Lacrosse is growing rapidly in Louisiana, and now thousands of players, coaches, fans, and parents want to officially be recognized as a sport.

The entire Lacrosse community is hoping that the Louisiana High School Athletic Association (LHSAA) will begin the process of making lacrosse a legitimate high school sport.

Currently, teams play in their own private league, the Louisiana High School Lacrosse League (LHSLL). However, this league only includes certain private schools. Although the LHSLL is already set up, the teams could gain many benefits from joining the LHSAA. These include more support, additional teams (due to the ability of public schools to offer Lacrosse as a sport), better-structured state championships, and a playoff format.

The best and easiest way to start the process of making lacrosse a sport is for the teams to be in agreement on joining the LHSAA. However, the teams in the LHSLL have been disagreeing since the league was established in 2008.

Saint Paul’s head Lacrosse coach, Aaron Falkenstein, believes that it would help show the LSHAA the numbers that the teams have year after year. “We need to show the revenue that we bring in throughout the year and the numbers on the teams. Looking at only the top 3 programs in the state… the top 3 teams combine for nearly 450 kids,” stated Falkenstein.

Showing the LHSAA the numbers will demonstrate that lacrosse is popular and accepted in the state of Louisiana. The league has been rapidly expanding since its establishment.

The main reason the LHSAA doesn’t consider lacrosse a sport is due to the Title IX rule. The Title IX rule doesn’t allow sex-based discrimination, meaning that men’s sports must have an equal counterpart to a woman’s sport, based on the number of players. 

For example, boys’ soccer in Louisiana creates a need for women’s soccer, but this makes sense because women’s soccer is big enough in the state, unlike women’s Lacrosse, which is nonexistent.

Coach Falkenstein believes the state needs to strike a balance between promoting women’s sports and preserving men’s sports. “There needs to be equal opportunities for both genders to compete as athletes. With this said, it shouldn’t limit what the athletes want, especially because you could make many sports, like lacrosse, uni sex,” stated Falkenstein.

For lacrosse to join the LHSAA and appeal to Title IX, they have to have a women’s field sport. These sports include, but are not limited to, field hockey and women’s lacrosse.

The reasons that these sports are not a thing in Louisiana yet are unknown. Although there are no women’s lacrosse or field hockey teams in Louisiana, these sports are extremely popular in the Northeast.

There are a few girls who are interested in playing lacrosse, but they have no teams past 4th grade. Even though they can play in 4th grade and below, they have to play against men, which isn’t fair to them because they have no specific team or league where they can play against fair competition.

Girls have to be fearful of getting hurt every game since they are squaring up against boys who are usually significantly bigger than they are. This can cause many problems, such as injuries.

For example, Ryan Rosebush, the father of a young woman’s lacrosse player in Louisiana, believes that Louisiana needs to start providing many more opportunities for young girls to be able to play lacrosse.

“The key is grassroots growth—getting sticks in younger girls’ hands through camps, clinics, and recreational programs—while also training more coaches,” stated Ryan Rosebush.

Rosebush also believes that the women’s sports market is currently dominated by other sports, so there is no space for women’s lacrosse. “I think that women’s lacrosse struggles here primarily because the Louisiana sports culture is already dominated by volleyball, softball, soccer, and basketball programs at the youth & high school levels, leaving little space for something new,” Rosebush said.

Another reason that the LHSAA hasn’t made lacrosse a sport yet is that there is already a lacrosse league (LHSLL) that was established in 2008. The LHSLL has countless flaws, which they have no intention of fixing. 

For instance, there are uneven divisions, which means that some teams, such as Catholic High School and Jesuit High School, participate in both divisions. This often leads to them dominating the entire league, leaving no room for other schools to compete.

In Louisiana, there are a total of 21 teams, so there is no reason to have two divisions. There are 11 teams in Division One, while the entire state has only 19 teams.

Division One is not based on any fundamental factors; it’s simply a matter of who chooses to field a Division One team or a Division Two team.

Smaller schools struggle to field teams because of a lack of players. Division One players can only play in Division One games, and cannot play on both to help with numbers. The only teams that this rule helps are Jesuit High School and Catholic High School.

Although Saint Paul’s has been one of the top teams in Louisiana since the league was established, it does not have a team in both divisions, unlike the teams stated earlier.

The main reason Saint Paul’s does not have a team in both divisions is that Coach Falkenstein believes the sport of lacrosse isn’t big enough in Louisiana for there to be two divisions.

“I refuse to acknowledge the division two programs as real teams,” Falkenstein claimed.  

Although there are multiple very popular lacrosse schools, that is few and far between, with most teams only having 20 to 30 players.

Louisiana has nevertheless consistently had at least one or two players receive All-American votes every year since the beginning of the LHSLL.

Olsen believes that Lacrosse should be a sport in Louisiana due to the growth in youth participation and the quality of players that is rising year after year.

“Louisiana should acknowledge lacrosse as a sport because of the rapid growth of Youth Lacrosse in Louisiana, which is causing the increase of turnout of players joining teams in high school and players earning scholarships from playing lacrosse in Louisiana,” stated Olsen.

Noting that lacrosse is the fastest-growing sport in the U.S., coach Falkenstein thinks that it is crazy that “all of the states around us have sanctioned it as a sport, but Louisiana has not made it a sport.”

Lacrosse is growing, and Louisiana’s student-athletes deserve the chance to play for real. It’s time for the LHSAA to make it official.