This is the time of year when the spotlight really shines on every level of our sport. The many factors that influence team success — culture, personality, work ethic, field IQ and chemistry, to name a few — take the full course of a season to develop, and they collectively form the magic elixir that can culminate in a championship.

We define a season by how it ends, the focus being on the team still standing after the last game. It’s the appeal of sport — the dream of winning it all and the annual journey toward that goal. But there are more than 42,000 collegiate players, more than 315,000 girls and boys on high school teams and hundreds of thousands more playing youth lacrosse. Winning it all isn’t just incredibly hard; it’s exceedingly rare.

Yet we simplify the measurement of success into wins and losses. I think that’s a big reason why national youth sports participation has been on a steady decline over the last decade. And while lacrosse participation has more than tripled since 2001, few realize that our sport has experienced an alarming trend of flattening growth over the last few years.

Now I’m not an everyone-deserves-a-trophy guy, but given the downward slide in youth sports participation, I do long for a culture that more appropriately recognizes how hard it is to be the seventh attackman or the senior on JV or the coach of a 2-12 team. These are the players and coaches who comprise the collective heartbeat of our sport.

After all, only a small fraction of athletes possess the God-given physical attributes and innate drive to compete at the highest level. Very few in our sport, even the most gifted athletes, will ever have the chance to compete for a championship, let alone win one. But they play on.

In this edition, we celebrate this season’s champions for the hard work and good fortune that enabled their success. But let’s not forget to recognize those who may never experience the glory of a championship season or personal accolades, who love our sport and cherish the opportunity to step on the field and compete nevertheless.

This article originally appeared on Paul Rabil's website in May.

THIS COLUMN APPEARS IN THE JULY/AUGUST EDITION OF US LACROSSE MAGAZINE. DON’T GET THE MAG? JOIN US LACROSSE TODAY TO START YOUR SUBSCRIPTION.