Lacking Lacrosse : Without Human Resources, Western Expansion of Eastern Game Making Few Inroads in Valley

The year was 1889, and English writer Rudyard Kipling thought the future grim: “East is East and West is West and never the ‘twain shall meet.”

Until now. On an overcast Sunday, eastern transplants and western neophytes meet on tattered grass at Westchester High to partake in America’s oldest sport and newest rage: lacrosse.

As fellow summer leaguers scrimmage on, Chris Zessau pauses to brush sod off his stick shaft. “This is the greatest sport of my life,” he shouts over the roar of jets above.

Many of the planes, dispatched from Los Angeles runways, are destined for locales where “LAX” doesn’t stand for an airport. In Maryland, Long Island and New England, “lax” stands for lacrosse, the Native American creation that seemed destined to remain an eastern secret.

When John Babsone Lane Soule urged young men to “go west” in 1851, lacrosse players must have been too busy cradling (carrying the ball in the net of the stick). No team west of the Alleghenies has ever contended for an NCAA Division I title; 1995 was the first time the tourney’s token “western representative” even won a first-round game.

The western representative? Notre Dame. From Indiana.

“A lot of people still don’t know much about lacrosse out here,” said La Canada’s John Attanasio. “You still have to get all your equipment by mail order from back East.”

Ah, back East, where sticks soar and crowds roar. An estimated 35,000 attended Syracuse’s victory over host Maryland in the Division I final in May, easily exceeding the record mark of 24,730 set in 1994. Said Sean Murphy, who played club lacrosse at Marquette: “The finesse back there is like magic.”

At Westchester, for a $45 fee, lacrosse aficionados young and old come to impart knowledge. With each deft toss, each sharp cut, it becomes clear that the eastern-dominated game the Indians called baggataway seems to have gone that-a-way. West.

Only the Valley hasn’t heard.

The task of bringing lacrosse to new regions falls to the Lacrosse Foundation--a nonprofit organization on the campus of collegiate power Johns Hopkins--and its chapter presidents.

Peter Pallad runs Orange County’s chapter--one of five in California and the most in any state--which oversees seven high school and five junior high programs, all but two of which are recent additions.

His endeavors epitomize the acceptance and adversity lacrosse has encountered during its western expansion. The game has been hamstrung by the paucity of people such as Pallad, from organizers to coaches to referees, who can properly introduce it.

“It’s proliferated quite a bit over the last five to seven years out here,” said Pittsburgh-born Ken Niemann, 31, who played at Pepperdine. “But we still have to get more experienced people to come teach the sport and convince them it’s OK to look bad for a season.”

Steve Stennerson, the foundation’s executive director, conceded that, while national membership has increased 50% in 18 months and participation has doubled since 1985, “the human-resource factor is inhibiting the game’s growth.”

Nowhere more than in the Valley and Greater Los Angeles.

Dan Coronel, who runs the L.A. chapter and its summer league with Howard Alperin, lamented: “The lack of qualified coaches and referees is killing the sport.”

According to Mitch Fenton--founder of chapters in San Diego, Orange County and Los Angeles and the collegiate West Coast Lacrosse League-- lacrosse gurus must sacrifice.

For example, they could coach for nothing, as Woodland Hills’ Tarik Ergin did for Pepperdine’s club. “There’s no lack of qualified coaches,” said Ergin, who played at Cornell. “Just a lack of pay.”

Said Fenton: “Coaches expect to walk into a system similar to a bona fide varsity program back East. That’s not going to happen in 1995. Someone has to be willing to be coach and inventory manager and accountant and field caretaker. We must find a guy with a burning desire to see the sport grow.

“If a person came through with that kind of enthusiasm, he would have a team to coach.”

Maybe even in a lacrosse wasteland like the Valley.

“From [Highway 101] to the 118 to the 405, few schools play,” Pallad said. “Maybe since it’s hot and smoggy.”

While others said the Valley is simply too spread out, Ergin cited its ethnic diversity as the major hindrance: “For people here, the sport is soccer, then baseball.”

Bob Hiegert, the former athletic director at Cal State Northridge, said at one time he would consider adding lacrosse, though the school was strapped for playing and practice fields. But, he added, “There’s no recruiting base for it. We don’t have feeder schools.”

High schools might fill that role, but administrators have concerns over safety, funding and space.

“It doesn’t really cost the school anything,” Alperin said. “We only need field access. We can minimize the expense to bare-bones. Bryne and STX [equipment manufacturers] want you to play.”

Even with the assistance of eager equipment manufacturers, however, “it’s still $150 to outfit a kid” in helmets, gloves, pads and sticks, Alperin said. The foundation budgets only $1 million to cover 40 chapters. Said membership director Jody Martin: “Parent groups must do some funding.”

Del Dressel, who played on two championship teams at Johns Hopkins , said schools must be shown why lacrosse is worth sponsoring, particularly with soccer--a cheaper, and some say, safer sport--a year-round activity.

“We have to convince schools that if they add a program, it can be a college ticket,” Dressel said.

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But the colleges offering scholarships are all back East. Additionally, Pallad has encountered high school football coaches who fear lacrosse will deplete their athlete pool.

“Jim Brown starred in both at Syracuse,” Pallad said. “The sports can help each other.”

Dan Coronel’s brother, Lito, who coaches women at Loyola Marymount, said the L.A. Unified School District, “concerned about safety,” has stifled Dan’s efforts to introduce the sport to boys.

This despite studies, Stennerson said, that demonstrate lacrosse is no more perilous than soccer or basketball.

The consensus: The dearth of high school programs stems not from lack of interest but lack of institutional confidence.

“If I went into Taft or Birmingham High, I guarantee you kids would get turned on to the sport,” Fenton said. “The sport sells.”

Alperin, who demonstrates the sport , added: “If you give kids the option of choosing lacrosse over soccer, many will.”

That, in turn, might give Doug Locker more recruiting options. Locker, coach of Division III Whittier College, California’s only NCAA-sponsored program and winner of seven of 10 WCLL titles, has five players from Maryland, none from the Valley.

“The biggest single difference between East and West is the level of experience,” Locker said. “It’s hard to get young kids to seriously commit to something that is not considered a real sport out here.”

“It needs to take off on the lowest level, the little leagues, then the high schools,” Ergin said.

Changes in perception might also trickle down from the top if, for instance, more colleges acquire the notoriety of a school such as Whittier. Though it cannot offer scholarships, Whittier--one of 173 NCAA-backed men’s teams--benefits both from “the support of the institution, philosophically and monetarily,” said Locker.

Yet few collegiate club squads are likely to join the NCAA anytime soon. One provision of Title IX, the NCAA’s gender-equity plan, requires the percentage of female athletes correspond with the percentage of female students.

“Men’s lacrosse on a college campus is often the second-largest team,” Stennerson said. “You can’t really add it if you don’t have a women’s program in place.”

The women’s game is non-contact and therefore cheaper. Because of Title IX. Stennerson and others anticipate it will grow on college campuses first.

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In the movie “Pocahontas,” two Indian youths playfully toss a ball back and forth using netted sticks.

Yet there was nothing playful about early lacrosse. The aim of baggataway, short for “little brother of war,” was to bludgeon enough opponents to render scoring simple. The game served as a religious ritual, a means of settling tribal disputes and a method of preparing for battle.

Goals were often a mile apart, teams often consisted of 500 players, games often spanned days. Boundaries were irrelevant, death not uncommon. Those performing to unacceptable standards were beaten with switches.

Refined by French settlers in eastern Canada who named it “lacrosse” for the ceremonial crosier (a hooked staff) carried by bishops, the sport softened over time, incorporating aspects of other American goal-based pastimes.

As in soccer, the pivotal open spaces--the field is wider and longer than in football--are manned by midfielders; there are three on a 10-player team.

Lacrosse requires cradling a ball--as hard as a baseball but with more bounce--using a stick with a small net at the end. As in hockey, success depends on power-play proficiency (playing with a manpower advantage), playmaking from behind the net and around the crease, and face-offs--during which midfielders duel for possession.

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What They’re Saying

‘A lot of people still don’t know much about lacrosse out here. You still have to get all your equipment by mail order from back East.’

John Attanasio

‘It’s proliferated quite a bit over the last five to seven years out here. But we still have to get more experienced people to come teach the sport and convince them it’s OK to look bad for a season.’

Ken Niemann

‘The lack of qualified coaches and referees is killing the sport.’

Dan Coronel