"I have been playing lacrosse for 26 years now, thanks to my neighbor
who presented me with a Green superlight II when I was around 6-8
years old. I started playing in the rec league when I was 8 and really
only had to bring the stick and possibly the gloves as Shove Park
provided the rest, which amounted to only helmets for the younger
players. Carrying around this minimal amount of equipment was easy,
though over the years more and more equipment became necessary in
order to maintain proper safety and to prevent injury. Shoulder, rib
and elbow pads were added in addition to a mouth piece attached to the
helmet. Goalies of course had chest and throat protectors.
When you went to practice or home when it was over, you would throw
(add) all the pieces of equipment to your lacrosse stick. The usual
order was helmet first slid down the shaft, followed by the gloves,
ribs, shoulder and elbow pads. Fortunately the mouth piece was
attached to the helmet, so you would not lose it. When you got to your
destination, you shook everything off in order to get access to the
stick, otherwise you would not be able to use it. This presented a
problem at home for example, when you had everything put away nice and
neat (mom was happy of course) and wanted to have a catch with your
buddy. This called for you to shake all your equipment off all over
the floor (mom then becomes not so happy!) in order to get your stick
out.
Now to make it worse, the kids today use mouth pieces that do not
attach to the helmet and they are constantly losing them, costing
their parents and school money. With the spread of the game more
people are playing as well which causes more piles of equipment to be
all over the place, especially in a locker room of middle school kids.
As a lacrosse coach, I see issues relating to middle school boys with
where their equipment or mouth piece may be. As a defensive player,
using a longer stick, the shaking of equipment into piles was slightly
more difficult than the shorter stick of an attackmen or midfielder.
To have something that could keep all of your together and not
sprawled out allover the place would have been great to make my room
and locker neater at times.
Now as a coach, I only bring the stick (coming full circle to when I
started playing 26 years ago) but those occasions when I do play in
the rec leagues or suit up against the younger ones for a fun day
after the season ends, I am still stuck with the problem of the pile
of equipment, which now means my wife is not happy!
Author Bio: David Gardner, the owner of Barefoot Painting and More,
has played lacrosse for 26 years. Starting in the Shove Park league in
Camillus, NY, the feeder program for the West Genesee Wildcats, he
ended up playing through to the State University of New York College
at Cortland where he was a 4 year member of the Red Dragons team. He
has coached modified boys and girld JV lacrosse since 2003 (with an
assistant stint in 1992 as well). He is currently putting together a
member website for lacrosse players to improve their skills by
sticking to the basics and learning how they can keep there gear in
order at
http://BasicLacrosse.com. To Find out more about David, visit
his site and leave a comment at
http://TheDavidGardner.com."