Players say local passion for lacrosse is not a fad
Part two of a two-part series
By Kyle Jorrey jorrey@theacorn.com
Oak Park senior Steven Darrow and his younger brother, Sam, are unquestionably two of the Southern California Lacrosse Association’s (SCLA) most highly-touted members.

At 6-2 and 210 pounds, Steven is a gifted long stick defenseman who combines brute power with a vast knowledge of the game he learned while growing up in Maryland. Next year, he will play at the U.S. Naval Academy for one of the country’s most well-decorated programs.

Sam, a junior, is widely considered the league’s top goalie. The 65, 16-year-old is eyeing a future spot on a rapidly-improving Loyola Marymount team that is soon expected to receive NCAA-sanctioned status.

But despite all they achieved this past season as members of Oak Park’s club lacrosse team, which finished first in the SCLA’s regular season with a record of 12-0, it’s doubtful many in the community even know their names.

That’s because as long as lacrosse remains a non-high school affiliated sport, its players, and their accomplishments, will live in anonymity.

It’s a reality both brothers have accepted and moved past, but one they hope might change in the future.

“When your school doesn’t recognize you as a sport, it takes the prestige out of it. For that reason, some kids don’t even look at (lacrosse) as a sport,” Sam Darrow said. “Wanting to get accepted as a high school sport isn’t about wanting the school to pay for our uniforms, or about wanting to get credit for P.E. It’s about getting that recognition and respect.

It’s about being a sport, not just a club.

For now, we’re on the same level as the Spanish Club.” Respect and recognition As Darrow points out, the effort by lacrosse players to help the game become a high school sport is a deeper issue than some might think.

It’s less about scheduling transportation and field time and more about the feeling one gets when given the opportunity to compete with your school’s name and colors emblazoned on your jersey.

Though SCLA vice-president and Agoura parent Ron Cammorata admits the change would ease the families’ financial burdens, he said his players just want the right to call themselves Chargers, even though next season, under CIF rules, they cannot.

“They want this identification with the high schools, and they’re more than willing to jump through hoops to get it,” said Cammorata, whose son Joey, a junior, helped form the AHS club along with teammate Alex Fiance. “They’re just a great bunch of kids that are proud of being associated with Agoura High School.” The SCLA has learned that not having a school affiliation means the chances of getting on-campus field time are slim. Even at schools like Westlake, Agoura and Royal, where the fields are considered public, requests for field time have been denied.

Just ask SCLA board member Richard Bright of Westlake, who along with Oak Park’s Jon Oswaks, went looking for field space during lacrosse’s off-season in the fall.

“Agoura said, ‘No.’ Westlake didn’t return our call. T.O. said, ‘Gosh, we’ve got track and all these other things, no thanks,’” Bright said.

“I told them that we’d be willing to schedule around spring football and track, whatever it took, and most just turned their backs. . . . I know they need to take of the sports they have, but I also know that these fields aren’t packed every night of the week.” The SCLA finally found an ally in Newbury Park athletic coordinator Jim O’Brien. After working out schedule, cost and ground rules, O’Brien agreed to let the league play all it’s regular season games, and playoff games, at the newly returfed Panther Stadium.

“Jim was a great supporter,” Bright said. “He was a hockey player. He didn’t know anything about (lacrosse). But he came out and saw a practice and saw how much the kids were enjoying themselves and he got on board. … That’s a big part of it. Most athletic directors don’t know it and understand it and don’t want to spend the time to come out here and see it.” O’Brien said he saw no reason not to get behind the league and it’s players, even if no team was affiliated with Newbury Park.

“Frankly, as long as it’s something that kids want to be engaged in that’s wholesome and developmental than I’m for it. I’m for anything that will give kids a chance to learn something about themselves, anything that will help them take that journey of discovery,” O’Brien said. “I see it as part of our jobs as adults in this world.” When asked how the arrangement between NPHS and the league worked out this past season, O’Brien said “Wonderfully.” “They’ve been very respectful of the facility. They’ve treated it as if it were their own,” he said. “The people I’ve met associated with lacrosse have been a terrific bunch.

They’ve done everything we asked of them in terms of how they use it.” An energy of its own While the SCLA and it’s high school aged players try to figure out what direction the league will go in next year, Geoff Sebold and the Conejo Valley Lacrosse League, designed for players from third-to-eighth grade, are busy trying to find enough coaches to keep pace with the organization’s ever-growing numbers.

At last count, there were 300 boys and girls in that age group playing lacrosse in the Conejo Valley. Sebold, a resident of Westlake who originally hales from Long Island, said lacrosse fever has hit Southern California, and there’s no sign of it letting up.

“I get five to 10 emails a week saying my son or daughter is interested in playing,” Sebold said.

“These are kids who never heard of lacrosse before a friend told them about it or they saw somebody walking around school with a stick. The momentum is there, my feeling is it’s just going to grow and grow.” These kinds of statements go against the notion of some local athletic directors that lacrosse is just another sports fad—big today, but likely to fade in the future.

Oswaks, head coach of the Oak Park club, is another one who feels lacrosse is here to stay.

“Ever since we started in this area, the numbers have grown exponentially. And lacrosse is already huge in San Diego and especially Orange County,” Oswaks said. “Regardless of anything we do, this thing has it’s own energy.” In 2006, Los Angeles is expected to field its first National Lacrosse League team to compete with the already established Anaheim Storm of Orange County. Further evidence that lacrosse, once reserved for East Coast prep schools, is finding a home in sunny So Cal.

But when it will find a home in local high schools is anybody’s guess.

Sebold, unlike some supporters, seems willing and confident to let things take their natural course— first you get the numbers, then you get the talent, then you have a chance to find a home in the prep ranks.

“These sort of things take time.

I was surprised to see the Southern Section even sanction it as a sport so soon,” Sebold said. “Just let the talent pool continue to grow, and when some of these sixth, seventh and eighth graders are juniors and seniors—then the Conejo Valley schools will be ready for lacrosse.

Then we’ll start seeing kids coming out of this area and heading to college to play lacrosse.” Steven Darrow agreed, predicting a date when players like he and his brother would no longer be diamonds in the rough.

“Just in the two years I was involved I’ve seen the talent get so much better,” Steven said. “I can’t even imagine it a few years from now.” Sebold said he’s confident that high schools will get aboard one day, whether they want to or not.

“The momentum for lacrosse right now is so great that inevitably it’s going happen,” he said. “Lacrosse is the type of sport that gets inside your system and doesn’t let it go. The schools can deny it, but they can’t stop it. One of these days they’re going to have to relent and accept it.”