Establishing a following for a new sport can sometimes be a difficult task, but this isn’t the case with the rapidly-growing sport of lacrosse in the state of Maine.
After being introduced to arguably the fastest growing sport in the United States, Maine now has 60-plus high school programs (both boys’ and girls’, including prep schools) and 19 combined men’s and women’s college programs, with USM being the first public college in the state to field a competitive NCAA team. And competitive lacrosse is something that USM assistant coach Ken Tubbs knows a lot about.
Tubbs became USM’s first men’s lacrosse head coach in 2000 after growing up and playing in what can be considered one of the nation’s premier lacrosse hotbeds: Long Island, New York.
The fifth year assistant coach grew up in Mineola, New York, in Nassau County on Long Island. Mineola was one of the six original lacrosse towns on Long Island, where Tubbs says the sport has been “entrenched in towns for seven decades.”
“It is a sport that has been passed down from father to son,” Tubbs said. “In Maine it is mostly a one-generation kind of thing.”
From Mineola, Tubbs took his talents to the State University of New York-Cortland, a school with a program that has won four Division III national championships. But it was when he moved to Maine in 1976 when he was transferred after a restaurant he worked for expanded into the Pine Tree State, that he noticed how different the game of lacrosse was compared to his home.
“In the ‘70s there were no high school teams in the state and only Bates, Bowdoin and Colby had college teams,” Tubbs said. “It was definitely a baseball state.”
It still is a baseball state, but lacrosse is quickly approaching baseball as one of the more popular spring sports in Maine’s public and private high schools, and more and more kids and communities are investing in it.
The sport has been progressing over the years in Maine, but it still isn’t at the level that it’s at in Long Island, or other lacrosse hotbeds in the mid-Atlantic area such as Maryland, Virginia and New York State, or even Connecticut or Massachusetts. Tubbs said the “key for building a successful program in Maine is a middle school program.”
In Mineola and many other Long Island towns, kids start playing organized lacrosse between first and third grade and are already acclimated to the game by the time middle school rolls around. This early exposure can be condemned the catalyst for Maine being a late bloomer in lacrosse culture.
Tubbs mentioned that the lacrosse that is played in Massachusetts and Connecticut is “pretty good”, and that if Maine can get to that level than “they will be in good shape.” He also touched on the fact that artificial or field turf — which is a goal of USM’s athletic department to have in the next couple of years — is also crucial to building a solid program.
“It’s like night and day,” John Rapiel said of the difference between the way the game is played in different parts of the country compared to Maine. Rapiel is the USM lacrosse manager and is from Manhasset, New York, another Nassau County town that has a rich lacrosse history.
Rapiel said that learning to play “as early as four years old” is a true reflection of the “development of fundamentals in the game.” Of course, the difference in talent can be credited to the fact that Nassau County has a larger population than all of Maine, but it’s true: the earlier you learn basic stick skills and fundamentals, the faster you will develop and improve.
Developing and improving is something current USM Head Coach Malcolm Chase, assistant coach Sam Lane, Tubbs, and the rest of the staff are trying to do: bring their experiences and backgrounds in lacrosse to a fairly new program of players who most of which started their playing careers in high school. And they’re putting almost every ounce of energy into it.
“Coach Chase and Coach Lane are both putting in hours as if they were full-time,” Tubbs said. “USM is very fortunate to have them.”
Chase is from York, but graduated from L.A.-based Whittier College in 2001 where he played on the lacrosse team. He has also worked with the Maine Premier Lacrosse league, has worked at many lacrosse camps around the country, and is a certified personal trainer. He knows the game’s ins and outs with expertise and brings a solid coaching philosophy to the Huskies.
Although USM isn’t having the best season, Tubbs believes the Huskies have something special in 2011.
“We have the strongest coaching staff we’ve ever had and definitely the most talent we’ve ever had on a team,” said Tubbs.
If the sport continues to popularize in Maine and at USM at this rate, the Huskies look to have a bright future, at least as far as the “lax” community is concerned.