Lower Alabama Lacrosse
A
little history about our league...
The
Lower Alabama Lacrosse League formed on the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay in
Alabama back in 2009 years ago with about 20 kids and two teams. Today the
league run by all volunteers, has expanded to over 100 players, ages 5 to 18
with five male divisions, two female divisions, and one coed division.
With
very little lacrosse in the south along the Gulf of Mexico coast at the time,
the league began reaching out to the nearest programs in the area looking for
opportunities to play other teams. This effort initially started out with
Gulf Breeze, FL and Ocean Springs, MS and quickly spread to teams in Destin,
Mobile, and Louisiana.
In
August of 2011, teams from Destin, Gulf Breeze, Mobile, Catholic Resurrection
School, Ocean Springs and North Shore, AL met in Mississippi to form the Gulf
Coast Lacrosse Conference (GCLC). The Conference was formed utilizing the
guidelines set forth by U. S. Lacrosse and adapted to fit the unique challenges
of our programs. The conference has now grown to 13 teams.
Distance
was an immediate issue to address in order to continue the growth of each
program. Most parents would prefer to travel to either the same field
each weekend or at least stay in the same town. This is just not possible
on the Gulf Coast at this time for programs to play different teams. The
GCLC took a unique approach to the solution and established guidelines for
regional jamborees.
The jamboree
concept allows for all teams to “share” in the travel burden. Each team
hosts at least one jamboree at their home fields and travels to the other teams’ jamborees. The typical jamboree hosts games
that either have running clocks like a tournament or standard stop clock play,
the time format depends on the number of teams in attendance and the field
space available.