When male students ambled into Tim McCreary’s science classroom at Hermiston High School in 1999, he thought they wanted to ask about class or homework.
It turned out the students had bought some

lacrosse equipment on eBay and wanted to start a team. What they needed was a coach.
McCreary, who had grown up playing lacrosse in Colorado, had heard a similar request before, at another high school. He told the players in Hermiston what he told those students: Can’t do it. Who will we play?
“I used the same line on these kids,” McCreary said, “and it turns out there were eight teams in Portland!”
Fast forward to 2003. At Phoenix International Airport, Jen Larsen, then an assistant women’s lacrosse coach at North Carolina, considered missing her connection flight to an interview for the newly established head coaching job at Oregon. Leaving an established lacrosse powerhouse for the sport’s frontier line? How could she? After all, Oregon’s program would only be the third of its kind west of the Mississippi.
She took the flight, and now coaches in one of the fastest growing sports in the west.
Although removed from its East Coast power center, lacrosse in Oregon is exploding onto the recreation and practice fields. In the state, lacrosse participation at the youth and high school levels grew by 61 percent from 2005 to 2007, and the addition of an NCAA program at Oregon has only helped fuel interest in the sport. But as the sport’s foothold grows, its overwhelmed officials are struggling with whether state sanctioning will help or hinder its future development.
Finding a home in Oregon
Now, McCreary can re-tell his story and laugh about it. In 1997, there were six boys’ teams. Interested players now have a myriad of opportunities to play in the state at each level with 44 boys’ and 38 girls’ high school programs. Although mainly centered in the Portland metro area, programs have sprouted in Medford, Eugene, Bend and Burns.
McCreary has coached the Bulldogs since 1999, a firsthand witness to its remarkable growth.
Oregon’s growth has mirrored the national statistics. From 2000-2007, lacrosse participation grew nationally by 70 percent, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. During the same period, basketball and football grew 2.1 percent and 5.9 percent, respectively.
Lacrosse’s growth appears to be just the beginning. A 2007 report by the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association found that of the more than 1.1 million players of all ages nationwide, more than 622,000 players are under the age of 18.
Some attribute the arrival of Oregon’s program, and its 12 scholarships, as a key reason for the growth.
“Maybe 20” players attended Oregon’s first lacrosse camp in 2003, Larsen said, compared with the 230 who played in a seven-on-seven tournament held in Eugene in early 2008.
Speed, action and the “cool factor” of lacrosse, said McCreary, are other reasons for its expansion among teenage players.
“You want to play baseball and stand out in the outfield where the ball comes at you every four or five times at-bat, or do you want to be out playing?” said Dale Waagmeester, commissioner of the Oregon High School Lacrosse Association, which runs boys’ lacrosse in the state.
Lacrosse’s mixture of basketball-type formations with the wide-open field of soccer has piqued its new devotees’ interest.
“It’s the fastest game on two feet,” said Christine Halfpenny, the head coach of College of William and Mary’s women’s team. “I think that’s something that attracts kids right out of the gate.”
While the number of players in the state has risen, the quality of play is beginning to draw the attention of college coaches from around the country. The rise of youth programs – Oregon has 40 girls’ and 65 boys’ youth teams – allows western players to begin as young as players in the east do.
In the past two years, U.S. Lacrosse has named 13 total boys and girls players from Oregon to its All-American teams, the most representation in a two-year span ever for the state.
Coaches are taking notice of such western players. Though Halfpenny primarily recruits out of the tried and true eastern states, one of Halfpenny’s commitments for next year is Sally Roberts, a senior at St. Mary’s High in Portland. While an assistant at Duke University, Halfpenny recruited Caroline Cryer, the 2007 player of the year runner-up, from Colorado.
In 2007, 39 percent of all Oregon players were from the fifth through eighth grade levels.
For McCreary, freshman players who began at the Hermiston youth level progress much quicker than late starters.
“Our freshmen this year have much better stick skills than our seniors do,” McCreary said.
Progress in Eugene
Despite lacrosse’s explosion in Oregon, Larsen still uses her East Coast recruiting pipelines to find most of her players. She sells her recruits on the opportunity of West Coast lacrosse, being able to carve out new traditions for a growing program.
“If they took the risk to get on the plane like I did, they were going to get off and feel what I did,” said Larsen, cognizant of Oregon’s highly visible, and attractive, athletic department. “I knew it was going to be a win-win. I just knew.”
It seems to be working.
Larsen and her assistant coaches didn’t lose a single recruit in the team’s 2009 recruiting class announced in November, signing all 16 players they targeted.
Curiosity drove the official visits of members of the first two classes, junior Ilsa van den Berg and senior Jen May, both of Maryland. Both had already planned on committing to Loyola and Towson, respectively, but were swayed by a trip to the West Coast and the big-school atmosphere of Oregon.
“I think I was the fourth one to commit, so at that time we didn’t even have a team,” May said. “As soon as I told Jen ‘I’m coming’ and hung up the phone I was like ‘What did I do, we don’t even have a team.’”
Although Larsen actively recruits western players, she understands that for now, the majority of the best players in the nation play in the east. The presence of Oregonians on the Ducks’ roster has been admittedly small. Since the team began competing in 2004, Oregon has had exactly two Oregonians on its roster.
In its first three years, the program had a winning record of 30-28. This season, Oregon has earned its second ranking in history.
Last season, Oregon finished the regular season in second place and Larsen was named MPSF Coach of the Year. This month, May was named a preseason All-American by Inside Lacrosse magazine, the only honor of its kind for the program.
Other schools have followed Oregon’s lead. Since 2004, UC Davis, St. Mary’s and Denver have started teams, and Fresno State starts competition next season.
Although Stanford stands as the only women’s team in the west to play in the 16-team NCAA Division I lacrosse tournament, coaches from around the nation expect that to change.
“I think people are excited to see the parity really get deep this year,” Halfpenny said.
Hel
p from the OSAA?
For those who run the OGLA and OHSLA, the growth has brought some headaches.
Logistically, there aren’t enough experienced lacrosse coaches or referees to facilitate games. The boards of directors of the state associations are made up entirely of volunteers.
“We’re already in the case where it’s a logistical nightmare,” said Lauren Anderson, president of the Oregon Girls Lacrosse Association. “There are seven or eight of us doing a ton of work to keep the league afloat.”
Some believe official sanctioning by the Oregon Schools Activities Association would be the answer, to put the workload on its full-time shoulders. But therein lies the catch: Until lacrosse is played in 50 percent or more of the schools within one classification, or 30 percent of schools in all six classifications, it can’t be considered for sanctioning. But the bigger it gets, the less help an overworked volunteer association can be.
Supporters believe sanctioning will legitimize the sport, giving it the equal support that established sports already have.
Others, like Waagmeester, aren’t entirely convinced.
He is worried that rural schools like Burns and Hermiston won’t be able to maintain the financial support of its teams if it’s not part of a school’s budget.
“I’m afraid some of those teams might go away,” Waagmeester said.
Officials from OGLA nor OHSLA have not contacted the OSAA for sanctioning, but say they anticipate discussions within the next two years. Kyle Stanfield, a public relations assistant at the OSAA, said that although there are enough teams at the 6A level to meet the one of the standards for sanctioning, officials would require that more than one classification meet its standards.
One thing is definite: For the West Coast players just taking up the game, more resources than ever – at all levels – are available.
So while playing on the East Coast is something for a player to be proud of, says Anderson, it’s not the only choice.
“In order to go to a top program, I don’t think you have to go east now,” Anderson said.
In other words, it’s come a long way since Larsen sat in an Arizona airport.
“We don’t need to be screaming and hollering so much about how great it is in Oregon,” Larsen said. “We’re proving that both East and West Coast players are figuring out it’s a pretty sweet gig we’ve got here.”
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