FUEL
GROWTH It’s About Communities
Susie Chase
You can’t have a conversation about growth without talking about diversity and inclusion. We’re not talking about giving a kid a stick, and expecting it to stick from there. We have to do better. We have to build and resource communities, so those communities can grow the sport with us.
ROUNDTABLE
HOW DO YOU GROW THE GAME?
US Lacrosse hosted more than 30 lacrosse and sports industry leaders Oct. 26 at its national headquarters in Sparks, Md., to address growing concerns over the sport’s flattening participation rate.
The group, which included representatives of leading lacrosse manufacturers and retailers, rallied around the Lacrosse Athlete Development Model, a player-centric initiative that aims to “square the pyramid” of lacrosse participation by rethinking how it is packaged at the introductory levels. Small-sided play (i.e., 3-on-3 or 7-on-7) is but one component of the model, which also emphasizes physical literacy and age- appropriate training tactics as part of a more holistic approach to developing young athletes. “We need you,” Steve Stenersen, president and CEO of US Lacrosse, said in his presentation to the group. “The sport needs us.”
LADM is “the most visionary program” in US Lacrosse history, said Ann Carpenetti, vice president of lacrosse operations at US Lacrosse, “a game changer that if you all get behind it, it’s an opportunity to grow the game and keep players safe.” By the end of the four-hour summit, the industry leaders were all-in on LADM. Here’s what else we heard.
The Hockey Parallel
James Miceli
Jerry Scott
Instead of playing for the love of the game and developing organic play, the athlete is chasing the elusive scholarships at a multitude of tournaments and facing possible burnout.
Joe Taylor
[The decline of] rec lax is the problem. There’s not a home for a kid to play and just have fun.
Minnesota has a huge hockey community. What we see in hockey is guys will play and skate until 60 or 70 years old. How do we keep people in the game?
Steve Stenersen
Wherever you fall off the pyramid, you’re done. Even if you go through college, they are focused on their careers, and they drop off the face of the game. We lose them for 10 years, and maybe they pop up again.
Ed Saunders
There was a period in the early 2000s when ice hockey had a day of reckoning, similar to what you see in lacrosse now. The industry huddled around the One Goal Program with the NHL, manufacturers and governing bodies. The goal was to get 1 million people to at least try the sport.
With the hockey parallel, they have two things we don’t: the NHL and the Olympics, two high- profile marketing platforms.
Steve Stenersen
Tom Cove
Over the last 10 years, only two team sports have grown consistently: hockey and lacrosse. Lacrosse is still in a very good growth position. In the last three weeks, I’ve probably been to five of these meetings. There was the hockey summit in Canada. USA Football discussed modified rules with smaller sides using half the field and everybody playing every position. Does this sound familiar? MLB is putting millions of dollars into Play Ball. In tennis, they focused on young players, and there was a big change, creating age- appropriate products to help kids enjoy the game.
18 US LACROSSE MAGAZINE December 2016
USlacrosse.org
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