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Show Page A8 Thursday, July 24, 2003 Times Newspaper UTAH COUNTY LACROSSE Continued from front page kind of have to have a stick in your hand all the time," says Austin. And that doesn't mean just on the field, but carrying it everywhere around the hou.se, to school to get a feel for the sport's most important piece of equipment. His dedication paid off though. Austin, playing midfield, helped lead Timpanogos, in only its first season, to a 9-5 record and an appearance in the state playoffs. Austin finished the 14-game season with 34 goals and nine assists, earning a spot in the state all-star game where received team MVP honors for the South all-stars. But while Austin and Timpanogos are new to the world of lacrosse, they aren't alone. Plenty of others are joining in the pursuit pur-suit of a sport that isn't by any means new. North Americas' oldest sport and touted as "the fastest game on two feet" by coaches and players, lacrosse was started by Native Americans and used as a way to "resolve conflicts, con-flicts, heal the sick, and develop strong, virile men," according to the U.S. Lacrosse Web site (www.lacrosse.org). The sport has changed over the years, though, starting to take its current form when it was standardized in 1867, according to U.S. Lacrosse. In a modern game of men's lacrosse, each team has 10 players on the field a goalie, three defenders, three midfielders and three attackers. Four players must remain on the defensive side of the field, three on the offensive side and the other three, the midfielders, may move over the entire field. The equipment for lacrosse is pretty basic. Players wear shoulder pads, gloves and a helmet. hel-met. The goalie also wears a chest protector. The most important piece of equipment, though, is the stick. Players use the stick, which has a woven pocket at the end, to catch, control and throw the ball. While the sport is similar to hockey and soccer in that the players are trying to put the ball just slightly smaller than a tennis ball into a goal, lacrosse also includes an element ele-ment of football because men's lacrosse is definitely def-initely a contact sport. Players can body check each other and there is a nearly continuous clashing of sticks as players battle for the ball. And it's this combination of various sports that serves to make lacrosse so appealing to newcomers. "What most boys find is it's a fast enough moving game, there is enough physical contact con-tact and it combines sports they already know," said Timpanogos coach Bill Peperone. Austin said, "Every sport, like every fun aspect of every sport is in lacrosse." The style of play is much like his old sport of basketball except, he says with a smile, players can hit. "Basically, you can punch them if you've got your hands on your stick "Austin pauses to demonstrate, whipping his stick around like he "Now there's more interest than opportunity oppor-tunity by far." Jason Lamb BYU men's lacrosse coach . -,5, . pholo by l.andon OhonlTimes Newspaper Stone Peterson lays a hit on Austin Gunther during a scrimmage while Mike Marsh (11) and Kiffer Duke look on. was performing a wicked cross-check in hockey, hock-ey, and you can just push them around. "Everybody hits and it's just crazy. Sometimes it gets a little bit like jungle ball," he said. With all the different aspects of lacrosse, the sport is wide open in giving different types of athletes the opportunity to play. Size, speed, agility and smarts are all valuable traits for a lacrosse player. Specific characteristics character-istics aren't as important, such as height is for basketball or size is for football, Lamb says. Austin said, "If you can have your style and stick to that style, you can be successful. Youll look at the Timpanogos team and youll look at us, if you saw us without our helmets on and our shoulder pads and our jerseys, you'd be like, You guys play a sport?' We're all different." While the players are different, lacrosse also competes in a different season, giving it another advantage in drawing players, Lamb said. Although having some competition from baseball and track, being played in the spring lacrosse isn't going up against football and basketball. Instead, it provides an alternative sport for athletes to participate in when their main sport may be out of season. And with all the aspects in it's favor, lacrosse is growing at a phenomenal rate both in Utah County and across the country. According to the Utah High School Lacrosse League Web site (www.uhsll.org), there are 32 teams in Utah from Cache Valley down to Utah County, and four of those just finished their inaugural season. Peperone said Timpanogos had about 30 boys competing and is looking to add a junior varsity team next year and this is at a school that's had the sport for only a season. There are over 250,000 active lacrosse players in the United States, and 80 percent of those are under the age of 18, according to the US Lacrosse Web site. Additionally, US Lacrosse reports more than 74,000 high schools players, and that's only from states where the sport is sanctioned. In Utah, lacrosse is unsanctioned by the Utah High School Activities Association, although that's something coaches and players are looking to change. Michael Duke, the high school lacrosse commissioner com-missioner for the state and a coach at Timpanogos last spring, said currently lacrosse teams can get authorization from high schools to act as a club, but the school really isn't involved. Work is underway, though, to get lacrosse sanctioned as a team sport in Utah high schools, and the hope is this will be achieved within the next couple of years. While the teams are working toward sanctioning they continue to grow, but all the growth of the sport isn't just spontaneous. sponta-neous. In Utah County there has been a push to get more players involved, and coaches and players are in general agreement agree-ment about who is behind that push: BYU lacrosse coach Jason Lamb. Although Lamb said he doesn't deserve much credit, he said, "I've done a few things specifically that I could honestly put my finger fin-ger on and say, "You know what? That really did a lot of good." One of those things has been getting a league established at the junior high level, which Lamb did in the fall of 2001. In 2001 there were 120 kids competing at six junior highs, in 2002, 160 at eight junior highs and for 2003, Lamb projects over 200 participants on 10 teams. The biggest benefit of the junior high teams, he said, is that it carries over and provides pro-vides an interest and experience once the kids enter high school. "If I go out and work with 11th and 12th graders, is all I'm doing is making that team somewhat better, but tomorrow, the fruits of that are all gone," Lamb said. The result of his junior high program has been the addition of two new Utah County high school teams Timpanogos and Lone Peak and the potential to have new teams at Provo, Timpview and Pleasant Grove by next spring. To make it easier for potential players to get involved, Lamb has also taken steps to reduce the start-up costs. Peperone said with $200 for equipment, $35 to register with U.S. Lacrosse and $100 to register with Utah Lacrosse, startup costs are about $350. But Lamb has taken some of the sting out of that by offering season equipment rentals for only $40 to players who are signed up in Fx photo by l.andon Ohon limes Newspaper Austin Gunther (21), a graduated midfield from Timpanogos High, tries to Jump around the goal to take a shot while midfielder Jake Buckner and coach Michael Duke defend. his leagues. In some of the leagues, the stick has even been included with the sign-up costs. Once players are involved and want to improve their game, Lamb also offers camps at BYU. Started six years ago, Lamb said the intent of the camps was to provide a recruiting opportunity for him at BYU, but they've grown into much more. In 1997, only 20 boys attended the first camp, but by this year, Lamb said he expects 300 boys, ages 7-18, to attend. Lacrosse isn't limited to boys by any means though. Girls lacrosse is also catching on in the area and Lamb said he's working on furthering it. He's added a camp for girls in only it's third year it had 60 participants this summer and is working on starting leagues for them. "I'm starting to feel this obligation to get the girls off the ground," Lamb said. Currently, the only high school girls team in Orem is at Orem High and it won the girls state championship this spring. Another sign of the growth of lacrosse in the area is the opening of The Lacrosse Shop. Originally in Pleasant Grove after opening last December, it quickly outgrew its location and has since moved to 170 W. Center Street in Provo. "We decided if lacrosse is going to grow, we have to have a store so people could try things," said Duke, who is the owner of the shop. While lacrosse is becoming more popular, the increase in participation has led to some growing pains. One of the problems, Lamb said, is that while youngsters are interested in joining teams and playing, there is a lack of knowledgeable knowl-edgeable adults or older players to serve as coaches. For other sports, such as baseball, Lamb said parents usually know something about the sport and are willing to give coaching coach-ing a try, but with lacrosse, the knowledge isn't there. "There are dads out there who have never seen a game, never played a game, they don't know the rules, they don't know the first thing about it," Lamb said. But while coaching is a prohibitor, it is one that can be solved by educating people about the sport. The struggle that doesn't go away so easily is trying to find field space. "Soccer has swallowed up every stitch of grass out here, except for the ones cows use," Lamb says. "It's unbelievable. I've looked under every rug and nook and cranny to find fields and soccer has got a stronghold on all the grass." .Lacrosse may receive more priority as interest grows and it becomes incorporated in UTAH COUNTY LACROSSE Four high schools in Utah County currently have boys club lacrosse teams: Orem, Mountain View, Lone Peak and Timpanogos. Boys lacrosse will be played at an estimated 10 Utah County junior high schools this fall. Orem High has the only girls high school lacrosse team in Orem. It won the state girls championship this spring. city recreation programs, but until then, Lamb said he's just trying to get kids exposed to the sport any way he can. "We're looking for ways to grow," he said. "It's an exciting time for the game, on all levels, not just youth college and boys and girls." And his attempts to grow the sport seem to be working, as Lamb admits the number of players is outstripping the chance to play. "Now there's more interest than opportunity opportuni-ty by far," he said. Once players get an opportunity, though, they usually stick with the sport. "It's rare to have a boy try it and say, Nah, I don't like it," Peperone said. Austin said he plans to play in college, and a school having a lacrosse team is one of the things he'll now be looking for when deciding on what university to attend. "Wherever I go to college, I'm going to play lacrosse," he said. And that's the kind of thing coaches like Lamb like to hear. As more players get involved at younger ages and stay with the sport, it serves to strengthen college programs, and in turn expand lacrosse more. With players get ting into the sport and staying into it, it's spawned a situation of interest creating more interest. Austin said once he started playing, five or six other players joined the team when they saw what he was doing. "With lacrosse it was kind of just that spark, they saw us and thought, 'Oh, that looks like fun,' and so they got into it really quick." And that spark has also spread to people who aren't even players. Austin said a lot of spectators would come to the games to see what the sport was about, and then keep coming com-ing back. Kurt Gunther, Austin's father, said, "It is the most fun sport that I've ever watched. It's unbelievable. "They hit hard. There were some games this year, there was more hitting and it was more intense than any football game I've ever watched." And that comes from a former football foot-ball player. With such enthusiasm from coaches, players play-ers and fans, it's likely the sport will keep growing in the area, possibly becoming what it is in the East where Lamb says it's already more popular than baseball. So in the future there's a chance of lacrosse rivaling some of Utah's more traditional high school sports. It could be lacrosse packing in the crowds on a warm spring evening, much like football does in the fall, but instead of gridiron dreams, the youth in stands will be cradling their lacrosse sticks trying to get a feel for them, already hooked on the sport. 4 I I it rVVe have an Extensive Credit Program. We can help with a New or Used car and Reestablish your credit. No Hassle 24 hr. Credit Line. (801)492-1870 Or For One-on One Help Call Jake at 492-0100 DOUG - JTjfiTO ATTTOPLEX I VI I I UTI Mm Family Owned & Operated 523 W. Main, American Fork, Utah Exit 281 801-492-1110 uvsc Ragan Theatre July 24-26, 28, 7:00 pm Utah LmSP$? jfcfjj mLw 863-8797 for tickets Saw Competitive Rates Great Service Se Habla Espanol Call for a Quote Today, You'll be Glad You Did. Lender Insurance, Inc. Professional Plaza 382 W Center St. 2,xl Orem |