it as well. We have been able to compete outside of TN with some schools in St. Louis & Charlotte and other southern, but not deep south, cities. MUS has dominated the Memphis area in high school lacrosse and pretty much the state. But to compete in national tournaments, it usually takes a competitive program of all stars from here. Our club has been very successful and is probably considered a top ten club program in the country. In the last 3 years, college scholarship offers for our seniors have gone up dramatically though only 1 or 2 have been signed by national programs like North Carolina & Hopkins. Overall, it is moving south, albeit slowly, and some programs here in TN and AL (Bamalax) & Atlanta are beginning to get their kids noticed on the college level. Great sport to watch & very demanding physically. And as someone said, it takes years of practice to get a kid to the level where he can compete with the studs in the NE.

 

[aTotal360]

Look out. Lacrosse is the new soccer.

 

[WayboDawg]

It is a fun sport, but you have to be in great cardiovascular shape to compete because there are no stopages like with football. There are a lot of hard hits and I have had my clock cleaned a few times myself. Balancing and shooting the ball were the hardest to me.

Most southerners don't even have lacrosse on their radar as a sport and I'm not sure why that is really. The northeastern folks really love the sport though. Some schools will even support a lacrosse team before despite not having other sports like football.

 

[davidn.sixpack]

I used to play on the MSU Lacrosse team, and let me tell you, that game is freakin hard to play! Just keeping the ball in your net while running down the field with defenders attacking you takes weeks and weeks of practice to keep from dropping the ball every 5 steps. We actually had some great athletes on our team (one was even a former defensive back for MSU), but we would get our butts handed to us by the decent teams like LSU. But even if you have an undefeated team, you can't just play in the NCAA tourney. It takes years of winning seasons just to move up out of club sport class into the NCAA classification. Don't let the small school names like Johns Hopkins or Cornell fool you, those teams have outstanding athletes who were playing in top notch lacrosse leagues back when they were old enough to walk. Lacrosse is really only a major sport in New England among prep school kids, so lack of interest at the grade school level here in the south seriously hurts your southern universities that try to pick up the sport. MSU is just in the wrong part of the country to ever think about sniffing the Natty in lacrosse. It would almost be like Harvard or Yale trying to compete directly with the SEC schools for a football national title these days. Ain't gonna happen....

A couple of things. University of Richmond went from a club program to an NCAA program in 1 year. They also played in the NCAAs this year their first season. Just like anything else if the teams in SEC started adding Lacrosse as a D1 sport they would start winning like they do in ever other sport. Jim Brown's was considered one of the best to ever play lacrosse and he wasn't a bad football player either.

http://www.richmondspiders.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=26800&ATCLID=209488569

 

[WayboDawg]

A couple of things. University of Richmond went from a club program to an NCAA program in 1 year. They also played in the NCAAs this year their first season. Just like anything else if the teams in SEC started adding Lacrosse as a D1 sport they would start winning like they do in ever other sport. Jim Brown's was considered one of the best to ever play lacrosse and he wasn't a bad football player either.

http://www.richmondspiders.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=26800&ATCLID=209488569

Richmond is also in the Northeast and has the opportunity to play top schools unlike down here in the deep south where no respectable lacrosse program is going to travel 9 hours just to stomp a bunch of scrub players 25-0. You have to be able to play and beat good teams in order to step up in classification if I'm remembering correctly. Richmond would also have access to students who had played on respectable lacrosse teams in high school. We might have had 4 or 5 people out of 20 that had actually played organized lacrosse in high school on our MSU club team.

Jim Brown was a freak athlete that was a multi sport athlete over 50 years ago. These days you have to specialize if you want to excel in any sport. There are just too many great athletes out their now. Trust me, lacrosse is a sport you have to dedicate yourself to if you want to be any good at it. It's not as simple as soccer or basketball to pick up and play.

 

[dickiedawg]

Sunday morning they had a segment on Sportscenter about a couple of Native American brothers at UAlbany that were basically the best scoring combo in the country. It was pretty interesting, how basically these Native American kids are living and breathing lacrosse (not to stereotype or anything but that was one of my takeaways) and the Universities are finally taking notice and starting to recruit them. Both brothers are finalists for the POTY award, which no Native American has ever won.

 

[davidn.sixpack]

Richmond is also in the Northeast and has the opportunity to play top schools unlike down here in the deep south where no respectable lacrosse program is going to travel 9 hours just to stomp a bunch of scrub players 25-0. You have to be able to play and beat good teams in order to step up in classification if I'm remembering correctly. Richmond would also have access to students who had played on respectable lacrosse teams in high school. We might have had 4 or 5 people out of 20 that had actually played organized lacrosse in high school on our MSU club team.

Jim Brown was a freak athlete that was a multi sport athlete over 50 years ago. These days you have to specialize if you want to excel in any sport. There are just too many great athletes out their now. Trust me, lacrosse is a sport you have to dedicate yourself to if you want to be any good at it. It's not as simple as soccer or basketball to pick up and play.

I played for the original MSU Lacrosse club from 1990 to 1994. I have played and refereed LAX all over the the US. I know what it takes to play. Lacrosse is actually going to be a varsity sport in Richmond high schools starting in 2014-2015 school year. It has always been a private school sport. University of Richmond can attract NE talent but the SELC league had some very good teams in it when I played there. Florida, LSU, Auburn, and Alabama were tough. We played LSU and Texas A&M in the Madi Gras Invitational a couple of times and they were deep.

 

[WayboDawg]

It has always been a private school sport.

I agree. Not sure why this is the case however. Lacrosse is a contact sport, which should make it an attractive sport to blue collar kids. Most public high school kids here in Mississippi will never get the chance to play it though.