America’s first sport is rapidly becoming one of its favorite sports and the growth shows no signs of slowing. The game is growing at the youth level on up to the professional level with the sport reaching out to every corner of the country. Highlights of the growth at various levels of the game are listed below. More complete information is available in the 2006 US Lacrosse Participation Report (PDF).

Youth
There were more than 200,000 players under the age of 15 that competed on a team during calendar year 2006. Places like North Carolina and Washington state have seen participation multiply several times over in the last five years.

High School
According to data from the National Federation of State High School Associations, no sport has grown faster over the last decade than lacrosse. There are now more than 130,000 active players at the high school level and the NFHS reported more than 2,600 programs for boys’ and girls’ lacrosse in 2006. Lacrosse is sanctioned or recognized by 17 state high school associations for girls’ lacrosse and 15 for boys’ lacrosse. Pennsylvania is the newest state now sanctioning boys’ lacrosse.

College
Lacrosse is also the fastest-growing sport at the NCAA level over the last decade. New programs have been started or announced at Louisville, Florida and Oregon in recent years and at the Division II and III level, varsity teams are coming to Arkansas, Florida, Michigan and Tennessee. There were over 12,000 NCAA lacrosse players in 2006, but that’s just a portion of the game played at the collegiate level. There are more than 500 club and junior college teams around the country, the vast majority of which compete in the US Lacrosse Intercollegiate Associates structure and the MCLA (Men's Collegiate Lacrosse Association).

Professional
There are two professional lacrosse leagues - Major League Lacrosse, a 10-team outdoor league that played its first season in 2001, and the National Lacrosse League, an 11-team indoor league that dates to 1987. MLL added four expansion franchises in 2006 - Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The NLL features teams in Canada and the U.S., with Edmonton, Minnesota and Portland (Ore.) as its newest franchises.

International
Organized lacrosse is now played in more than 20 countries on five continents. A record 22 nations competed for the men’s world championship in Canada in 2006. The U.S. had won the last six men’s world championships, but finished second to Canada in 2006. A record 10 countries competed in the 2005 World Cup for women’s lacrosse with Australia defeating the U.S. in the final in Annapolis, Md., ending a string of four straight championships for the U.S.