Girls Lacrosse on the Rise in Gig Harbor

Lacrosse has been a rising sport in America for most of the past decade, riding a steady rise in youth interest to unprecedented levels of popularity. Registered players younger than 15 have increased from 125,000 in 2001 to more than 271,000 in 2010, according to US Lacrosse.

But while the sport has caught on with a whole new generation of players, much of the nationwide focus has been on the boys version of the game. Now a coach in Gig Harbor is attempting to translate the growth of the boys game into a successful girls program. With a number of interested players and a high-school All-American helping him out, Craig Wickstrom is hoping to expand the girls program in the same way he has done with the boys … as long as he can find some more coaches.

Four years ago, Craig Wickstrom, who was the head of Peninsula Youth Football, decided he needed to create a spring sport option for his football players who did not play baseball.

“I wanted to start the lacrosse program really for football kids who didn’t care for baseball,” Wickstrom said. “I didn’t want them sitting around on the couch in the spring and summer, I wanted to keep them active and invested.”

That desire to keep his players active led Wickstrom to form a club program for a sport he had never played. Wickstrom started the Harbor Fire boys lacrosse club program, immediately fielding four teams and achieving his goal of creating a spring alternative to baseball.

As the Fire club program began to grow, Wickstrom decided it was time to create the same kind of opportunities for girls in the area. After handing off the coaching duties for his boys team, Wickstrom let a few people know that he was going to start a lacrosse club team for middle-school girls. His roster filled before he even had a chance to advertise.

“I didn’t even have to recruit,” Wickstrom said. “I just spread the word to a few people and we had 26 girls who signed up immediately.”

With that initial success, Wickstrom made plans to expand the program to include an elementary school team and a high school team. The only thing holding him back was an issue that often plagues youth sports: a lack of coaches.

Unlike sports such as basketball or soccer, lacrosse differs vastly between the boys and girls versions of the game. Boys lacrosse is a physical affair, with players adorning shoulder pads and full helmets, whereas girls lacrosse focuses more on the finesse and technique aspects of the game.

Those differences make it difficult for organizers like Wickstrom to find coaching help. Whereas a boys basketball coach could rather easily slide into the role at the helm of a girls program, lacrosse coaches are faced with having to learn two sets of rules and strategy.

“It would be nice to have experienced lacrosse coaches,” Wickstrom said. “If anybody knows lacrosse in Gig Harbor, they generally know boys lacrosse.”

Wickstrom’s boys teams, for example, had four coaches for a roster of 20 (one coach per five players). Last year's girls team had two coaches for 26 kids (one coach per 13 players). That higher player/coach ratio has an affect on how quickly the players are able to grow their skills and expand their games.

“The more coaches you have, the smaller the drills you can run, so you get more one-on-one time with each kids,” Wickstrom said.

This summer, Wickstrom has gotten some help from an unexpected source: a University of California-Berkley player and former high school All-American.

Before this summer, Hayley Olson had not lived in Gig Harbor since the sixth grade. Her return could not have come at a better time for the Harbor Fire girls team.

Olson, a high school All-American at Granada High School in Livermore, Calif., and a current Cal Bear, moved back to Gig Harbor with her parents for the summer. After volunteering with youth programs in California, she was looking for an opportunity to continue that work. Wickstrom happened to be looking for someone exactly like Olson.

Olson has only been working with the Fire for a week, but Wickstrom said the results have already been noticeable.

“She brings the highest level of girls lacrosse experience,” Wickstrom said of Olson. “She’s a high school All-American, she’s around the top coaches and the top talent in the country. What she can bring to the girls is invaluable. It’s certainly going to have an impact on our girls and increase their talent. We’ve already seen the excitement of what she’s brought and the high level of skills and drills she’s been able to incorporate into our practices.”

Wickstrom and Olson seem to be on the same page for what their motivation is behind promoting girls lacrosse: creating opportunities.

“[Lacrosse] has taught me a lot about leadership,” Olson said. “It’s taught me how to deal with other people and seeing all the doors it’s opened in terms of schools. You can go to other schools that you may not have known about or been able to get into, but with lacrosse that’s been a possibility.”

“It’s important to me to provide great options for girls in our community, to allow them to get all the great benefits and competition and the values that you find in sports,” Wickstrom said.

Perhaps in the future, the Fire will produce a few alumni with the pedigree of Olson. For now, there is a growing program attempting to emulate the boys programs' growth and success. Now they just need a couple of coaches.  

Editor's note: Gig Harbor Patch editor Akiko Oda volunteers as the assistant coach for Harbor Fire girls lacrosse team.