Originally Posted by Anonymous
Originally Posted by Anonymous
GIRLS YOUTH RULES

I have rising 9th and 7th grade girls and a 3-year daughter. I have helped coach them in various years starting when my oldest was in 2nd grade.

Girls are not getting enough touches and it is not a good game. I am in a non-hotbed area but girls lacrosse is very popular.

I think girls need to play on a small field and play no more than 9v9 (and I think 7v7 would be better) through U11. They need to get more touches to learn to play a passing game. Right now, even JV girls teams don't pass as well as U11 boys. I don't think it is because of the stick and skills - though that may be part of it - I think it is because they don't learn to pass because they can just run by girls and score.

I intend to do with this my 3 year old as she gets older regardless, but I'd love to see the girls game develop into a beautiful game before High School.


There is a reason soccer went to fewer players and smaller fields, it was to retain players because they were part of the game. Lacrosse kids quit in droves because many never touch the ball. Can't tell you how many times when we were in the 3 pass rule age that the goalie passed to one player, that player passed back to the goalie then the goalie returned to the passing player and that player ran from 1 cage to the other to shoot and score! That's lacrosee? Everyone else just stood around and watched. Every other healthy sport accepts that most kids wont play in college or get a scholarship. In Lax if you aren't playing year round for a full ride you are shunned


Any youth league that has a mandatory pass rule needs to require that the passes occur in the box, and that the passes, in the judgment of the referee, are productive lacrosse passes and not just 2 foot passes to just satisfy the rule. I have never seen this done in practice, but this is how I would do it if I were in charge.

Another rule I would like to see at the youth level that I have never actually seen is a rule that limits the amount of goals that a player can score per game. Another rule that I have seen in other sports is that if your team wins by a certain inflated score, the win does not count.

Yet another possible rule - again one I have never actually seen - is to have a one-dodge rule at the lowest youth levels. This would mean that a kid can dodge one opponent, but then must give up the ball with a pass or shot. He can not dodge the second kid. Maybe this rule should be limited to the offensive half, permitting kids to clear the ball with legs. Again, these rules have, to my knowledge, never been used. They are just things I have dreamed up while watching games.

Keep in mind that I am referring to town teams and leagues, where growth is needed. Leagues where any kid with a pulse gets to play. Other sports modify their rules significantly at the youth level - baseball, football, and basketball do. Lacrosse needs to do so as well. These other sports, mostly baseball and basketball, modify less when travel teams are playing where the skill level is higher.

But with lacrosse, at the town level, 2/3/4 graders are mostly playing on the same size field as older kids, with the same rules. The only exception may be the lack of man down situations (which doesn't affect game play), and more conservative whistles with regard to hitting, which affects safety but not necessarily game play. There seems to be no modification of rules that permits more kids to be meaningfully involved, and for the game to flow better and be more balanced.

A lot has to do with the coaching also. My son has been blessed to be on a Town team where the coach has stressed passing since the kids first put on pads. They now pass to a fault and pass circles around other teams. All kids get touches and they almost always win. They give up many goals by passing to less skilled kids (who drop the ball) and sometimes lose a game because of it. But the kids have been drilled since they started to pass the ball, and are reaping the benefits of it now. I have literally seen them get up something like 8-0 and have 8 different kids score - all organically, meaning the coach is not doing anything to manufacture this, other than run his program where passing is required.

By contrast, almost all of our opponents are coached by men who simply yell "go, go, go, go to the cage" whenever one of their athletic kids gets the ball, even if its on their defensive side. The parents do the same. And yes, these kids score goals, and sometimes enough to beat us (although rare), but our kids are having more fun overall, and will be better players as they get older. Its a self-fulfilling philosophy used by these coaches. They don't emphasize passing so they never get good at it, which forces them to just have athletes run to the cage to score in order to stay in games, which thusly retards their growth at passing the ball, which then requires more one on one play to stay competitive, which leads to ... And these towns, which almost always have many times more kids available to them, wind up with less players enrolled than we have.