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Early lacrosse fans

Maryland Historical Society

Lacrosse is played upon a rectangular playing surface by two teams of players who use sticks with webbed pockets to pass a ball to one another and into a net to score goals. In Maryland, versions of the sport include men's and boys' field lacrosse, with ten players per side; women's and girls' lacrosse, with twelve players per side; and box or indoor lacrosse, with six players per side. Although modern lacrosse originated in Montreal, Quebec, during the 1860s, various tribes of Native Americans played their own distinct ball games in previous centuries.

Origins of Lacrosse in Maryland
Members of the Baltimore Athletic Club witnessed their first lacrosse match after a track meet in Newport, R.I., in August 1878. Returning home with Indian-made wood lacrosse sticks, they formed a team and played their first intercity lacrosse contest against the Ravenswood Club of New York in 1879. Local high school students at Baltimore City College also adopted the game, naming their team the Druid Lacrosse Club in 1883. Encouraged by local merchants, schoolboys took the game with them to many college campuses throughout the northeast. Six grandnephews of author Edgar Allan Poe promoted lacrosse at Princeton University. Students at Johns Hopkins University formed a short-lived campus team in 1883, and began regular varsity play in 1888.

Hopkins lacrosse poster

Maryland Historical Society

College Lacrosse
There were several different methods of determining championships in collegiate lacrosse from 1881 to 1970. From 1906 to 1925, the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse League (USILL) awarded only northern and southern sectional championships. In the south, Johns Hopkins won ten championships and the University of Maryland won one. In 1926, the USILL became the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (USILA) and began awarding national championships based on a vote of coaches. Johns Hopkins won national titles in 1926 and 1927 and shared it with the University of Maryland, Rutgers, and Navy in 1928. The United States Naval Academy shared the championship in 1929 and St. John's College of Annapolis won titles in 1930 and 1931.

In 1936, the USILA began awarding the national champion the Wilson Wingate Memorial Trophy, in honor of a Baltimore sportswriter. Three schools from Maryland monopolized the title in 29 of the next 35 seasons, including the University of Maryland (1936, 1937*, 1939, 1940, 1955-56, 1959, 1967*), Navy (1938, 1943, 1945*, 1946, 1949*, 1954, 1960, 1961*, 1962-66, 1967*, 1970*) and Johns Hopkins (1941, 1947-48, 1949*, 1950, 1957, 1959*, 1967*, 1968, 1969*, 1970*). (An asterisk indicates a shared championship.) Representing the United States, Johns Hopkins won unofficial lacrosse titles at the 1928 and 1932 Olympic Games. The first annual North-South All-Star game was held in Baltimore in 1940.

Beginning in 1971, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) began sponsoring championship tournaments. Division I champions include the University of Maryland (1973 and 1975) and Johns Hopkins (1974, 1978-80, 1984-85 and 1987). Division II champions include Towson State University (1974) and the University of Maryland - Baltimore County (1980). A Division III tournament began in 1980 and has been won by Salisbury University (1994, 1999 and 2003-2004) and Washington College (1998).

In 1950, there were seven colleges in Maryland with lacrosse teams: Johns Hopkins, Loyola College, University of Maryland, Navy, Western Maryland, Washington College, and the University of Baltimore. By 1970, there were 16 men's programs in Maryland. By the 2003 season, there were seven Division I, six Division III and six junior college programs in the state. The dramatic growth in the number of participants playing lacrosse throughout the country beginning in the 1970s resulted from the invention of the synthetic lacrosse stick by the Baltimore-based company STX, Inc. Prior to 1970, all lacrosse sticks had been manufactured from wood by Indian craftsmen on reservations in New York and Canada. The new materials made sticks lighter and more maneuverable, and shots increased in velocity.

Post-Collegian Club Lacrosse
From the late nineteenth century through 1959, lacrosse clubs competed against one another as well as against colleges. Established in 1904, the Mount Washington Lacrosse Club played on a home field based in a northwestern suburb of Baltimore. Nicknamed "the Wolfpack," the club was consistently one of the best teams in the country during the first half of the century. In 1960, the best clubs in the country formed the United States Club Lacrosse Association (USCLA). Mount Washington won 13 association titles (1960, 1962, 1964-67, 1975-77, 1990-91, 1993 and 1995). The Wolfpack represented the U.S. at the inaugural World Games in Toronto in 1967 by defeating teams from England, Canada and Australia. The Maryland Lacrosse Club won USCLA titles in 1979, 1982-84, 1988 and 1992. The Single Source Solutions club of Annapolis won three straight championships in 2002-2004.

High School Lacrosse
Regular playing schedules began at Baltimore City College in 1902 and at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute in 1912. By 1930 there were eight more high schools with lacrosse teams in and around Baltimore: Catonsville High School, Calvert Hall School, Donaldson School, Friends School, McDonogh School, Marstons School, Park School, and Severn School. The high school champions of Baltimore played a short-lived intercity high school championship series with all-star teams from Brooklyn, New York, during the 1930s. The number of high school lacrosse programs in the state increased from 12 in 1946 to 24 in 1965. Among Baltimore's private schools, the St. Paul's School won 15 Maryland Scholastic Association titles between 1940 and 1967. The most successful public school was Towson High School, which captured 13 straight titles in the Baltimore County League between 1962 and 1974. The biggest growth in high school lacrosse in Maryland occurred during the late twentieth century. For instance, there were 74 high schools with lacrosse programs in 1978 and 158 teams in 2003. Even though boys' high school lacrosse experienced higher growth rates in other states, college coaches continued to view Maryland as a prime source of talent for recruitment.

Women's Lacrosse
The United States Women's Lacrosse Association (USWLA) was born in 1931 as a national alliance of local clubs and affiliated colleges and high schools. Among the first four associations to join the national group was the Baltimore Women's Lacrosse Association. Known as the "Grand Dame of Lacrosse," Scottish immigrant Rosabelle Sinclair was an early leader in the USWLA. Even after retiring from the Bryn Mawr School in 1950, she continued to serve as a mentor for the Baltimore WLA. After the Second World War, some schools began adding lacrosse to their physical education programs. By 1957, there were three colleges and seven high schools in Maryland with intramural lacrosse. Due to the rise of women's collegiate lacrosse in the 1970s, the NCAA began sponsoring a women's tournament in 1982 for Division I schools. Coached by Cindy Timchal, the University of Maryland's program won nine championships (1986, 1992, 1995-2001). By the 2003 season, there were six Division I and nine Division III women's college teams and 156 high school teams in the state.

U.S. Lacrosse Hall of Fame
Among the first four inductees into the United States Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1957 was Baltimore attorney and lacrosse enthusiast William C. Schmeisser. Nicknamed "Father Bill," he served as head coach or coach emeritus at Johns Hopkins from 1902 until his death in 1940. A not-for-profit Lacrosse Foundation was born in 1959, and a historical museum opened on the Hopkins campus in 1966. Through 2004, about one-third of the hall's members have played and coached for colleges or clubs in Maryland, including 61 men from Hopkins.

Professional Lacrosse in Baltimore
Box or indoor lacrosse never enjoyed the level of popularity experienced by college field lacrosse. Short-lived professional franchises include the Baltimore Rough Riders of the American Box Lacrosse League (1932) and the Maryland Arrows of the National Lacrosse League (1974-75). The Baltimore Thunder was a charter franchise of the Eagle Box Lacrosse League in 1987. The league operated as the Major Indoor Lacrosse League (MILL) from 1988 to 1996 and then as the National Lacrosse League since 1997. Although the Thunder won the league title in 1987, poor attendance forced the team to relocate after the 1999 season. In 2001, a professional field lacrosse league began operation as Major League Lacrosse (MLL). The Baltimore Bayhawks won the championship in 2002 behind the leadership of player-coach Gary Gait.

—Donald M. Fisher