Lacrosse's Guidelines To Being An American Phenomenon

Lacrosse is a sport that hasn't been able to budge its way into American popularity, even though it had a 100 year head start on many popular American sports, like baseball.  Being the optimist I am, I believe that now more than ever lacrosse is making its way into the spotlight.  The following are what I believe to be the top things lacrosse has to do to reach the popularity of baseball, basketball, football, and hockey.

 1. Expand! Move away from the comforts of the East Coast!

One main problem lacrosse has is that it is glued to the east coast.  I live in New York and my high school lax team is decent, usually .500ish.  The varsityteam  was lucky enough to have the opportunity to play against the Beverly Hills High School Varsity team.  We won 14-2, playing our back ups almost the whole game.  It wasn't because BH wasn't good, it was because the sport isn't popular on the west coast.

 2. More Pro Lax, Please

I like the fact that there are two professional lacrosse leagues, the NLL being a box league and the MLL being a regular league, but there aren't enough games to get into it! The NLL has an average of 15 games per season and the MLL has an average of 12 games (for each team).  The Yankees play more than that in 2 weeks! So if it means sacrificing one league to make a ligit league with a real schedule, I'm all for it. But please, give me a real season to look forward to.

3. Sticks, gear, prices, OH MY!

Lets look at this situation-a kid wants to pick up the sport of lacrosse.  He goes to Lacrosse Unlimited to get his stick and gear.  He picks out the  "beginners" stick and pads.  The "beginner" price is over 300 dollars.  In the mothers mind she says 'Lacrosse-too expensive, lets try something new.'  Lets be realistic, its shaped plastic on a piece of metal, it shouldn't cost you that much and its moving kids away from the sport.

4. College lax, keep up the good work

College lacrosse has become one of the exciting college sports, due to the lack of popularity from college baseball.  Thanks to the Duke lacrosse scandal (which was totally false, Mike Nifong, your an embarrassment) college lax has actually gained popularity.  The amount of people attending the Final Four College Lacrosse Tournament continutes to rise year after year.

In conclusion, lax is slowy but steadily making its way into Americas sport spotlight.  The only problem, is there enough room in the spotlight? Is America open for another sport? Only time will tell.