Diversity in Lacrosse -- The Road To Be More Traveled

This is an article last week in the Times Herald-Record, a newspaper from New York's Hudson Valley, talking about diversity in lacrosse. The article correctly observed that lacrosse is not as diverse as anyone would like but was casual about some of the facts that it cited. I thought about writing a post about some of my complaints about the article but I decided against it. Instead it might be better to talk about diversity in lacrosse and also in sports generally.

Here is a story from my daughter's high school English class: Her English teacher was trying make a point about the lack of diversity in many sports. The teacher started talking about how "You never see black athletes playing [insert sport here]." The teacher started with hockey but a couple hockey players in the class started rattling off names like Anson Carter, Mike Grier, and Ray Emery. She then tried with swimming but a swimmer in the class started rattling off names like Cullen Jones, Anthony Earvin, and Maritza Correia. She then went with lacrosse and the lacrosse players started talking about Kyle Harrison, John Christmas, Will Barrow and the Brattons. It wasn't that long ago that very few names would roll off the tongue when asked to name non-white athletes in those sports. As late as the 1990 World Cup, the U.S. Men's soccer team had one or two non-white starters. These days, we start twice that many at least. Here is how we looked in 2006 before one of our World Cup games. Progress on these fronts occurring; it rarely comes as quickly as we like but it comes nevertheless.

I agree with the perspective in the article that iconic figures in the sport are unlikely to affect diversity in a sport in a lasting way. Of course, everyone wants to be able to look up and relate to the best players in a sport. But there are so many ways in which to emulate a great athlete that are beyond ethnicity. We already have a number of prominent African-American lacrosse players and have for maybe a decade now. Frankly I am unconvinced that making the sport marginally more diverse at the upper levels of the sport really attracts much diversity. After all, when a school-age kid is learning how to pick up a ground ball on a cold day in March, what does he care whether a couple of famous brothers who have a similar hue to their skin color do the same at the University of Virginia?

That young kid does care, however, whether his friends play the sport and whether his coaches are supporting his effort to learn the game. In my experience, kids like playing the sports that their friends play and where they get positive reinforcement from the adults in charge. As the parent of a lacrosse player, I have seen the full spectrum of coaching abilities from the phenomenal to the pitiful. And I know that were it not for a few encouraging words at the beginning of this journey from a head coach to a young guy living with me, the journey would have ended the same month that it started. The most we can do to promote diversity in the sport is to view every kid -- regardless of his size, strength, speed, family income, intelligence level, toughness, religion, ethnicity or God knows whatever else -- as a potential lacrosse player and future ambassador for the sport. If we continue to grow the game, it will grow in all directions and we all will better for it.