PHOTO BY ANNIE PUGH
A group shot from last year’s Marblehead lacrosse clinic.
By KATIE MORRISON
MARBLEHEAD — Lacrosse is a growing sport in New England, but unlike soccer, basketball or softball, there aren’t always ample opportunities for kids to get involved with the game, especially elementary and middle-school-aged girls.
The Marblehead girls lacrosse team is working to change that and create more opportunities for girls to get involved with the game before entering high school.
Marblehead has youth programs for kids as young as 5 or 6. The high school team gets involved in the youth lacrosse community through clinics and camps during the summer. This year, the team is holding clinics on April 27 and March 3 for girls ages 7 to 14. The clinics have a dual purpose; they’re also the team’s fundraiser.
The high school team will also hold a summer lacrosse clinic, spanning four days in mid-August for children of all ages.
What’s unique about these clinics is that the high school players, along with Marblehead lacrosse alumni who have moved on to college, are so involved in teaching girls the game.
Annie Pugh, who is the head coach of Marblehead’s girls lacrosse team, a member of the US Lacrosse board of directors, and a fourth-grade teacher at Village School, stresses the importance of getting kids involved with the game at an early age.
“As an educator, I really feel passionate about making sure we’re giving kids the opportunity to continue to play sports. Seventy percent of kids quit playing competitive sports before age 13,” said Pugh. She also says that US Lacrosse is developing a model that reaches out to kids of different ages, teaching them the game while allowing them to have fun at the same time.
Pugh is following in the footsteps of other successful high school coaches in the area to strengthen the Marblehead program from the ground up. One of those programs she looks to as an example is Winchester, where she says high school players coach all youth teams.
“That wouldn’t necessarily work for us,” Pugh explained, “but we started this summer clinic, where high school and college girls come to work and pass on the love of game to younger girls.
“The mentorship and role modeling we see makes us so proud to be a part of this. I believe in developing the whole child, focusing on learning life skills and what you take away when you leave this program. We want them to be able to manage their time, develop a work ethic, persevere through hard times…and we’re teaching all those skills at one time.”
Assistant coach Lindsay McGuinness, a kindergarten teacher at Bell School, sees the importance in providing as many opportunities as possible for kids to get involved in athletics.
“I think it’s really important for young kids to find things they enjoy, and that make them feel good. Lacrosse is a great outlet because it’s teaching them lifelong skills, like how to play well with others, be a good friend and teammate, and that you can have fun and work hard,” McGuinness said. “They come to these clinics and are having fun and learning the sport, while also looking up to the older girls. I did camps at that age and I thought the older girls were like celebrities, asking them to autograph my T-shirt. Being on the other side of it now, it’s a great way to pay it forward.”
The high school players enjoy the clinics just as much as the younger girls do. Lucie Poulin, a junior at Marblehead High and a member of the lacrosse team, actually wrote her leadership essay for the National Honor Society on the growth of the sport and the experience of giving back to the lacrosse community through these clinics.
Poulin says her favorite age group to work with was the youngest, kids as young as 5 or 6.
“That’s the time in your life when you get inspired to play,” said Poulin, who says she sometimes regrets not picking up the game before she did in seventh grade. “The younger girls are 10 times more competitive than some of the older girls because they just love the sport so much.”
There’s also the aspect of passing the game that she loves onto a new generation that is so appealing to Poulin, and undoubtedly to her teammates and coaches as well.
“The game means so much to me…it’s one of my favorite things in the world to play lacrosse,” she said. “I love going to these clinics and seeing people who love it as much as I do.”
Katie Morrison can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @KatieMo61.
