I’ve been meaning to write a lacrosse article for weeks now. Ever since Sports Illustrated put lacrosse on their cover (albeit as the secondary story), I’ve wanted to capitalize on their momentum. Since then, other news outlets have been running “lacrosse is hot” pieces. The local News & Observer ran one, the Greensboro News & Record did too, and so did the Philadelphia Inquirer.
In fact, Google News shows that the meme (standard blog term) is spreading across the country. Articles on how hot lax is can be found in Tahoe, Idaho, Green Bay, Salt Lake City, Portland and Santa Cruz.
The sport is hot and for good reason. I’ve played just about every team and individual sport there is. Obviously, I love sports – I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t – but of all the sports I’ve played, I like lacrosse the most. It’s just a hell of a lot of fun to play. It’s fast, it’s tough, there’s plenty of scoring, you can showcase individual skills, you can play tough defense, and let’s face it – the pads and sticks look pretty cool.
On top of that, for all the same reasons that lax is fun to play, it’s a great spectator sport. When I played high school lacrosse, few if any of my teammates’ parents had ever played the game. Few had ever seen it before their sons played, and I bet many had never even heard of it. Nonetheless, many of those parents (including mine) quickly decided that they enjoyed watching those lacrosse games more than any other sport.
So, if you’ve missed out all these years, it’s time to check it out. Hey, all the cool kids are doing it.
For you ACC fans, this weekend is a perfect time. The NCAA Final Four is this weekend and for the first time ever, one conference has three participants. I’ll give you one guess which conference that is….
The ACC has only four varsity lacrosse programs – Duke, Carolina, Virginia and Maryland. All but the Tar Heels are playing this weekend on national TV (ESPN2).
Virginia plays top-ranked Johns Hopkins on Saturday at 11:30 and Duke plays Maryland in the second game.
The national championship game will be held Monday afternoon. I can’t wait!
Site note: I’ll be at the beach all next week, so there likely won’t be any posts for a while. Yeah, I might have some dial-up access, but while I love you guys, I’m not writing while I’m at the beach. To fill your void, head over the Sports Shack and start some chatter. You don’t need to wait for me.
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