Adrenaline All-American Games 'A True Melting Pot' of Lacrosse Stars

Adrenaline Lacrosse was founded in 2001 as a lifestyle brand and apparel company before becoming the preeminent club and tournament operator on the West Coast.

Its mission — then, now and always — to grow the game in nontraditional areas will be at the forefront Sunday when 118 high school seniors largely from western strongholds will compete in the nationally televised Adrenaline All-American Games at The Star in Frisco, Texas.

The rosters released earlier this week reflect the growing talent pool emerging from all corners of the country.

Played for the first time in 2011 for the chance to recognize underappreciated players from the West Coast, now the Adrenaline games feature an abundance of talent from all points west of the Mississippi.

“It’s remarkable,” said Adrenaline owner and vice president Jono Zissi, who is the head coach at San Diego powerhouse Torrey Pines (Calif.). “It’s a competitive game and it’s a great game. But really more than anything it’s the pageantry of celebrating the best players — at this point I wouldn't even say from the West, I’d say from the non-traditional areas.”

In addition to the better-known western states for lacrosse like California, Colorado and Texas, there are players from such states as Arizona, Indiana, Minnesota, Washington and Idaho.

“It's such a true melting pot,” Zissi said. “Look at the roster of kids from all over and that’s a testament to all the work that so many people have done in these areas.”

Using a North vs. South format, there are 50 girls and 68 boys rostered for the Adrenaline All-American Games at 6:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Eastern time, respectively. Both games are on ESPN3.

“We try to break up the rosters geographically. Chances are all these kids have played together at some point before and are friends,” Zissi said. “We’re trying to get it to be cohesive and a team game, rather than just hero ball. And that's a challenge because it’s on ESPN. Every college coach is going to be watching their commits play, so everyone wants to do well.”

The teams will hold practices Sunday morning to get on the same page. That follows a busy Saturday that begins in the morning with a media panel where players can show off their new gear and share their backgrounds. Players have the chance to tour the facilities where the Dallas Cowboys practice. Adrenaline will later honor their Jeremy Huber “19” Scholarship winner, named for the Las Vegas product who was a freshman defenseman at Johns Hopkins when he died in 2016 of flu and pneumonia complications.

Adrenaline also inducts one former player from a non-traditional area into its Western Lacrosse Hall of Fame and alternates each year between gender. This year, Eddy Glazener is the inductee, and he will be introduced by keynote speaker Kevin Corrigan, his former coach at Notre Dame. The game has grown plenty since Glazener played in the 2012 installation of the Adrenaline All-American Game when 24 of the boys’ players were headed to Division I programs. (The girls’ game was instituted in 2019.)

“As much as it's nice to have 15 different states represented, if you look at the rosters and look at how many different colleges are represented in different divisions and different geography areas, it's really widespread,” Zissi said. “It's really cool.”

There is so much talent that Adrenaline’s selection committee has had to leave very good players out of the all-star games.

“I could make another team of 30 with kids going to Division I and Division III schools out here in a heartbeat,” Zissi said. “We left some really good kids off the roster. But that’s a good problem to have.”

Zissi has been working with Adrenaline since 2003 when he taught lacrosse in physical education classes and started to coach elementary-aged teams while trying to build a varsity program. Talented players emerged and in 2010 Adrenaline started to think of a way to recognize those they felt were were overlooked for all-star games held on the East Coast.

“They aren’t giving us any credit, so let's do our own. The Games spawned from that,” Zissi said. “And since then, it’s grown exponentially. It’s kind of awesome because the first iteration had guys that half were going to the MCLA, half Division III and a few were Division I. And over the years it’s evolved. Not only are guys going Division I, but guys are all-conference. A large amount were All-Americans.”

There are currently 11 former Adrenaline All-American Game players competing as professionals in the Premier Lacrosse League. Zissi expects that number to grow as non-traditional areas continue to develop players. He has seen the growth firsthand, which is part of the reason he will be doing commentary for the ESPN broadcast of the boys’ game Sunday. He has seen or coached many of the all-star players at some point in their career.

“I enjoy doing it and I really care about these kids. They all have unique stories,” Zissi said. “Especially the kids from the really non-traditional areas — San Diego and San Fran — there’s a lot of different unique stories and kids have had interesting paths. Having been around a lot of these kids since they started playing and helping a lot of them with their recruiting, it is really cool to see the fruition of all of it.”