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This "Bronx Lacrosse Story" Is All The Evidence You Need That Lacrosse Is The Sport Of The Future

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Listen. I understand this isn’t the typical content you’re used to seeing on Barstool Sports [dot] com. It’s not comedy. It’s a little more on the serious side and gives us an actual look on these kids’ lives, their team and their story. But it’s an important video and the way I see being a blogger is to just share the shit that I think is really interesting and that I think other people will be interested in as well. A lacrosse team from the Bronx may not do wonders pageviews wise, but pageviews don’t run everything around me. Don’t call me a hero. I’m not a hero.

But this video and the work that Dan Leventhal is doing with Bronx Lacrosse is huuuuuuuuge for the sport. I think that everybody knows that in order for the sport to continue growing, it needs to really get introduced to the inner-cities. The reason why lacrosse hasn’t been in these areas already are for a few reasons. For starters, the game just costs too much to play. Between all the equipment and everything, most families just don’t have it in them. Luckily some of the gear companies are trying to change that by lowering their prices and doing stick donations and other things of that nature. And then secondly, even if the price to play lacrosse went down, there aren’t many people out there who are introducing the game to these inner-city kids. At least not at the level that Dan and the rest of his team is. So that’s huge.

And then once more inner-city lacrosse programs start to pick up like this one in the Bronx, these kids will all quickly realize that there’s a ton of opportunity out there for them. Think about how many kids in the United States play basketball. Or how many kids in the United States play football. There are only so many roster spots available at the college level. For every 5-star recruit who gets to choose any school he wants to go to, there’s at least 100 of kids who don’t have that opportunity. But lacrosse? The sport is still a baby which means there are way less kids competing with you for those college lacrosse scholarships than are competing for those basketball or football scholarships. I understand that the end goal is to go to the NBA or the NFL and that professional lacrosse isn’t exactly a realistic career for most people. But as much as I love to joke about NCAA athletes being STUDENT-athletes with a heavy emphasis on student first, it actually applies here.

So here’s the final takeaway. The amount of kids playing football across the country continues to shrink every year with the risk of brain trauma. Obviously these kids need something to replace football in their lives and lacrosse fits in there perfectly. It’s still a physical sport but with way less risk, there is a ton of opportunity to use the sport of lacrosse to get you into college, and 30 years from now it’s going to be the most popular sport on the planet. The Bronx Lacrosse Story isn’t the full story. It’s just the first chapter.

@thecreasedive

@BarstoolJordie