The Little Rock Lacrosse Club invites kids to participate in its Fall Kick Off Event at War Memorial Stadium on Saturday.
The event is geared toward youth players already involved in the sport, but is open to anyone who has interest in it.
Lacrosse players from Hendrix College in Conway will teach children the rules of the game, and provide tips on how to catch, pass and shoot the ball. No registration is needed to attend and it is free to all ages.
Directors will hold information sessions for parents whose children want to join the lacrosse club.
Ilyssa Foxx, director of programming for the Little Rock Lacrosse Club, says that the sport is relatively new to Arkansas and the event is meant to attract people to lacrosse.
“No one has really seen it in the central part of the state,” she says, adding that the Little Rock Lacrosse Club is the only program in the region.
There aren’t enough players to compete on a local level, so players travel to surrounding states. Eventually, Foxx says, she would like to have enough kids to start a league with multiple teams for each age group.
“We want what soccer has - league play,” Foxx says.
The game is a mixture of several sports. Players use a stick called a “crosse” with a net on one end to throw and catch a ball. To score, players throw the ball into a goal, similar to a soccer or hockey goal.
Lacrosse is a contact sport, though Foxx assures that it has a low injury rate. In girls lacrosse, there is no contact.
“The only person who is hit is the player with the ball and they are only hit by one or two defensive players - [there] aren’t a bunch of players trying to tackle one person,” she says, adding that players can only hit on the gloves or stick. Anything else is a penalty.
Lacrosse is played year-round, which gives children who play other sports the opportunity to join a lacrosse team outside of their regular recreational activities.
Brian Marr of Little Rock has two 12-year-old children who play lacrosse (a son and a daughter). He says that before playing with the Little Rock Lacrosse Club they were involved in a number of other sports, but now they only care about lacrosse. “When they got started they just fell in love with the sport,” he says. “It fit them perfectly.”
Players and parents say lacrosse is a prime off-season sport to help kids keep in shape because everyone is always moving and running; no one is just standing around or waiting.
“If more people realized how fun this is to watch maybe more people would be interested,” Marr says.
Getting involved in a new sport can be costly, so the lacrosse club lets players borrow equipment from the club for the first season, though the available equipment is limited.
“If families don’t know if they’re interested, they might not be willing to buy the equipment or they could be turned off from it,” Foxx says.
At the War Memorial event, parents will have the opportunity to size equipment on their children should they want to buy gear.
Currently the Sportshop is the only store in central Arkansas to carry lacrosse gear.
Foxx says that the club is setting up a “webstore” for equipment, but it isn’t completed. She says there are numerous vendors online that are associated with Little Rock Lacrosse.
For more information about the Little Rock Lacrosse Club, visit littlerocklacrosse. com, uslacrosse.org or email [email protected].
ActiveStyle, Pages 23 on 08/12/2013