Evolution Of Lacrosse

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The Evolution of Lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport and is considered by many as the oldest sport in North America. Lacrosse is described as being a combination of the more popular sports of basketball, soccer, football, and hockey. Lacrosse is a fast-paced and full of action game, which involves running up and down the field. The sport of lacrosse has evolved from a barbaric war game into a more structured and professional sport played across the world. The early game was so barbaric that it was described in an account by Nicholas Peffot, an early 18th century fur trapper in the Great Lakes Region “… legs and arms are sometimes broken, and it has happened that a player has been killed. It is quite common to see someone crippled for the…show more content…
The origin of the name is said to have come from a Jesuit missionary, Jean de Brebeuf, who compared the stick used to play to a bishop’s crosier also known as “la crosse”, in French (Crego 222). The first Non-Native Americans to play lacrosse were English-speaking Montrealers, who adopted a version from Mohawk Indians (Crego 223). W. George Beers, a Montreal dentist, is recognized by many as “the father of lacrosse,” because he popularized the sport among the Europeans in North America (Crego…show more content…
The field is rectangular, 110 yards long and 60-70 yards wide, and the aim is for the ten players on each side to get the ball into the two goals on either side of the field (Stephen 1). The point of the game is to score as many goals as possible; goals are scored by getting the ball, shaped similar to a tennis ball, into the six feet by six feet goals on either side of the field. The ball is made of hard “Indian” rubber and is about eight inches in circumference and weighs about 5 ounces (). Men’s teams are comprised of 10 players, which are the goalkeeper, three defensemen, three midfielders, and three attackmen (). The key piece of equipment in lacrosse is the stick with a netted basket at the ends, which allows for the carrying, passing, shooting, and catching of the ball (Campbell 39). The lacrosse stick can be no less than three feet and no more than six feet. Both men’s and women’s lacrosse were played under the same rules until the mid- 1930’s (). Men’s lacrosse allows for more contact between players so there is more protective equipment necessary as opposed to women’s lacrosse, which followed a more passive version of the game that prohibits little body contact and therefore requires minimal protective equipment (). All forms of lacrosse require the important skills of coordination, agility, speed, and

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