Nevada Lacrosse Community Rallying Behind Sanctioning Effort

Lacrosse took Dacia Persky across the country, from her hometown of Las Vegas to one of the county’s most prestigious academic institutions – Wellesley College in Massachusetts. Her transformative time on campus included an idyllic lacrosse experience where she scored more than 200 points in her career.

So, imagine Persky’s pride when, after returning home to Nevada, one of the young players she coached on her club team was set to sign on to play college lacrosse at her alma mater. Then imagine the disappointment she felt when she learned that this player wasn’t allowed to sign her letter of intent at her own high school because lacrosse isn’t officially recognized by the school.

Of the eight players from Persky’s club going on to play college lacrosse, only one was allowed to sign alongside their classmates from other sports at their own high school. Persky stepped in to create a signing day at the club team’s banquet so the players could have their moment, but remains perplexed as to why the high schools won’t embrace these outstanding students.

Such is the life for high school lacrosse advocates in Nevada who have been trying to get the sport sanctioned by the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association (NIAA) for about a decade.

Justin Cutler, the head girls’ lacrosse coach at Galena High School and the president of the High Sierra Lacrosse League, has lived the challenge of trying to get the sport sanctioned repeatedly.

“We’ve worked with the NIAA over the last decade and connect with them on a yearly basis to see how we can move this forward to a fully-sanctioned, recognized varsity sport in the schools,” Cutler said. “There’s not a clear path forward for us. There’s not a clear map to getting the sport fully sanctioned.”

Advocates feel sanctioning will help the sport grow and give the current participants the experience they deserve. They’ve met roadblock after roadblock, but have renewed hope after legislation was introduced last month that would require the NIAA to sanction lacrosse as a championship sport.

Nevada State Senator Fabian Doñate introduced Senate Bill 305 (SB 305) on March 17 and had plenty of support from the state lacrosse community during a public hearing, but also opposition from the NIAA and some local school boards.

Tim Jackson has been the executive director of the NIAA for a little over a year. During his opposition testimony he said that he understands the benefits of lacrosse, but didn’t think a legislative route was the way to go to achieve sanctioning.

“We’re saying, ‘We’d like to bring them through the process,’” Jackson said.

For those that have been fighting the battle, there isn’t a process that’s been articulated to them.

“Legislation seems like it’s our last option because we've tried going through the regular channels so many times and they keep coming up with varying reasons every single time we try to get it sanctioned,” said T.J. Wright, a former boys’ high school player at Galena High School who went on to play at the University of Denver is now the men’s club coach at the University of Nevada-Reno. “I remember my mom went up and spoke at a sanctioning meeting 10 years ago and it just went absolutely nowhere.”

“It’s always been a bit of a moving target,” said Jeremy Sieverts a former star at the University of Maryland and in professional lacrosse who now coaches Pirates Lacrosse in the spring, a group primarily made up of students from a public charter school, Pinecrest Academy Sloan Canyon. “It’s frustrating for the people involved, because you know, give us a target to hit and we’ll go hit it.”

Why does sanctioning matter?

“We’ve seen success in participation when it becomes sanctioned at the high school level,” said USA Lacrosse CEO Marc Riccio. “The data is clear. When there’s infrastructure and a pathway to play, participate levels increase. That benefits the kids and the community.”

On a broader scale outside of lacrosse, according to the 2022 National Survey of Children’s Health, Nevada has the second-lowest participation rate (46.1 percent) in sports among youth aged 6 to 17. Sanctioning another sport at the high school level can only help.

USA Lacrosse has offered its support to the sanctioning effort, which has been aided by the National Lacrosse League’s Las Vegas Desert Dogs. The Desert Dogs are owned by J Tsai Sports, one of USA Lacrosse’s partners in the Elevate28 initiative, which is aiming to double participation in the sport nationally by 2030.

Riccio sent a letter of support to the Nevada legislators and offered examples of resources where USA Lacrosse can help, as it does with an officials certification program with the Florida High School Activities Association. USA Lacrosse also emailed all of its statewide members with instructions on how to make their voice heard.

It's not too late for people in the state to weigh in. Letters of support can be sent to SenEDU@sen.state.nv.us or by choosing SB305 from a dropdown on this website. 

The statewide lacrosse community is so passionate about the topic because they know what it could mean for the players, and those who have never seen the game.

Persky, who is the coach at Bishop Gorman High School in addition to running her club program, has full support from her high school, but knows the limitations of not having the sport sanctioned at a state level.

“We’re seeing what we can build on our own, which has worked to an extent for sure,” Persky said. “If no one’s going to help us, we’ll help ourselves. But you see girls from Palo in Summerlin. They have to go practice all the way on the north side of town because they can’t practice at their own high school field. You’re losing a huge demographic of kids who can’t drive or have parents who can’t get their kid there at 6:00 at night.”

Like Sieverts, Max Schmidt starred at Maryland before playing at the pro level. For the last 11 years, he’s been the boys’ lacrosse coach at Faith Lutheran. He’s got full school support, but hasn’t seen the statewide growth he’s hoped for.

“I really think we could hobble along for a while as a lacrosse community and be what we’ve been,” Schmidt said. “In order for it to grow, in order for it to take off, this has to happen. This has to be at the forefront of the sport or it’s just going to stay stagnant.”

“We saw consistent growth, adding programs and student athletes up until COVID,” Cutler said. “We obviously had a little fall, but we recovered very well, but now our numbers have plateaued in the last couple of years. In the north, I think the main reason we’ve plateaued is because the schools and communities we don’t have access to are the ones that are socioeconomically challenged, the less affluent portions of Reno and Tahoe. We need to develop programs for those schools.”

After graduating from Denver, Wright came back to Nevada in part to pay it forward. He volunteers his time as the club coach at Nevada-Reno and wants more players to get the life experience he did.

“We're generating NCAA talent and MCLA talent with all these hurdles already,” Wright said. “Imagine the amount of possibilities for all the kids here to go have an amazing college experience and then to come back and give back to the local community. It's totally an untapped potential. Imagine what could happen without all of these hurdles.”

Beyond new players, Sieverts also wants the current players to get the experience he had in high school. Not getting to sign a letter of intent at the school, not earning varsity letters, not having championship banners hung – these are all things that many of Nevada’s current players face, in addition to paying club dues, for field rentals, transportation and a myriad of other costs they don’t pay for participating in other sports at their high school.

“Playing for your high school should be the pinnacle of youth sports and I know that was for me,” Sieverts said. “What if you can’t do that for your school? You want your peers to cheer for you in the hallways and at pep rallies. To feel like an outsider looking in isn’t ideal.”

Schmidt wants to improve things now while building for the future.

“How can we make this thing great today, but awesome tomorrow,” Schmidt said. “To build it for the next generation to come in and thrive and flourish. That’s another reason I’m so behind this. It might take three to five years for all of the hard work to come to fruition, but I’ve been here for 11 years. I’m in it for the long run.”