For kids in the area who may be looking for a change in their sports diet, there’s a new option on the menu: Lacrosse.The fledgling Northeast Tennessee Sports Association is forming a co-ed youth league with teams in Johnson City and Kingsport. With an initial target of players ages 7-13, the NTSA Lacrosse League already has 60 registered this spring and is hoping to expand quickly.“Lacrosse is the fastest-growing sport in North America, and the oldest sport that’s native to North America,” said Mark Bodo, vice president of the NTSA board. “We wanted to create something new here, something fun that the kids can be proud of. We think lacrosse has great potential.”The NTSA is a two-year-old organization with a stated mission to “provide no-cost and low-cost athletic opportunities to the youth of the Tri-Cities of Northeast Tennessee.” Its board is headed by president Brad Flynn, a Johnson City police officer, Bodo and treasurer Casey Breese.The group looked at other alternative sports that don’t have much of a presence in the area, like online hockey and street hockey, but decided on lacrosse after conducting clinics last fall that drew a fair amount of interest. This is its first league venture.Two teams have been formed under the Kingsport Knights banner, and one as the Johnson City Railcats, with league play set to begin April 12 and run through May. Bodo hopes to have up to seven certified coaches with college-level lacrosse experience involved.“We’ll probably pull in coaches from North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee,” he said. “It’s a good draw for us as an organization to promote lacrosse in this area.”The Knights will be practicing at Robinson Middle School on Mondays and Thursdays. The Railcats practice Mondays and Wednesdays at Indian Trail Middle School. Those will be the home fields for games, with one game each week.Registration is $50, plus a $25 U.S. Lacrosse membership, which is required. A couple of free “Try Lacrosse” events will also be held for interested players and their parents Monday night at 6 and again April 7 at Liberty Bell. (See the NTSA website for details at ntsasports.org.)Bodo said Friday that 45 players are already registered in Kingsport and 15 in Johnson City. There are about a dozen girls in the mix.“Technically, registration ends March 30, but we’ll probably just keep that open,” said Bodo. “We’ve had some players coming to practice who don’t meet the age requirements for the league, but we allow them to practice and get experience. As the league grows and develops, we’ll expand the ages.”Bodo is the IT manager of East Tennessee State’s College of Nursing and has a master’s degree in sports and exercise psychology. He says there’s a greater mission for NTSA than just giving kids exposure to a new sport.“We want to get them active,” he said. “The childhood obesity rates in Northeast Tennessee are high, and we want to provide as many activities as we can, removing the barriers of cost and availability. We want this to be about personal growth.”Most everyone has seen snippets of lacrosse games on television – the players wearing helmets and light pads, carrying those sticks with webbing on one end to cradle the ball. It’s a fast-paced 10-man game with three attackers, three midfielders, three defenders and a goalkeeper on each side.A few colleges in the area sponsor lacrosse teams – Tusculum, Lees-McRae, Mars Hill and UVA-Wise among them. At its best, lacrosse is a fluid mixture of speed, agility, physicality and tactics. Bodo describes it as a hybrid sport that many kids pick up naturally.“Lacrosse combines a lot of components of soccer, so soccer players transition fairly easy,” he said. “Really the best way to describe it is to imagine the turf play of soccer, all the running on the field, with the physicality of hockey and the ball movement of basketball. There are the same concepts of pick-and-rolls and screens.“If kids are playing those sports, they usually pick up lacrosse fairly quickly and enjoy it. The most difficult thing is getting comfortable with cradling the ball and throwing it as you run. In lacrosse, you use both your left and right hands, so if you’re ambidextrous it’s great.”Bodo, 41, grew up in Michigan playing travel hockey but was introduced to lacrosse by an uncle who was an outstanding national player before becoming a college coach. He lived in Boone, N.C., for a decade and has been in Johnson City for the last four years.He said he has two sons who are transitioning away from football but still want to be involved in a contact sport. Lacrosse fills the bill.“A lot of parents are getting concerned about their kids playing football and maybe suffering concussions at nine years old,” said Bodo. “Lacrosse provides the physicality of football, but the likelihood of concussions is rare, especially under the youth lacrosse rules.“In this league, it’s really not about competition; it’s about developing player skills and character. We focus on the fundamentals and basic skills. Eventually, as the kids get confidence in their skills, they really enjoy this sport.”Follow us: JCPress on Twitter | JohnsonCityPress on Facebook
from Johnson City Press Latest News Feed
To read more visit: http://bit.ly/1ocnD70
This share sponsored by East Coast Wings Johnson City
from Tumblr http://bit.ly/1ocq35z
via This share sponsored by East Coast Wings Johnson City
No comments:
Post a Comment