Downs, Heyworth, the board of directors, and the coaches are extremely optimistic and excited about the upcoming season. “We hope to field at least 6 to 8 teams this year for our short term goal. We also hope to finish the season in the black when it comes to finances and recruit a number of strong volunteers to help build the program. We believe the program is only as strong as the volunteers and the kids playing. Our long term goal is to see the sport of lacrosse grow in the city of Cambridge,” stated Downs.
In regards to the long-term success of the program, Downs expressed a concern for the lack of interest in lacrosse at the high school level. Currently, Cambridge High School barely has enough players for a varsity and a junior varsity program. This was because the high school lacks a feeder youth program, until this year. Downs’ ultimate long-term goal for the Cambridge Youth Lacrosse program is to, “continue to grow and help the high school become a state championship contender within the next 5-10 years.”
In recent years, urban lacrosse has put itself on the map. A large part of this is due to people like Noah Downs and Alejandro Heyworth. However, Cambridge is far from the only urban area that has shown great program growth recently. South Boston and Charlestown programs are some of the oldest programs in MBYLL, however, each year they continue to find
ways to grow and develop in order to make the lacrosse experience an enjoyable one for its players, coaches, and parents. While the Charlestown and South Boston programs have had success recently, it hasn’t come easy for the directors of these urban lacrosse programs.
Reed Catlin, director of the Charlestown lacrosse program and former University of Virginia club lacrosse player, has been influential in the growth of Charlestown lacrosse. Catlin’s strong lacrosse background and ties to the Boston area have motivated him to develop the Charlestown program.
But while the Charlestown program hopes to grow, Catlin faces many challenges that other urban programs face: Field space is one of the biggest challenges for a city youth lacrosse
program. “The fields we have at the Charlestown
High School are fantastic; unfortunately, they
are pretty much the only field space around,”
said Catlin. “With all of the other sports and
activities going on, not to mention trying to get
the kids home at a reasonable time, it is hard to
schedule all of our teams to get appropriate
amounts of practice time with such limited
space to play.”
This feeling was echoed by Heyworth who has
already started noticing the struggle to secure
field space for the Cambridge program. “Some
of our biggest initial obstacles included
securing field space. While we are lucky that
Cambridge has a lot of public field space,
securing consistent field time with the lead
time we wanted, proved more challenging than
we initially expected,” said Heyworth. “This
challenge in turn made it more difficult to
recruit coaching volunteers and get the word
out about the program.”
Despite the fact many of the suburban lacrosse fields are nestled in quiet, little parks, the environment for an urban lacrosse field is drastically different. Urban lacrosse fields can be found squeezed in between obstacles such as major roads, office buildings, or industrial areas. The density of Boston and its surrounding areas pose a massive challenge for urban program
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