“Do We Really Need to Drive to Timbuktu for Lacrosse?

As the parent of a young lacrosse player, I’ve learned many valuable lessons. Chief among them is this: lacrosse is less a sport and more a geographic scavenger hunt. For reasons I cannot fully grasp—possibly rooted in ancient prophecies—our child’s team cannot, under any circumstances, compete with anyone within a 50-mile radius of our home. Instead, we must embark on epic odysseys to find “real competition,” often traveling to places where cell service is a distant memory and the local gas station doubles as a bait shop.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love lacrosse. Watching a team of kids sprint around with sticks and helmets, resembling a coordinated Viking raid, is genuinely thrilling. But I can’t help wondering: is it really necessary to pack our lives into the family SUV and drive six hours to compete against another group of teenagers who look suspiciously like the ones from our local league?

The Myth of Local Competition

There seems to be an unspoken rule in youth sports: if the opposing team isn’t far enough away to require a hotel stay and a second mortgage, the game doesn’t count. No matter how many kids are wielding lacrosse sticks in your county—dozens, hundreds, thousands!—none of them, it appears, are worthy opponents. Instead, we must caravan to far-flung corners of the state or, better yet, across multiple state lines, to face “elite” competition.

What’s so special about these faraway teams, you ask? I’m still not sure. I suspect the word “elite” is just code for “also willing to travel six hours for a weekend game.”

The Logistics of Madness

Let’s talk about the sheer logistics of these expeditions. A typical weekend involves packing enough snacks to sustain a small army, loading up on ibuprofen for the inevitable bleacher-related back pain, and praying your car’s check-engine light doesn’t betray you halfway to an obscure tournament in a place called “Middle-of-Nowhere Fields.” (Actual location: 30 minutes past the middle of nowhere.)

Upon arrival, you’re greeted by an expanse of fields so vast that your GPS gives up and declares, “You’re on your own.” After finally locating your team—which has, naturally, been scheduled for the very first game at 7:00 a.m.—you settle in to watch a match that is, let’s be honest, indistinguishable from the games back home.

The Economics of Traveling to Lose

Then there’s the financial side. Between gas, hotel stays, tournament fees, and the obligatory $18 tournament T-shirt that your kid will wear exactly once, you start to wonder if it wouldn’t have been cheaper to buy your child a full lacrosse field and hire an opponent to come to you. And let’s not forget the meals. By the end of the weekend, you’ve eaten so many road-trip burgers that your body has started running on pure grease and regret.

The real kicker? After all this expense and effort, there’s still a 50/50 chance your team will lose to kids who trained just as hard but didn’t have to drive three states to prove it.

The Case for Staying Local

Here’s a radical idea: what if we stayed local? What if we played against other teams in our town or—brace yourself—the neighboring town? Imagine the possibilities! Games would end, and we’d still have time for dinner at home. Kids could sleep in their own beds, and parents wouldn’t have to navigate the peculiar phenomenon of “field-side parking rage.”

Local competition wouldn’t just save time and money; it might actually foster a sense of community. Instead of constantly chasing elusive “better teams” in distant lands, we could focus on improving right here, where we live. Crazy, I know.

Conclusion: Is It Worth It?

In the end, I can’t deny that travel lacrosse has its moments. The camaraderie among parents, the joy of seeing your child play their heart out, the discovery of obscure small towns that you never would have visited otherwise (and now know too well)—it’s all part of the experience.

But maybe, just maybe, we could scale it back a bit. Let’s stop pretending that good competition only exists six hours away. Let’s remember that the point of youth sports isn’t just to win—it’s to grow, to learn, and to have fun. And let’s admit that sometimes, the best thing we can do for our kids is to stay home, play local, and enjoy the simple pleasure of the game without the epic journey.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to start packing for next weekend’s tournament. Apparently, it’s in a place called “Somewhere Near Canada.”