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What do the most successful coaches in Division 1 lacrosse have to say about the benefits of American players participating in box lacrosse?
6X NCAA Championship Coach Bill Tierney, University of Denver:
“If I had my choice, I would have every player under the age of 12 play box lacrosse exclusively or at least a majority of the time. The number of touches of the ball and the ability to develop better stick skills in a game of box lacrosse far surpasses what happens on a field. Learning how to pass and catch in traffic, understanding how to shoot, and developing a sense of physicality are all positive traits developed by the box game.”
5X NCAA Championship Coach John Desko, Syracuse University
"I think all young kids should play box (lacrosse) first."
4X NCAA Championship Coach Dom Starsia, University of Virginia:
"When you watch Canadian kids score, when you see their skill level around the cage, you wonder to yourself, 'Jeez, are we teaching kids [in the U.S.] the wrong things?"
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ANDY SHAY, YALE UNIVERSITY HEAD COACH AND FOUNDER OF BOX-OUT LACROSSE CAMPS AND TOURNAMENTS ON BOX LACROSSE IN THE COLLEGIATE GAME:
Box lacrosse (played normally in Canada) is played in thawed ice rinks over the summer. The smaller spaces and smaller goals lend to hyper advancement of skills and scoring ability. The results in our college game are not only undeniable, they are borderline astounding. You can see the bullet points below and the graph that I’ve enclosed.
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7 of the top 10 goal scorers in the NCAA all time are from a box lacrosse background.
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2 of the 5 Tewaaraton finalists have box lacrosse background.
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ONLY 4% lacrosse players have a box background (some are defenseman, which would make this stat even more absurd). Despite that 48% of the top 50 NCAA goal scorers come from box lacrosse backgrounds.
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25% of MLL draftees are from the box lacrosse game.
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Yale University Men’s Lacrosse put the rinks down for two weeks this past fall. We were a 28% finishing team in 2014 finishing 35th in the country out of 67 teams. With two weeks of work, we finished the ball 33% which was good for top 10 in the country, and 3rd in the country of the teams without a Canadian on their roster.