Being in Minnesota which is a hockey hotbed we are losing a lot of great athletes to lax in the spring which is extremely similar to hockey so the kids are picking it up as their off season sport. 
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At my sons HS we have been struggling with this for years. Most the football players that are not linemen play lax now. They used to all play basebal. They have a winning tradition and have won more state championships than any team in Ohio. A lot of players get recruited to east coast schools to play.
It does not help that middle school Lax is no cut. While baseball still is. Many parents see the scholarships and put their kids in lax instead of baseball. Once cuts happen in HS some try and come back to baseball, but they have not swung a bat or threw a baseball since the sixth grade.
It does not help that middle school Lax is no cut. While baseball still is. Many parents see the scholarships and put their kids in lax instead of baseball. Once cuts happen in HS some try and come back to baseball, but they have not swung a bat or threw a baseball since the sixth grade.
Lax is growing here but it's not taking away any good baseball players. I grew up with lax but got it out of my system. Now I'm the a-hole at the cocktail party, who, when a parent is going on and on about all the lax tournaments his/her kid has won lately, leans over to the nearest baseball parent and says, "You know what they call an athletic kid who can't hit a baseball to save his life?"
"No, what?"
"A lacrosse player."
Its really becoming big here and so have the tournaments. Expensive. People complain about baseball!!!
Originally Posted by BishopLeftiesDad:
At my sons HS we have been struggling with this for years. Most the football players that are not linemen play lax now. They used to all play basebal. They have a winning tradition and have won more state championships than any team in Ohio. A lot of players get recruited to east coast schools to play.
It does not help that middle school Lax is no cut. While baseball still is. Many parents see the scholarships and put their kids in lax instead of baseball. Once cuts happen in HS some try and come back to baseball, but they have not swung a bat or threw a baseball since the sixth grade.
It does not help that middle school Lax is no cut. While baseball still is. Many parents see the scholarships and put their kids in lax instead of baseball. Once cuts happen in HS some try and come back to baseball, but they have not swung a bat or threw a baseball since the sixth grade.
Not sure what you meant by the scholarship comment, but lacrosse has 12.6 scholarships and a roster of 45, so probably no better than baseball as far as getting a scholarship.
I did not mean that lax scholarships are better, just that lax players at his old school are getting a scholarship at greater rates than baseball players at the school.
it is an airport in Los Angeles.......
Originally Posted by JCG:
Lax is growing here but it's not taking away any good baseball players. I grew up with lax but got it out of my system.
The problem here in MN where lax has been popular for less than 5 years and continues to grow is also that these kids with athleticism in hockey (again hockey in mn is like football in tx so the numbers are a large %) especially never even pick up a baseball and start lax at 6 or 7. I think we'll really be hit hard in the next five years unfortunately.
i had to google "lax."
assumed it was lacrosse - and apparently so.
wow.
LAX is the fastest growing sport in the United States. The fastest growing market within the fastest growing sport is..(drum roll please).....Denver. It is also growing like gangbusters in Texas. Believe it or not. I recently met with the US Lacrosse folks and that info was passed on
Same here in Chicagoland. LAX is growing but it seems to be attracting the kids who don't or can't make the baseball teams in many areas. There are small pockets where it's really popular and may be pulling from baseball but at least in my area that's not happening
Originally Posted by jp24:
i had to google "lax."
assumed it was lacrosse - and apparently so.
wow.
I was thinking Los Angeles Airport. 
Some sports are easier to jump on the field without much experience and be an impact player based on tools, athleticism and a modicum of hand-eye coordination. Lacrosse is one of those sports. An athlete can "join" lacrosse in the teenage years and be successful. An athlete cannot "join" baseball in the teenage years and have any hope to be successful. Baseball has a one-way gate and can only lose players as they get older. It's always been this way, and lacrosse is the latest beneficiary. I suspect other sports (football?) that used to get these athletes are losing them to lacrosse.
Originally Posted by Smitty28:
Some sports are easier to jump on the field without much experience and be an impact player based on tools, athleticism and a modicum of hand-eye coordination. Lacrosse is one of those sports. An athlete can "join" lacrosse in the teenage years and be successful. An athlete cannot "join" baseball in the teenage years and have any hope to be successful. Baseball has a one-way gate and can only lose players as they get older. It's always been this way, and lacrosse is the latest beneficiary. I suspect other sports (football?) that used to get these athletes are losing them to lacrosse.
Depends on the state really I think. Lacrosse season is in the Spring in MN.
I've heard a theory that kids join up to lacrosse b/c the dad's have no idea what it is and are confused what instructions to yell from the sideline. (texas....)
From VA to upstate NY a kid with a modicum of hand eye coordination is unlikely to ever make the high school lacrosse team unless it's a small non competitive high school.
Lacrosse is a spring sport. Football doesn't lose players to lacrosse. Its not uncommon for football players to play lacrosse. The greatest college lacrosse player ever is Jim Brown. There's even a Jim Brown rule. Since Brown players have not been allowed to hold the open side of the stick against their chest and run over the opposition.
My son said if lacrosse was a fall sport he definitely would have played.
Lacrosse is a spring sport. Football doesn't lose players to lacrosse. Its not uncommon for football players to play lacrosse. The greatest college lacrosse player ever is Jim Brown. There's even a Jim Brown rule. Since Brown players have not been allowed to hold the open side of the stick against their chest and run over the opposition.
My son said if lacrosse was a fall sport he definitely would have played.
Originally Posted by Go44dad:
I've heard a theory that kids join up to lacrosse b/c the dad's have no idea what it is and are confused what instructions to yell from the sideline. (texas....)
hahaha - that's why I liked going to games when my son played (12-14 year old). I had no idea of the rules, I could go to game, watch him play for 75 minutes or so, and just cheer him and his team mates on without any idea whether the strategy the coach employed was correct, whether the officials missed calls, or if the play time he received was adequate. He eventually gave it up b/c puberty is one of those self selective processes where if you don't get it early - playing as a 5'2" vs some 6'3" man child is shall we say daunting (especially if you're the goalie).
FWIW: My opinion on why kids play the sport has more to do with the pace and that it's a sport that someone with ADD or ADHD can "get through" without picking the daisy's somewhere on the field.
My son goes to a small high school where I believe lax has impacted baseball. A lot of the kids have gravitated over to lax. It's not the very good baseball players that are leaving, but more of the role players that often are the key to winning games. I've seen the really fast outfielder types get lost to lax. The kids you might pinch run with or the late game defensive replacement type. What you end up with (again in a small school like ours) is a good baseball team, but often not quite good enough because a couple of potential key contributors are on the lax field.
Originally Posted by 9and7dad:
My son goes to a small high school where I believe lax has impacted baseball. A lot of the kids have gravitated over to lax. It's not the very good baseball players that are leaving, but more of the role players that often are the key to winning games. I've seen the really fast outfielder types get lost to lax. The kids you might pinch run with or the late game defensive replacement type. What you end up with (again in a small school like ours) is a good baseball team, but often not quite good enough because a couple of potential key contributors are on the lax field.
This is the problem with small schools but possibly all schools - too many sports for not enough kids. I get and support the idea of offering opportunities to kids but sometimes you can do too much. As AD I'm wondering about this now as our student population is growing. We have gone from a 1A school to a 2A school so what new sports do we offer that will not hurt existing sports? Hard thing to balance. So far we have created winter track because it's not going to hurt our basketball and wrestling teams. Those kids can still do spring track so they don't have to leave their sport in order to compete in winter track. The next sport we will probably offer is men's tennis and women's golf. Neither of those should affect existing spring and fall sports but provide more opportunities.
We got a small group of students that want us to start LAX but it's not going to happen. First reason is I don't want it to hurt baseball, softball, women's soccer, golf or spring track. Last year we started JV softball and soccer so that's helped create more opportunities without taking away anything. Have some friction between softball and soccer competing for the same athletes but it's not that bad. Second reason is we don't have the space to do it. Our football team doesn't have a practice field and have to do a lot of things on the game field. We already have varsity, jv football, varsity, jv soccer, middle school football, soccer plus the spring sports. Unless we want rid of all grass we can't afford to add men or women LAX. But if we keep growing and make it up to 3A in about 8 years (which unless something changes) is probably going to happen. Hopefully if that happens they will build us a new school with more facilities. Our school is already overpopulated and if more are coming we are in trouble but we have to offer them something and probably be LAX.
Kids play sports for fun.
If you pitched at a young age and can no longer get outs it becomes a lot less fun.
If you cannot hit a curve ball it becomes a lot less fun.
Those kids that leave baseball for lacrosse for 1 of the above 2 reasons would not be high level baseball players anyway. So did lacrosse really "steal" a baseball player?
Rich
We had this discussion at breakfast Saturday,
and it has been a topic in town.
Coaches asked our son to ask former players in his grade to come back to baseball from lacrosse.
2 of those kids in particular would like start in the corner OF spots, and contribute..
They would rather play lax, saying less pressure, nice-guy coach, and more fun.
Both baseball and lacrosse made playoffs last year,
Lacrosse went further.
Son was asked to play travel lacrosse in the past, too many baseball conflicts,
like posters above would definitely play lacrosse if it was a fall sport.
Rich... when you are at a small school and need bodies... then yes.