How to Get Started in Lacrosse

Lax is a spring sport and will conflict with baseball forever. All three of my sons play (or have played) lacrosse. This year I had one in U9 and one in U11. On both teams, there were kids who played both lax and baseball but it was hard for them to manage conflicts. I would recommend one sport at a time.

Most communities don't have enough kids interested in lax to field an entire in-town league like you would normally have for baseball, soccer or basketball at this age so it tends to be a "travel" sport right from the get go, where a town may field one or two teams and those teams play against surrounding towns.

In my town, the kids start practicing once a week indoors from January - March and then once the fields are declared open in the spring, they move to 2 evenings of practice and 1-2 games a week outdoors. It is a big commitment of time in terms of the number of times a week the kids play, but the games themselves are mercifully short (1 hour) and are full of action.

Because lax is still a developing sport in most communities, kids can really start at any age. One of my older son's has a friend who played JV this year who had never picked up a stick until the day of tryouts.

If you want to build his skills up, get him a stick and ball and just play pass, just like playing catch, as you suggested. Another skill that's important is cradling the ball. He can practice just walking around holding the stick with the ball in the net. They rotate their wrists to move the head of the stick from side to side, which keeps the ball in the net while they are running and dodging other players. Our coaches recommend that the boys just walk around with the stick in their hands whenever they can, working on getting comfortable with cradling with both hands. Other skills to learn are how to quickly scoop up the ball and run, and how to quickly get up off of the ground, because they spend a lot of time falling (or being knocked) down and need to learn to roll over, pop up and keep going.

There are youtube videos out there with simple skill videos that are pretty helpful. Of course, none of this is necessary now and these are skills that they'll teach him if he joins a team, but if he wants to learn some of the basics now, it never hurts to learn the fundamentals!

My son played for the first time this year and loved it. When we signed up we have to get a Lacrosse membership with the national league, here's their site with lots of info:
http://www.uslacrosse.org/TopNav2Left/Players/BeginnersGu...

We knew nothing, but learned quickly. They had an orientation meeting for all of the beginning players and families that really helped. At the same time they had gear to look at and gave away coupons for gear packages. The starting youth pads/stick packages are fairly reasonably priced, so you'll want to look for starter packages.

Before next season, I'd definitely look for some sticks to use for practicing cradling and passing together. Hopefully that is covered on the website I linked to. Our neighbor happened to play in college and showed my son a few pointers before his first practice. We saw a ton of used LAX gear at our local used sports shop, so that might be an option, since they just ended the season.

One more thing, they might have some summer clinics in your area too, so I'd call and check that out to get him started earlier if interested.

It's a fun sport!

When I was a kid, lacrosse didn't even start until 7th grade. So he'll be fine. Just let him get some practice.

He is still so young that I bet you anything you can just sign him up, even if they do seem to be competitive teams/leagues and see what happens! He is only 9y/o so I am sure there are still leagues with plenty of room for learning & improvement, ya know?!

I would just call them up and be honest, say he has never played before & see what they say?

Other than that, I would Google the rules & buy the sticks (if he is serious about wanting to play) and then yeah, just start practicing with him!

My son is 13 (going into 8th) and has been playing lax since 3rd grade. This sport has exploded in popularity in my community. It's so popular around here that it's taken players away from the baseball leagues.

He started playing the year it became available after seeing a neighborhood kid with his stick and ball practicing by himself at the park. But it is best for him to practice throwing/catching with someone else. That will help him a lot. Another important skill he needs is knowing how to pick up the ball from the grass quick. There might be youtube videos on that.

Now they have girl leagues and I think the boys start in K! But the good news is, you can definitely start late (7th grade) and learn the skills and do well.

We've never done 2 sports in the same season (crazy) but I know people do it. We've never done other summer leagues or off season leagues or travel teams. We missed it this year. We'll try again next year. My son loves this sport.

My son is almost 10 and he'll be starting his first lax class on Monday. It's through a rec center and it says no experience necessary with ages 7-14. They split them up according to age. Good luck!