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6/20/08

About 150 expected for lacrosse camp at Pavilion
http://www.greenvilleonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080620/GGN/806200310/1069/YOURUPSTATE01
J. Bennett Harris, Greater Greer News

Some of the most prominent names in the lacrosse community will set up camp in Taylors next week.

The seventh annual All South Hall of Fame lacrosse camp will be held at the Pavilion beginning Monday, and camp director Ron Cadorette expects this year's camp to be the largest ever.

"We'll probably be pushing about 150 players this year," said Cadorette, who coaches at J.L. Mann. "Last year we had around 115 player in attendance, so we're definitely growing."

An instructional day camp will run Monday through Friday, while the Southern Exposure recruitment camp for players hoping to play in college will be held Friday and Saturday.

Duke University coach John Danowski, Clemson University coach Buff Grubb and Limestone College coach Mike Cerino are among the coaches participating, while former college All-Americans Frank Mezzanotte of Towson University and Marty Ward of Limestone College will also be on staff.

Eastside High coach Lisette Dimitrew will direct the girls camp along with four high school and college coaches from the lacrosse hotbed of Maryland.

"Ron has brought in some of the biggest names in coaching," Riverside coach Brent Boling said. "It's a good camp. There's no excuse for the camp not to be growing year to year."

Judging by the interest in the Greer area, it's no surprise that the camp's popularity is expanding so quickly.

During its first season on campus, the Riverside lacrosse program surpassed both soccer and baseball in gate receipts, finishing third behind football and basketball. Boling said he had 71 students attend the first day of boys conditioning.

"We weren't sure what to expect when we first started, but (lacrosse) has been big from the start," Boling said.

The Southern Exposure recruitment camp features a college recruitment seminar Saturday, along with an all-star game to help showcase the premier players.

"South Carolina is new in the face of lacrosse," Cadorette said. "We need to get these boys exposed to the coaches and let college coaches know that South Carolina has boys who can play."

EDITOR'S NOTE: Riverside HS baseball and soccer are among the state's best annually, so this definitely demonstrates that lacrosse is starting to take off in the Palmetto State. For one, I wish they would move the sport to the fall or winter away from the spring soccer season.

I was with one of my reps in Rochester, NY this week. He is a college football official and has been involved with youth athletics for years. He was advising my other rep from Buffalo to get her daughter out of softball (where she is the starting shortstop on a high-level travel team) and into lacrosse. He said that the womens lacrosse coach at Nazareth College, a D3 school in upstate NY, just resigned and accepted the head coaching job at Fresno State where they will pay her $125K per year to build the program.

I think she was making about $40K at nazareth.

Nice little increase. And where do you think she's going to get her players from? Not from Cali where the sport hasn't yet taken hold. She'll recruit back in Western NY and Long Island.

Yep, very nice increase...plus there's a lot of satisfaction in building a program. No doubt, it's a growing sport.

I'd love to see it as a fall sport; there's already a lot of competition for female high school athletes in the spring, with soccer, softball and track vying for players; in the fall, it would pretty much just be lacrosse and volleyball for the girls. Plus, for those players who don't have the opportunity to play club soccer, it would be a pretty easy transition of skills to go from playing lacrosse in the fall to soccer in the spring.

wow! that is pretty impressive salary; you don't see many soccer coaches make that much to start a program; Colorado is getting big into lacrosse, as they have a pro team too in denver. I don't know about girls and lacrosse in this area, but it seems that boys lacrosse is increasing in teams and numbers...it will be interesting to see what the league does in sanctioning the sport; they will probably only do boys to see how it works and then add girls later; just like in soccer

Coach Chass

In New York boys and girls soccer is a Fall sport with Lacrosse as a spring sport. So you have soccer and football in the Fall with lacrosse and baseball in the spring. The lacrosse programs, especially youth are just booming.

my wife's cousin's played at rutgers and one with the professional indoor league.(philly and baltimore)coaches some now.i had never even seen lacross or watched it on tv.then several years back the cousin came down to play charlotte the one year they had a team.i went not expecting much.when they blew the whistle to start the game one took off with the ball and another one started hitting him or beating him with the stick.i knew then i would like it.too bad charlotte didnt stick around.i know school lacross is not that rough but it is fun to watch.

Article from The State newspaper: S.C. High School League studies how to start its sanctioning, but no timeline is set

My vote is for lacrosse to be played in the Winter. There is no way football coaches and ADs are going to have it played head-to-head with football in the fall and I certainly don't want to see lacrosse compete for athletes in the spring with the already overcrowded spring season. The winter makes the most sense, with only basketball and wrestling being offered for boys during this time.

The other negative about lacrosse being added is the condition of the athletic fields. Adding lacrosse will only increase the wear and tear and use of the already overplayed pitches.

SCHSL Sanctioned Sports
Fall - Cheerleading, Cross Country, Football, G-Golf, Swimming, G-Tennis, G-Volleyball
Winter - Basketball, Wrestling
Spring - Baseball, Bowling, B-Golf, Lacrosse*, Soccer, B-Tennis, G-Softball, Track

*Not sanctioned by SCHSL, but currently plays in the spring season