Lacrosse 
Introduction:
When people
think of sports related to the United States, many people think of baseball,
basketball, and American football. Although all these sports were established
in America, the one sport that came before them all was lacrosse. Lacrosse is
considered to be America's first sport. It was first invented by the Native
Americans well over a century ago and then adapted to be part of the French and
Canadian cultures as well. The sport of lacrosse is a very unique activity. Lacrosse is a
sport that has many qualities of many other sports. It is somewhat of a
combination of basketball, soccer, and hockey. It is a game that requires
speed, coordination, quickness, and agility the game, played by the Native
Americans by a Jesuit missionary in the 1600s. He named the sport Lacrosse
because the sticks looked like the crosses carried by priests. It is a game
that is full of long field sprints with precision passing and dodging. Lacrosse
had many different versions like two of the main Indian tribes that
participated in this sport were the Cherokee and the Iroquois. Some other
tribes would use two sticks at once but it is mainly played with one. Lacrosse has
four major types: men's field lacrosse, women's lacrosse, box lacrosse and
intercrosses. The sport consists of four positions: midfield, attack, defense,
and goalie. At times men and women would compete with and against each other,
but for the most part women had their own version that they would play
separately.
History of Lacrosse:
Lacrosse was
invented by the Native Americans in the early 1500's as a part of their
religion. It was played to as a way to help resolve conflicts, heal the sick,
and strengthen the men of the tribes. To the natives, lacrosse is still known
as the creator's game because it was also used to help prepare
them for war. In early stories of lacrosse, it told of games with more than
1,000 players on each team from the same or different tribes. They would take turns playing in the violent contests on
a field anywhere from one to fifteen miles long in games that could last days
at a time. Although this is how lacrosse was started, it was drastically
changed in 1648 by a Jesuit missionary by the name of Jean de Brebeuf. While on
a missionary trip around the Native American tribes of the northeast, he
encountered forty eight different tribes playing lacrosse. When he was finished
with his mission and returned to Canada, he told the pioneers of the sport he
saw and they began to play. Then in 1867, Canadian George Beers standardized
the game of lacrosse with field dimensions, set number of players, and other
vague basic rules. This helped to establish the first collegiate team in 1877
by New York University.
As the sport
began to grow, it started to become recognized as an international sport and
was featured as an Olympic sport in 1904 and 1908 with teams from Canada, the
United States, and Great Britain. After 1908, lacrosse was not played in the
Olympics again until the 1928 games as an exhibition sport and not an actual
event. Although it did not gain much recognition as an Olympic sport, it helped
the growth of lacrosse as a collegiate sport. In 1905, the intercollegiate
lacrosse league was formed. This league contained a northern and southern
conference that was made up of teams primarily from the northeast. In other
countries, the sport is also played at a high level on the amateur level by the
Australian Lacrosse League, the Canadian University Field Lacrosse Association,
and club lacrosse leagues internationally. Lacrosse has
been one of the fastest growing team sports in the US, and that trend continued
last year. In 2013, nearly 750,000 players participated in lacrosse on
organized teams, an increase of nearly 25,000 players from the year before.
Lacrosse equipment:
If
someone interested in lacrosse first needs to get the equipment to play
Lacrosse. All of the equipment is a lacrosse stick, including the shaft and
head Shoulder pads, rib pads, elbow pads, gloves, helmet, and a mouth piece. For someone who is just starting to play
I recommend buying only a stick and possibly
Gloves so you can feel how to handle the stick while wearing
lacrosse gloves. The reason someone just starting out shouldn't buy all the
equipment is because Lacrosse equipment usually expensive and if that person doesn't
like the sport .Then they don't have all
the equipment put to no use. There are three main components of a stick:
•The head. This is the (usually plastic) piece at the top of the
stick that the ball is controlled with.
•The mesh. This is the rope inlay inside the head, known also as the
stringing. Mesh helps you field, catch, and throw balls.
•The shaft. Traditionally made out of wood, shafts nowadays are made
of strong metal alloys and have varying weights and strength.
How to play lacrosse:
Lacrosse
is a fast moving sport. There are 10 people from a team on the field at a time
(20 people on the field total). As we say before, the sport consists of four
positions: midfield, attack, defense, and goalie. There are 3 attack men, 3 midfielders,
3 defensemen and 1 goalie. Much like basketball, there are 4 quarters in a game, and the team
with the most points at the end of the games wins. A player scores by shooting
the ball from their stick's pocket into the opposing team's goal. The lacrosse
ball is about the size of a baseball. It is a solid rubber ball. The other team
can try to get the ball out of your stick by: hitting you with their stick,
hitting you with their body. To prevent the ball from falling out, a player must
cradle the ball. Outside shooting is also important for middies. A good outside
shooting threat can cause the defense to completely shift their game. The player carrying the ball can get
past the defenseman by using different dodges. Some of these dodges include:
Face dodge, Split dodge, and Bull dodge. The face dodge is probably the easiest
dodge to learn and is also very effective. After catching the ball from a
teammate, the defense man is usually going to play man-to-man, which is where
he is right on the player trying to get the ball out of the stick. As he
charges out at the person with the ball, which at the time is in his right
hand, that person winds up to take a shot or fakes a pass, both are done by
pulling you stick slightly behind your head. High school games are usually 48
minutes long, 12 minutes each quarter. Each team is given a two minute break
between the first, second, third, and fourth quarters. Half-time is ten minutes
long. Teams change sides between periods, and each team is permitted two
time-outs each half. The team winning the coin toss chooses the end of the
field it wants to defend first. Players can run with the ball in the Crosse,
and pass and catch the ball. Only the goalie can touch the ball with his hands.
How to be a good Lacrosse player:
Lacrosse is a
sport that is very demanding on the body. In lacrosse you need to know the
rules before you play, just like any sport or game, the equipment, and
different skills and techniques to handle the ball and stick. To be a good
lacrosse player, you must have strength in all five aspects of physical
fitness. Lacrosse incorporates a lot of running, so one must be strong in
cardiovascular fitness and muscular endurance. To pass the ball, check a
player, catch a ball, etc.
Rules of Lacrosse:
The rules of Lacrosse are complex and it is
imperative that a Referee knows them intimately through on-going close study
and scrutiny. Three organizations write rules for lacrosse played in the United
States , US Lacrosse (youth rules for boys and girls, high school rules for
girls, non-varsity collegiate rules for women, post-collegiate rules for men
and women), the National Federation of State High School Associations (high
school rules for boys), and the NCAA (varsity collegiate rules for men and
women). But it have some common lacrosse field for both men’s and women’s field
lacrosse such as increased chance of having permanent lines included in
synthetic surfaces, Reduced time required to mark both a men’s and women’s
field, Less confusion regarding what line is used for what game and Goals can
be permanent on grass fields and not have to move for each game. The rules of
women's lacrosse different from men's lacrosse for example the size of field
for women's reduced from 15 yard to 12 m
(13.12 yard) to 120m x 60m to 110m x 60m , the space behind goal reduced from
15m to 12m for women's and the men's reduced from 15 yard to 12 m (13.12 yard)
. However, the rules cannot cover such crucial factors as the philosophy of
refereeing, referee positioning, team-work and field mechanics.
In summary:
Lacrosse is the oldest known sport in North America. The game, played by
the Native Americans, was seen by a Jesuit missionary in the 1600s. He named
the sport Lacrosse because the sticks looked like the crosses carried by
priests. It was played mainly to train the players for real battle, and
sometimes to settle disputes between tribes. In the early 1900s, lacrosse
became a recognized sport as it was played in the Olympics, and the United
States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (USILA). Each team must
have at least four players, goalie also, in the defensive half of the field.
Three players in its offensive half and three midfielders may move through the
entire field. The rules of Lacrosse are complex and differ between men's and
women's. Today, Lacrosse became one of important sport in US and Europe that
has many colleges to study it.
References:
1.
Lacrosse.
(2014, July 12). Retrieved December 10, 2014, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacrosse
2.
History
of Lacrosse - US Lacrosse. (n.d.). Retrieved December 10, 2014, from
http://www.uslacrosse.org/about-the-sport/history.aspx
3.
SportsKnowHow.com
- HISTORY OF LACROSSE- Page 1 of 2. (n.d.). Retrieved December 10, 2014, from http://www.sportsknowhow.com/lacrosse/history/lacrosse-history.shtml
4.
Lacrosse
Rules and Regulations - English Lacrosse. (n.d.). Retrieved December 10, 2014,
from http://www.englishlacrosse.co.uk/lacrosse-rules-and-regulations/
5.
Lacrosse.
(n.d.). Retrieved December 10, 2014, from http://englacrosse.s3.amazonaws.com/media/2012/08/Referee_Manual_Mens_Field.pdf
6.
Women's
Lacrosse Rules. (n.d.). Retrieved December 10, 2014, from
http://www.uslacrosse.org/rules/womens-rules.aspx
7.
How
to Play Lacrosse. (n.d.). Retrieved December 10, 2014, from
http://www.wikihow.com/Play-Lacrosse
