Lacrosse History

Revealing The Lacrosse History

With its roots traced back in Native Americas, Lacrosse remains to be the official summer sport of Canada. While modern modifications of the sport have allowed women and young girls to play, its origins revealed that men purely contested it. This six century old sport has a lot to reveal in its lacrosse history.

One of the earlier recorded histories of lacrosse were made by French Jesuits and English explorers in the Great Lakes area sometime in the 1630s. It concluded that Native North Americans developed the sport. Lacrosse history reveals that a few Indian tribes have named the sport in a number of ways. In an Onondaga language, the sport was called dehuntshigwa'es or men hit a rounded object. In Eastern Cherokee it was called da-nah-wah'uwsdi or little war. Mohawk tribes called it tewaarathon which means little brother of war. While an Ojibwe language suggested baaga`adowe or knocking about the balls.

French observers later coined the term lacrosse. However, it has not made been clear and accurate in lacrosse history how the term stemmed. Historians believe that the French perceived the netted sticks, that were used by Indians in playing the game, as crosier or a stylized staff used by bishops as a symbol of office. Another theory states that the name Lacrosse came from a shortened form of the phrase "le jeu de la crosse" which literally means “the game of the stick”. Some have chosen the latter to be a more probable derivation since the word “crosse” in French referred to a stick. Anyhow, lacrosse became the accepted term of the game worldwide in the lacrosse history.

Recreation was partly the reason why Native Americans developed this game. Indians engaged themselves in this sport to settle disputes among tribes. Fields also became battle-training grounds for warriors. Early lacrosse involved spiritual undertaking. Warriors used it as a way of bringing glory to their tribes and performing religious rituals. The game was said to be played to “please their creator”.

Lacrosse history shows that earlier rules and specifications of the game are found to be ridiculous dull as compared to its modern regulations. Players in some tribes used two sticks one in each hand. The game was also bloody and merciless as players were allowed to hit each other with their wooden sticks. Men and women were sometimes competed against each other though there were separate games for women.

Until the 19th century lacrosse was considered to be a game of violence. Modern revisions of the rules later made it into a recreational sport. Lacrosse history has it that Canadian dentist W. George Beers created standards for the game. He set the field dimensions, the number of players in a team, and other basic rules.

In 1908, lacrosse became a part of Olympics. It was during this time that the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse League (USILL) was formed. Slice the lacrosse history, the sports continues to grow today in the U.S. The country has over 500 colleges and universities and well over 1400 schools that currently sponsor the sports. It has taken the world by storm, penetrating countries like the United Kindom, Czech Republic, Korea and New Zealand.