give youth players plenty of opportunities to play in the summer and fall once school seasons have ended. Banks, who founded LB3 in 2008, has become one of the sport’s Pied Pipers in Atlanta. “We started this because we want to teach, so we brought down some of the best teachers in the world to come to LB3,” he said.
Banks cited two hurdles — experienced coaches and experienced officials. LB3 hosts coaching clinics and US Lacrosse has made multiple forways into Georgia to provide instruction for first-generation participants, and gradually there will be more experienced players returning to become coaches. “The effort is there, but to evolve to a Long Island level, a Baltimore level, we need people like Scott Ratliff, who went through the system, to then come back to teach,”
24 LACROSSE MAGAZINE »April 2016
Banks said. “Lacrosse is such a fun sport to play. A lot of parents say, ‘I wish I had this sport when I was younger.’ I hear that all the time.”
Girls’ lacrosse has grown at about the same rate in Georgia, and the flagship high school program is Milton. The Eagles have won 10 state championships and sent six players to Division I programs in 2015. They also have a mind-boggling 14 players committed to Division I schools on the current roster, including destinations like Notre Dame, Northwestern, Vanderbilt and Columbia. The growth of lacrosse in Georgia goes beyond the youth and high school levels. The Atlanta area now is home to not one, but two professional lacrosse franchises.
After holding a regular- season game and two league championship games
at Kennesaw State north of Atlanta, the MLL decided to bring an expansion team to Cobb County this summer, with Ratliff and No. 1 draft pick Myles Jones as marquee players for the Blaze. The National Lacrosse League’s Swarm relocated from Minneapolis to Duluth, Ga., and are playing their first season in this emerging market with two more high- profile players — brothers Miles and Lyle Thompson. And on the college level, in addition to the Cobb County Classic in February, Kennesaw State will host the ACC tournament from April 29-May 1 that will almost certainly feature teams bound for the final four. “I’m not sure Baltimore has had a better year in terms of lacrosse,” Notre Dame coach Kevin Corrigan said. “That’s some terrific stuff.”
Banks sees the positives of the growth of the sport,
A Publication of US Lacrosse
“We have to commit to educating coaches and officials, and then the sky is the limit for lacrosse here.”
— Liam Banks,
founder and president of LB3 Lacrosse in Atlanta.
©MLL
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