Where Is Lacrosse The Most Popular?
Recently, we’ve answered questions such as which college is the best for lacrosse. This article got me thinking of the New York – Maryland lacrosse rivalry, and which area reigns supreme. I decided I wanted to take a look and see exactly, “Where is lacrosse the most popular?”
Here’s how I plan to tackle this question.
First, I will compare the total number of participants in the sport at the youth levels and compare it with the rate at which the sport is growing in the area compared to five years ago. Then, I will also take a look at the number of high school and college teams — whether that is NCAA, NAIA, MCLA, or WCLA — in addition to whether there is a professional lacrosse presence in the area. The success of the college and pro teams will also be taken into consideration in terms of how many championships they have won. Finally, I will look at the percentage of athletes in high school that play lacrosse compared to the total number of athletes in that state.
There are a few things I should mention about how I collected the data.
I referenced 2018-2019 High School Athletics Participation Survey released by the National Federation of State High School Associations for the high school data. This survey broke down not only participation of boys and girls athletes in various sports, but by state as well. The US Lacrosse Participation Reports unfortunately doesn’t give a state-by-state breakdown. Here’s the problem with the NFHS survey: it only reflects data from the state’s high school athletic associations. Makes sense, considering that is what the organization is all about. Anyway, that means that states that haven’t played a sanctioned season of lacrosse at the high school level in the state are not included on the 2018-2019 survey. So, states like Utah that are entering its first season of lacrosse as a sanctioned sport aren’t counted in this survey. While this may leave out some states that could very well be growing at an incredible rate, I don’t think it will eliminate the states where lacrosse is the most popular based on the criteria I have already established.
As a result, I have only included the states with lacrosse sanctioned at the high school level for consideration in the data table below.
The Data
Insights
New York is the with the most total number of high school athletes participating in lacrosse, as well as number of male high school lacrosse players and the most number of female high school lacrosse players. The also have the largest number of high schools playing lacrosse out of all of the sanctioned states with 314. Not only does New York have the largest amount of players and high schools in the country, but they also have the most NCAA lacrosse teams — men’s and women’s combined number of programs — as well as the highest number of professional lacrosse teams (you can actually see exactly which lacrosse teams are located in each state in our database of NCAA lacrosse teams here). In terms of percentages, New York is fifth out of all of the states in the category of the percentage of male high school athletes playing lacrosse, as well as ninth in terms of women’s high school athletes playing lacrosse.
However, it seems that New York has not only stagnated in its growth in terms of the number of lacrosse players from 5 years ago, but has declined by close to 7 percent from 5 years ago. In terms of the rate of growth of lacrosse in the states we have data for, it ranks 23 out of the 26 states.
Interestingly enough, Colorado is the state at which the total number of lacrosse participants has been declining the most rapidly. Compared to 5 years ago, participation in high school lacrosse has dropped nearly 13 percent among sanctioned high schools in the state. Other states that have seen a decline in participation over the last five years are Maine (-0.42 percent), Connecticut (-3.14 percent), New Hampshire (-4.87 percent), Delaware (-6.86 percent, Vermont (9.25 percent) and New Jersey (-10.90 percent).
Illinois has been the state that has grown the most at the high school level, as they have seen a 649 percent increase in participation among boys and girls combined over the last five years.
They went from 973 total athletes participating to 7,290 lacrosse players playing in the Illinois high school sanctioned lacrosse system. Pretty cool!
Ohio is the state that has grown at the second-fastest rate — not counting Arkansas, which has grown by over 500% but in reality has only gained 126 new players — at a 40 percent increase. Missouri is next, as lacrosse among girls high school players has grown 30 percent in the last five years, while there is no data available for boys high school players. Florida (27 percent) and California (26 percent) come in the next two spots.
California is actually the state that has the second-most number of lacrosse players with just over 20,000 athletes in 273 boys and 279 girls high school teams. Both of those numbers of high school teams for boys and girls are both second in the nation in those categories.
Delaware takes the top spot for number of boys athletes playing lacrosse compared to other sports — undoubtedly aided by its small population — while Maryland is the state with the highest percentage of girls athletes playing lacrosse.
New York’s top ranking as the state with the most college lacrosse teams has the Empire State with a national best 150 NCAA lacrosse teams competing. Pennsylvania is second on that list, with 121 teams. Massachusetts is third with 77, while Ohio is actually the state with the fourth-most NCAA lacrosse teams with 51 teams.
Where Lacrosse Is The Most Popular
Based on the above data and insights, it’s pretty clear lacrosse is the currently the most popular in New York based on the total number of high school players and teams, NCAA teams and professional teams. However, it is interesting that the sport has decreased in participation by nearly 7 percent in the last five years. I doubt we will ever see lacrosse have a major decline in New York, and I would expect the sport to continue to be wildly popular there. It makes sense that the state with the highest number of participants would have trouble producing the same amount of growth as newer lacrosse areas, due to the fact that most people in the state are already aware of the sport.
Based on growth statistics, however, it seems like the Midwest is currently the hottest place to be picking up the sport right now. A 649 percent increase in players in five years in Illinois? A 40 percent increase in players in Ohio? It definitely seems to be the trending sport to play if you live in the middle of the country. It would be great to see the data for the number of high school participants at the club levels in other growing states around the country and compare just what the actual rates of growth are in terms of number of lacrosse players at the high school level in any form of competition.
California, of course, has seen an incredible amount of growth itself, growing 26 percent in the last five years and having the second-most number of lacrosse players competing at the high school level.
What really surprised me though, was the 12 percent decrease in participation in Colorado. It would be interesting to see the growth statistics for the youth programs and see exactly if this is a hiccup or a growing trend in the state.
I’ve always heard over the last 10-15 years that Colorado has been a hotbed for the sport, and in terms of the total numbers of participation for a team out west, I think that is an accurate statement. Not a good sign, though, if those numbers keep decreasing.
So, I would say that New York is overall the most popular lacrosse state, but Illinois is definitely growing at a rate that is unmatched across the country. Hopefully US Lacrosse will start releasing state-by-state data as part of their US Lacrosse Participation Reports.
Where Is The Sport Of Lacrosse Most Popular?
Lacrosse has long been known as an east coast sport in the United States, but has seen growth across the country in recent years. Why is it known as an east coast sport and how did it get to be so popular? What other areas of the country have seen growth in lacrosse?
Where did the sport of lacrosse originate?
Lacrosse’s history can be traced to the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois, confederacy that lived in what is now New York state and parts of Canada bordering Lake Ontario and New York.
The Haudenosaunee people view lacrosse as much more than a sport. To them, it has deep spiritual roots. They call it the Creator’s game and features in their creation story.
Lacrosse first took root in Canada and was named the official sport of Canada (not hockey!) in 1859. Then a Canadian named John Flannery formed the U.S. National Amateur Lacrosse Association in 1879 after moving to New York for work.
Why did lacrosse become so popular in the Northeast and East Coast?
This geographical tie to the east coast and New York in particular defined the growth of lacrosse at the college and professional level. At the collegiate level, the blue-blood schools are all along the east coast and traditionally in the north east.
Most high-profile programs have ties to New York state in particular. At all three levels of NCAA lacrosse, New York schools rank among the elite programs historically. As of 2019, New York had the most high school players participating in lacrosse.
However, lacrosse has spread across the nation at both the college and professional levels in the last two decades. By 2018, the number of college offering women’s lacrosse almost doubled from 256 to 505, while men’s lacrosse expanded to 380 teams.
While New York may be the top state in terms of high school lacrosse participation, and with good reason, California ranked second in the nation with over 20,000 high school athletes playing lacrosse in 2019.
California also recently added a National Lacrosse League team with the San Diego Seals starting play during the 2018-19 season.
Is Lacrosse popular in the Midwest?
The Midwest has grown into a lacrosse hotbed as well recently. Illinois has seen a boom of participation, going from 973 high school athletes playing lacrosse to 7,290 in five years. Ohio grew at the second-fastest rate, seeing a 40
increase in participation. Ohio also fields the fourth-most NCAA lacrosse teams in the nation with 51 schools participating in lacrosse.
Where are the best professional lacrosse players from?
As lacrosse expands across the United States, its Native American roots still run deep. One of the best professional players of the last decade is Lyle Thompson, a member of the Onondaga Nation.
He holds the NCAA Division I records for career assists with 225 and career points with 400. His professional career has lived up to the hype of his highly-decorated college career. Through 108 career NLL games with the Georgia Swarm, he has 249 goals and 317 assists for a total of 566 points, averaging just over five points a game.
In 49 career Major League Lacrosse games, he scored 131 goals, one two-point goal, and 81 assists for 213 points. In his first PLL season, he featured in 10 games, scored 23 goals and added 12 assists for 35 points.
While the east coast is the historic hotbed of lacrosse due to the Haudenosaunee people, it is rising in popularity across the US, particularly in California and the Midwest.
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Everything is mixed up A different Russia was shown at the Bolshoi, with cowboys and sticks Anna Karenina by American director John Neumeier. The action takes place in another Russia – Count Vronsky plays lacrosse here, and Levin drives around on a tractor in a cowboy suit. The performance became at the same time the most non-Russian and the most Russian ballet of the Bolshoi.
The play begins with an election rally. Politician Alexei Karenin, who wants to be elected for another term, meets with the people who support him. There are portraits of the candidate everywhere: on the podium, in the hands of the crowd, and 60 at once on the back. Next to the candidate is his wife Anna Karenina and son Seryozha. Does the action take place in St. Petersburg? Well, that’s what the author of the libretto and director of the play, the famous choreographer John Neumeier, assures us.
And there, in St. Petersburg, Count Vronsky is training, preparing for the match. He is engaged in an extremely popular sport in these parts – lacrosse.
That’s when the public, instead of the race invented by Leo Tolstoy, sees this same lacrosse – a team game invented, as Wikipedia says, by American Indians – and a male corps de ballet with clubs in their hands, and when, instead of falling from a horse, Vronsky finds himself collapsed under a crowd of players who fell on him – then the auditorium guesses that the action of the new performance of the Bolshoi Theater takes place in some other Russia and in a different time, not Tolstoy’s.
This is actually a very common move for the artistic director of the Hamburg Ballet, an American who has been living in Germany for half a century. John Neumeier is one of the three choreographers who defined the European twentieth century (together with Maurice Béjart and Jiri Kilian). Four years ago, at the Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theater in Moscow, his ballet Tatyana, based on Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, was released – and there, Red Army soldiers danced among the guests in the Larin estate.
And the point was not that Neumeier (a philologist by education and a fan of Russian culture in life) did not know what could be and what could not be in Pushkin’s times. And in the fact that he diligently mixes times, thus asserting the eternity of classical stories. So in his Odyssey, the exhausted hero returned not from the Trojan War, but from the Vietnam War; so in the ballet “Peer Gynt” the ambitious Norwegian wanderer made a career in Hollywood. The details of time and place are not important – what is important is what happens inside people, and here Neumeier is invariably true to the spirit of those novels that he chooses for his ballets. And the story of Anna Karenina, which he tells on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater, is presented in the ballet according to the same principle.
Leo Tolstoy’s novel has more than once inspired choreographers – ballets based on this plot were staged by Boris Eifman, Alexei Ratmansky, and the trio Natalia Ryzhenko – Viktor Smirnov-Golovanov – Maya Plisetskaya (this performance was, of course, for Plisetskaya).
Then the performances closed on the triangle Karenin – Anna – Vronsky, other characters, if they appeared on the stage, were not particularly interested in the choreographers. Neumeier tried to restore Tolstoy’s “balance of views” – to show those different options for family life that the Russian classic considered important.
So Anna Karenina herself is very important, of course. The role given to the Bolshoi’s prima ballerina Svetlana Zakharova at the premiere is constructed ingeniously: the strict geometry of Anna Karenina’s dances breaks a little at the beginning of the ballet, and it can’t be restored. That is, it’s just that in the party itself the degradation of plasticity is planned, from the proud habits of a proud lady to a reckless duet with Vronsky on the floor, a duet of greedy and reckless. And in this degradation is the choreographer’s distinct sympathy for the heroine and his no less distinct assessment of her actions, very close to Tolstoy’s assessment. The role of Karenin is important (Semyon Chudin accurately and clearly draws the “man of order”, for whom this loss of the “plastic vertical” is not only outrageous, but simply incomprehensible), the role of Vronsky (inherited to Denis Rodkin) is colorfully drawn.
Vronsky (still named Count in the program) is first and foremost an athlete, and we are presented not only with a lacrosse match, but also with numerous training sessions of the hero (he even runs into Karenina while jogging). But the greatest successes of the choreographer are the pairs of “minor characters”.
Stiva Oblonsky (Mikhail Lobukhin) and Dolly (Anastasia Stashkevich) are a couple with marital difficulties. Dolly opens the door to the room – and finds her husband in bed with some girl. This is followed by an absolutely brilliant scene: Dolly’s plastic hysteria, where the language of classical ballet is interspersed with gestures of desperate everyday life (education against female rage) and the dance of her husband trying to calm her down in one leg, when the second dangles at the ankles. This Oblonsky – both guilty and starting to get angry (why has she been rampaging for so long), and ridiculous – is made by Lobukhin flawlessly. And a happy couple (although, like Tolstoy, not immediately) – Kitty (Daria Khokhlova) and Levin (Denis Savin).
When Levin appears on the stage for the first time, distinct laughter is heard in the hall: our Russian landowner wears leather trousers, a cowboy hat, a plaid cowboy shirt and drives around the stage on a real tractor. He appears to the song of Cat Stevens Moonshadow (the entire score of the ballet is assembled from fragments of works by various authors – from Tchaikovsky’s Solemn Overture, under which Karenin’s election rally takes place, to the music written by Alfred Schnittke for the film “Commissar” – at the moment when Anna gives birth daughter). That is – it seems to have nothing in common with Tolstoy’s hero, completely American joys? But here is the combination of the hero’s absurd plasticity and his absolute reliability, which is so important in a dialogue with the rushing Kitty, a convincing translation of kindness, attentiveness, sincere passion for simple agricultural activities – this is precisely Tolstoy Levin.
During the entire performance, a toy train with wagons drove around the stage, Serezha Karenin played in it (the role of which was given to an adult artist Grigory Ikonnikov, which amazed the audience a lot – the son, the size of his mother, behaves like a baby; he also had a room under the stairs and the people named him Harry Potter).