Lake Forest second-year boys lacrosse coach Marc Thiergart has watched lacrosse grow in Illinois since his days at Glenbrook North.
“I graduated high school in 1992, and when I played, it was just the original seven (teams),” Thiergart said. “Now, you have something like (83 boys) teams, which is unbelievable to see.”
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Lacrosse has continued to gain a foothold in Illinois, and on Tuesday, April 19, the sport reached another benchmark when the IHSA board of directors announced the organization would begin hosting state tournaments in the spring of 2018.
Currently, boys lacrosse in the state is run by the Illinois High School Lacrosse Association, while the Illinois High School Women’s Lacrosse Association oversees the girls game.
The decision by the IHSA was met with approval in lacrosse circles throughout the state, though coaches and administrators at schools with established programs suggested the move might lead to moderate upgrades rather than massive changes to the sport in Illinois.
“I think it’s a positive, and the girls are super excited about it,” Hinsdale Central coach Dan Hartman said. “There is a bit of a stigma when it’s not state-sanctioned, and this idea that maybe a state championship is a little tarnished.”
A sport that traditionally was played on the North Shore, lacrosse is now popular throughout the state. There has been a rise of successful high school programs in the west suburbs, with boys teams at Naperville Central, Benet and Wheaton South and girls teams at Glenbard West and Montini, among others. There are also a number of teams in Lake County.
Youth lacrosse also has developed throughout the state, which increases the number of participants at the high school level.
According to John Dwyer, who coaches the powerhouse Loyola girls team, the IHSA’s inclusion of lacrosse “is validation of the reality of where the sport is state-wide and at a national level.”
The inaugural state semifinals and finals for boys and girls lacrosse will take place on Friday, May 25, and Saturday, May 26, 2018, according to an IHSA press release.
The IHSA originally had approved the start of a state series in boys and girls lacrosse in 2009, though the debut date was contingent upon reaching 65 schools competing in boys and 40 in girls.
Matt Troha, assistant executive director of the IHSA, said the IHSLA and IHSWLA have had approximately 100 and 60 teams, respectively, in recent seasons. While there is no guarantee all those programs — some of which may be co-ops or operating more like club sports — will be in place in 2018, Troha speculated there would be 80 boys and 60 girls teams when the IHSA hands out its first trophies.
One potential drawback could affect North Shore schools, where Loyola and New Trier have fielded competitive teams for years. The schools often have met deep in the playoffs, but under the IHSA’s geography-based seeding guidelines, the teams often would meet earlier in the playoffs because of their proximity to one another.
Glenbrook South athletic director Steve Rockrohr was one of the administrators who made a presentation to the IHSA about the merits of the organization recognizing lacrosse several years ago. With the sport now getting full IHSA support, Rockrohr said he believes more schools will choose to offer lacrosse.
“It’s a great game, and this should grow the game and should make schools that are on the fence about it to ask, ‘Do we do it?’ and they will possibly lean toward incorporating it,” said Rockrohr, who said he has been an adviser to several schools that have picked up boys and girls lacrosse.
Rockrohr said that in addition to more schools opting to field lacrosse teams, the sport’s new designation will force athletic departments to take full financial ownership of lacrosse.
At Glenbrook South and many of the higher-profile programs, the sport is funded like any other. Lacrosse athletes are responsible for purchasing their own equipment, but the schools pay for uniforms, bussing teams to events and costs associated with the use of facilities.
“You could have schools saying, ‘We can’t afford (lacrosse),’ but hopefully those schools are small in number,” Rockrohr said. “It’s tough. Either they’re going to have to cut from other sports, which I’m never a fan of, or get an increase in the budget. That will mean going to the school board and showing there is a large demand (for lacrosse), and that they need to allocate more resources.”
Dan Shalin is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
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