LaxTV Forums | A Forum About The MCLA

By Brian Hamilton
Chicago Tribune staff reporter

May 21, 2006

As the rain trickled down on a dismal Friday, Lane Tech lacrosse players trickled out of the Brands Park fieldhouse and confronted the day's first challenge: How to arrange the goals so that the practice field included the least mud possible.

Grass-roots lacrosse? Yes and no, judging by the tracts of damp brown earth. It certainly wasn't the manicured green swath upon which New Trier worked out a few days later, nor Loyola's Glenview home is landscaped like the gardens of Versailles.

Still, it is in those places and others that lacrosse, the fastest-growing high school sport in the past decade nationally, attempts to solidify its foothold. Muddy or otherwise.

"This year we've had a pretty decent turnout, friends and fans showing up," Lane senior James Driscoll said. "It's a lot better than previous years, when there was pretty much one or two people at every game. No one at school will come up to ask you, `What is that?' Because they know it's a lacrosse stick."