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NCHSAA is considering recognizing boys lacrosse
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Published: September 17, 2008
Boys lacrosse could be an NCHSAA championship sport by the 2009-10 school year.
Charlie Adams, the executive director of the N.C. High School Athletic Association, said at a regional meeting in Charlotte on Monday that he plans to ask the NCHSAA's board of directors to sanction lacrosse.
Adams could not be reached for comment yesterday, but Associate Executive Director Rick Strunk said that Adams would present his proposal at the board's winter meeting in December. If the proposal passes, boys lacrosse would become the NCHSAA's 22nd championship sport.
"If Charlie has recommended it, it's because he has talked to people and investigated first," Strunk said. "The board will consider it, but it's not automatic."
Lacrosse has been played as a club sport at a number of schools since 1996, said Jim Kirkley, the commissioner of the N.C. High School Lacrosse Association and the coach at Durham Riverside.
Kirkley said that as of yesterday, 57 schools in the state plan to field boys lacrosse teams in 2009-10. Six of the schools are in Forsyth County -- Bishop McGuinness, Mount Tabor, Parkland, Reagan, Reynolds and West Forsyth -- and all six already have programs.
Kirkley said he met with Adams and Que Tucker, the NCHSAA's deputy executive director, last month to discuss the state of lacrosse. He said he left the meeting with high hopes that the NCHSAA would embrace the sport.
"Charlie, I think, is 100 percent behind it," Kirkley said. "A this point in time, I think he is feeling very positive about it. They want to get out in front of this thing because it's going to happen."
Strunk said that under NCHSAA guidelines, at least 25 percent of the membership or close to 50 percent of the schools in a classification must offer a sport for it to have NCHSAA championship status.
Forty-three of the schools planning to offer lacrosse in 2009-10 will be 4-A schools, giving Class 4-A about 47-percent participation. Strunk said that the board has leeway to sanction a sport even if it falls short of the required percentages.
"They did that with fast-pitch softball," Strunk said. "We did not have nearly enough fast-pitch teams to have it based on those criteria. But the board said we will begin to offer it at this point in time. The board has the latitude to vote to add it."
The NCHSLA has offered an open-classification state championship for 12 years, and Kirkley said he hopes that next spring's tournament will be his group's last before the NCHSAA takes over.
"We have been working toward that goal all along," Kirkley said. "We have set up the high-school lacrosse association in order to make it a smooth transition. We followed eligibility rules to make it a smooth transition to sanctioning."
■ Mason Linker can be reached at 727-7324 or at mlinker@wsjournal.com.
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