For the third year in a row my younger son played lacrosse on a community level.
Lacrosse is not big in Texas yet. There is little access to volunteer coaches and there are not enough teams to support the demand, in my opinion. If more teams and opportunities were available, even more new kids would start the sport, I believe.
Houston is the largest growing area in the country. People are moving here from all over for employment and our kids want to continue doing the sports they did in their former location. We are arriving asking for lacrosse and rowing, for example.
To have one team with just 21 kids for combined grade five and six in a town of 100,000 is what I call slim pickings. There is no reason why a serious competitive team can't have 30 or more kids on it, you need a rotation as kids do get tired from running in full sunlight nonstop.
Lacrosse seems to be a good fit for very active kids. It has its fair share of ADHD players. These are the kids who think baseball has too much downtime. Kids who play ice hockey are also perfect for lacrosse. If kids don't have access to multiple seasons of ice hockey a year but have access to grass fields, lacrosse is a good option.
This clinic my son did this spring was described to me as a feeder program for the community team of the small 21 team member size and as a feeder to play lacrosse in the public high school. The competitive community travel team was the only thing open to my son in our Connecticut town, but they let anyone join, so we had 45 on the team with A, B, and C strings. That travel team was also considered a feeder into the public high school's team, so it ran to grade 8. That league expanded in 2011 from grades 3-8 down to K-8. The feeder program my son did in Texas this year was what I thought he was a good fit for in grades 4 and 5 but no such thing extisted. Back then with having lacrosse six days a week and taking up 3-4 weeknights for the family seemed like overkill, the kids were only 8-10 years old for goodness sake. However this year in grade 6 this clinic thing was below his skill level. It seems we are having trouble finding a good fit!
My son enjoys the sport and thinks it is fun. I frankly am worried of head injuries. Lacrosse played properly doesn't seem that dangerous but between intentional rule breaking for rough play and pure accidents it is still a dangerous sport. I saw kids here in Texas playing dirty and doing cross-checking and other dangerous things that were not being called out by the coach as improper.
My son is a B-string level kid. At present he is not conditioned for long distance running and for sprints as well as long endurance running on the field. That is half the battle with lacrosse, in my opinion.
I don't know if my son will continue lacrosse in grade 7. Time will tell.
Ideally I'd like my son in a year-round sport for fitness and something that doesn't have a high head injury risk. I also want him to be in a sport that he enjoys.