Lacrosse Magazine story

[laxfan25]

For those of you that have spent the big bucks to join US Lacrosse, I'm sure you've enjoyed the cover story on D1 players that are coming out of alien lands, i.e. not MD or NY. The cover features Fiat from Utah, playing at Towson. Other mentions to Texas, CO, CA and elsewhere. Unfortunately there is no on-line version of the story.
For me, I was surprised and pleased at the number out of Michigan that are playing D1/D3 (over 30). Too bad for John Paul that he hasn't been able to keep all the good ones at home! His freshman crop this year has been awesome, and bodes well for a long run in the Top 5.

[bste_lax]

I liked the article but was sort of surprised when they showed the chart of players from each state from 2000 to 2005 who were playing DI-DIII and each state had increased but Illinois was the only state that decreased, they did by like 8 players.

I guess I am not too surprised as I have sort of been "disappointed" with the growth of lacrosse in Illinois. Coming from Texas and seeing that state just explode in the last 5 years in both number of schools and the talent, I was expecting the same in Illinois. I will say the number of teams have increased but the talent is only slightly getting better. The "usual suspects" of Loyola, New Trier and Libertyville are always good but the other schools don't seem to be making up that much ground. Although I think the best way to improve the talent is with youth programs and I have heard that has picked up in the last 3 years in the state. Iowa's ex-Coach is coaching a team in Chicago now, and at least two ex-Iowa players who graduated last May are coaching JV/Freshmen teams back in Chicago as well. Illinois is growing, don't get me wrong, but I think it has a lot of potential to grow faster/better.

[mholtz]

We have known about Michigan Talent here at MSU for a while, and from what I have seen it's only going to get better. More and more school systems are starting middle school, and youth programs which means that when the kids get up to us (hopefully they love the state enough to stay) they have been playing for 6 or even as much as 10 years.

It's really good to see.

[Sonny]

Here is the cover picture with Towson's Fiat (from Utah):