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Staff Writer

Spring Lake Park District 16 is planning to add a new spring sport, lacrosse, to its roster.

A team already exists in the district as a club sport, but the move would make it an official Minnesota State High School League sanctioned varsity/junior varsity sport.

Activities Director Renee Van Gorp came before the school board at a recent work session to discuss a proposal to add the sport.

“There was always our intention that lacrosse would be a varsity sport,” Van Gorp said in answer to why the district would be adding an activity in the wake of budget cuts.

Lacrosse is a team sport played with a small, solid rubber ball about the size of a tennis ball and a stick with a long handle with netting at the end of the stick to catch the ball.

A club sport for now

About 60 district students now play lacrosse as a club sport. That means it is an organization formed by students having the same interest in lacrosse. It is financially supported by the group (booster and parent groups) and operated through community education.

As a club sport, the teams do not play teams in the Minnesota State High School League. Rather, they play against other club sports teams. Many of the teams are from smaller towns or a combination of smaller towns.

“Club is great, but it tends to be smaller schools and we have to travel farther to play them,” lacrosse coach Jason Sellars said.

When the SLP team is sanctioned as a MSHSL sport, it will play schools closer to the metro area, he said. The result will be a savings in travel costs. The club team has traveled to places like Grand Rapids and Duluth to play.

The players now pay $250 a piece per season as a club sport. They fund-raise to pay for equipment and uniforms.

A recent trip to Cub at Northtown last week found Spring Lake Park lacrosse team members bagging groceries for tips that go to the team’s coffers. They also sell Minnesota Swarm, National Lacrosse League, team tickets. Proceeds go to the high school team.

Parents keep team going

Van Gorp, as head of the district’s activities department, recommended that the school board act to approve lacrosse on two levels of competition – varsity and junior varsity – as a high school athletic activity for both boys and girls for the upcoming spring 2010 season.

She estimated a sign-up of about 60 players and a schedule of about 13 games a season. With travel and coaches’ salaries, she estimated start up costs for the first year at neutral to $4,000 on the high end.

The costs would depend on how many games the team plays, Van Gorp said in a phone interview. The district could decide to play only 10 games, which would cut costs. Also, the budget would depend on how many kids sign up and whether they are playing one sport at a fee of $200, a second sport at $150 and a third sport at $125 per season.

She presented a three-year budget to phase in the sport.

“There are some active and engaged parents in the community who have stepped up to keep this moving forward,” Van Gorp said in the phone interview.

Van Gorp said at the Dec. 15 school board workshop session that she did not believe adding lacrosse would decrease the number of students participating in other spring sports.

Numbers are growing

Sixty-three to 65 students played in the club sport last year. “We see the numbers going up,” she said.

“What you’re hearing is this isn’t going away,” said former Superintendent Don Helmstetter, who retired Dec. 31, 2009. “It’s something I see as an inevitability. This is a sport that has attracted kids that might not even participate in sports.”

Superintendent Jeff Ronneberg said it would cost the district more not to offer the program.

“Kids would be looking at neighboring schools to attend,” he said.

(School financing is based on student enrollment figures.)

Lacrosse is a growing sport. In 2008, 42 girls teams were members of the Minnesota State High School League. In 2009, the number of girls teams increased to 51 teams.

The boys lacrosse teams increased from 40 in 2008 to 48 in 2009, according to a report submitted to the board by Van Gorp.

In 2008, 2,335 girls and 2,433 boys played high school lacrosse in Minnesota. Nationally, 61,086 girls and 82,860 boys played the high school sport in the same year.

“It’s a lot like hockey and you know how Minnesota loves hockey,” said lacrosse booster parent Christine Edwards, mother of two team players. “Part of it is we’re Canadian. It’s in our blood. It’s a very exciting game.”

Ronneberg anticipates that a proposal to add a lacrosse team to Spring Lake Park High School will come before the board at its Jan. 11 regular school board meeting.

Check the district’s Web site for the school board meeting agenda at www.springlakeparkschools.org. Click on district and school board on the home page. Click on meeting agendas and minutes on the left side of the page.


Elyse Kaner is at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it