Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 15, 1993 TAG: 9307150393
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DOUG DOUGHTY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Nobody was worse for the experience, but it was kind of difficult to demonstrate the finer points of a 10-player game to nine people.
When the league reconvened this year in early June, the group had swelled to more than 70 and games were scheduled for teams from four areas of the Roanoke Valley.
"This all came about when I was selling beer at the Salem Bucs [baseball] games," said Brogdon, who became a lacrosse fan when he was at the University of Maryland in the 1960s. "I ran into a couple of guys who had played at Roanoke College and we discovered we had a common interest."
The league was named for the first-year lacrosse players - at Roanoke College, they're known as Rats - who helped Brogdon with his clinic that first year.
There was an adult lacrosse league in Roanoke that summer, but the Rats League is limited to boys 15 and under. This year, the youngest participant is 9. Players are expected to furnish a stick and cleated shoes; there is a $15 fee per player to cover game officials and other expenses.
Interest in the Rats League reflects a marked increase in lacrosse activity elsewhere in the area. There are four teams in the Roanoke Valley High School Lacrosse League: Patrick Henry, Salem, Cave Spring and Vinton.
Most of the Vinton team comes from William Byrd High School, although there is a smattering of players from North Cross.
Lacrosse is recognized as a varsity sport only at Patrick Henry, although Salem apparently is close to that status. The Vinton team, coached by Brogdon, won the championship this year with a 7-1 league record (14-5 overall).
William Byrd junior Jay Reynolds, named player of the year after scoring 44 goals and 25 assists, got his start in the Rats League when he was 14.
"I had never played before," Reynolds said. "Two other guys and I went to the Rats League one Saturday and the next week I bought a stick and gloves. I'm just glad I took up the game when I did."
Brogdon also conducts a fall league that attracts almost 200 players - boys, girls and adults. He was disappointed, however, when only six girls signed up for the Rats League this spring.
Response has been spotty for an adult summer league, "but I'll be glad to organize one," said ex-Roanoke College player Nelson Davis.
"I think what happened," said Davis, director of an adult league in 1990, "is that there was a gap between the ex-college players and the high-school kids and it ended up scaring them both off. It had trouble catching on, but now that the high schools are further along, the gap isn't so great."
Nowhere is recreational lacrosse more organized than Charlottesville, where an adult summer league draws 225-240 players for eight teams. The Seminole League, for players 4-13, has more than 100 participants.
"One area of the state where lacrosse has really taken off is Northern Virginia," said Chuck O'Connell, Washington and Lee University assistant athletic director. O'Connell is an official with the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association. "They had 1,000 to 1,500 kids show up recently for a lacrosse `play day' in Alexandria.' "
O'Connell, who previously coached former collegians with the Charlottesville Lacrosse Club, started a program two years ago in the Rockbridge County area for grades five to eight. Middle-school teams from Charlottesville, Roanoke and Chapel Hill, N.C., came to Lexington in early May for a lacrosse jamboree.
"The thing that's going to kick lacrosse along is the addition of middle schools to the Commonwealth Games," O'Connell said.
There has been lacrosse competition for boys 19 and under since 1991 at the Commonwealth Games, scheduled for Thursday through Sunday in Roanoke. This is the first year there will be a middle-school tournament, with two all-star teams from Northern Virginia and one each from the east (Richmond and Tidewater) and west (Charlottesville, Lexington and Roanoke).
Although lacrosse has been strong at the collegiate level in Virginia - in addition to the University of Virginia, Roanoke College and Washington and Lee are among the top teams in Division III - they have been successful primarily with players from out of state. That could be changing, however.
Doug Tarring, the coach at St. Anne's Belfield in Charlottesville, is sending four of his players to Division I programs. College coaches are looking at two of Brogdon's players from William Byrd. UVa signed a player, Commonwealth Games participant Vinnie Rannazzisi, from Paul VI High in Fairfax.
"What has to happen is that you've got to introduce the game into different parts of the community," O'Connell said. "Once you've set up a little league, each school has a feeder system. That's what happened a long time ago in Baltimore and you saw how the game really took off."
by CNB