Kids say the darnedest things. (So do their parents.) These innovators turned thoughts into action and, ultimately, successful lacrosse enterprises.
Jay Ciccarone/Tad Doyle - Training Lace
Jay Ciccarone and Tad Doyle, childhood friends who grew up in Pennsylvania, found a way to improve the game of lacrosse and ran with it. Ciccarone, an entrepreneur, and Doyle, a former physical education teacher, reconnected just over a year ago when Ciccarone’s son joined Rising Sons Lacrosse, which Doyle founded.
There, Ciccarone and Doyle talked potential business ventures and came up with Training Lace, a flexible, weighted training aid that could attach to lacrosse sticks. The product and website hit the market in April, and sales have increased exponentially — especially after a review from East Coast Dyes’ Greg Kenneally.
The two friends have invested $70,000 of their own money into Training Lace and have topped $400,000 in sales. The product has expanded to multiple sports (baseball, swimming and basketball) and features different weights (5 oz., 8 oz., 12 oz.) with the potential for more. Next could be the investment from major sporting companies.
“We keep saying that, we don’t know what we’re doing, we’re just doing,” Ciccarone said. “We decided we were going to fail fast in everything we did, and somehow we just kept on going. It’s been a lot of fun.”
Will Dadouris - ReLax
Inspired by a trip to Jamaica with Fields of Growth, 13-year-old Will Dadouris began ReLax Collections, a non-profit aimed to give equipment to underprivileged communities around the world, hoping that it will translate to better results in school.
Now a freshman goalie at Moravian College, Dadouris has helped ReLax collect more than $300,000 worth of used and new lacrosse equipment going to nine countries — Jamaica, Uganda, Costa Rica, Haiti, Malaysia, Kenya, Canada, Colombia.
“Seeing the smiles on every kid’s face, no matter what their background is, what their socioeconomic status is [and] seeing how everyone can unite around a lacrosse stick, that’s why we do it," he said. "I have that in me, going to Jamaica and having Fields of Growth bring it out of me, saying ‘It can be on a bigger scale than just your pads.’"
He was awarded the US Lacrosse Founder’s Circle Award this year for his work with ReLax. He’ll be traveling with Team Jamaica as equipment manager for the 2018 FIL World Championships and is planning to further grow the game in Kenya.
Cody and Doug Nelson - Virtual Goalie
Cody Nelson, a 14-year-old lacrosse player, made the switch from attack to goalie in the youth ranks. He could save any shot above his ankles, but had trouble with bouncers. Nelson and his father, Doug, both shared a passion for computer programming, and tried to figure out a way that they could combine the two interests.
Using an Oculus that he had, Cody Nelson began building Virtual Goalie, a VR simulation from the vantage point of a goalie. With the help of Doug Nelson, a former MCLA player and IT professional, Virtual Goalie was created to help Cody and other goalies train.
“In a period of two weeks, he went from saving 50 percent of bouncers at 50 mph, to 65 percent at 75 miles per hour," Doug Nelson said. "The next training session he had, the guy was ripping it at him and asking ‘What happened?’”
Along with the technology is the Virtual Goalie app, which allows users to customize training packages — changing the speed and direction from which the shots come — and will provide feedback from the session. Virtual Goalie debuted at the US Lacrosse Convention in January.
Jimmy Ryan - Whales Lacrosse
Jimmy Ryan, then 15, just wanted to play lacrosse in the winter in Portland, Oregon, but had no team. So he began asking his friends across the West Coast if they wanted to form a team, and Whales Lacrosse Pod 1 was born in 2014. Ryan and his team started playing for a team mother, who was a breast cancer survivor, pledging $2 to the Susan G. Komen Foundation for every goal scored. Whales Lacrosse came away with $10,000 in its first tournament as a team.
Whales Lacrosse has since expanded to multiple age groups and added girls teams, all with the goal of having fun and raising money for a good cause. Ryan’s lacrosse club has reached Pod 13 this year, and has raised over $100,000 to various charities — like Project Violet in honor of Sam Taylor, The Michael Mosier Defeat DIPG Foundation in honor of Camron Cozzi and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in honor of Liz Lofurno.
“The most amazing thing is that raising this money is not hard work, it’s fun,” Ryan said.
Tyler Steinhardt - Shootout for Soldiers
Steinhardt helped lead a group of high school students at Boys’ Latin (Md.) that decided they wanted to help wounded veterans with a 24-hour lacrosse game. The result? Shootout for Soldiers, which debuted in June of 2012 at the school in Baltimore, had more than 1,000 participants.
Since then, the event has become an integral part of the lacrosse community each summer. Shootout Soldiers has expanded to locations across the country, like Ohio, Texas and California, with Steinhardt leading the way. SFS has raised up to $151,000 in events around the country.
Steinhardt’s crew has circled 13 dates for the 2018 Shootout for Soldiers, looking to raise even more money for our military.
Maxx Stewart - Spyder Grypz
Maxx Stewart, a lacrosse player himself, had used traditional tape for his stick, but it often had to be replaced. He had missed far too many shots because his grip wasn’t strong enough.
Working with the Young Entrepreneurs Academy (YEA!), Stewart, 15, decided to create his own grip — settling on a rubber-based customizable grip that was much more durable than ordinary athletic tape. He called his invention Spyder Grypz, a design that could be easily applied to a lacrosse stick via heat gun or hair dryer.
In 2016, Stewart and Spyder Grypz won the YEA! Saunders Scholars competition, which came along with a $30,000 scholarship. He continues to grow his product in the lacrosse community, hoping to sign a professional lacrosse player endorsement.
Krista Woods - GloveStix
Krista Woods had experience in sales and customer service, so the idea of inventing a product and marketing it around the country seemed farfetched at first. But when there was a problem, Woods and her husband, Chris, worked toward a solution.
The problem? The “stink” as many call it — the smell of lacrosse gloves after being used. She was tired of smelling her son’s gloves after a game. The Woods created Glovestix, a bacteria-killing deodorizer for apparel and equipment, not just suited for lacrosse. Glovestix hit the market in 2015 and has since won the Today Show’s “Next Big Thing” competition and appeared on ABC’s “Shark Tank”, where she struck a deal with Lori Greiner and Alex Rodriguez for $150,000.
Woods received the first 1,000 units and stored on her kitchen table. Now, Glovestix is reaching $1 million in sales.
“I literally Googled ‘How to get a product made,’ she said. “I’m not kidding, I had zero clue. That’s what’s the coolest part about my story. I didn’t come from this background. I’ve literally been tripping over myself to get to this point.”
Samantha Wolfe - Finger Fire
Wolfe, then in sixth grade, was tired of her hands freezing “into icicles” when she practiced in the winter, so she came up with an idea that would solve that problem. By her freshman year, Wolfe and her father had created “FingerFire”, a women’s stick with a USB port in the butt of the shaft that warms the stick for up to two hours.
She eventually signed with Enventys Partners, a product development company located in Charlotte, N.C., to make two prototype sticks in two years. Teams like Maryland, Syracuse and Johns Hopkins have already tested FingerFire in practices, and coaches like Gary Gait and Janine Tucker approve.
Wolfe’s hope is that FingerFire can reach the hands of girls lacrosse players across the country. She also showcased her product at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The next step is finding a manufacturer or sponsor for her product.
“Lacrosse is the fastest growing sport in the country,” Wolfe said. “Its popularity is bringing lacrosse to more and more states that play in less than ideal temperatures. We feel that the FingerFire technology will be crucial to sustaining the growth and popularity of lacrosse across all fifty states.”
Rachel Zeitz - Gladiator Lacrosse
Rachel Zeitz, 17, saw a problem in the lacrosse industry and went straight to fixing it. A lacrosse player in Boca Raton, Fla., Zeitz trained with goals and rebounders that would often tear and rust, leaving her to buy new equipment that cost hundreds of dollars.
In 2013, she launched Gladiator Lacrosse after coming up with the idea through the Young Entrepreneurs Academy. Her two primary products are the rebounder, made with a trampoline-like netting, and the goal.
Gladiator Lacrosse reached $1 million in revenue in 2015 before Zeitz pitched the company and its mission to the “Shark Tank” investors. Although she didn’t make a deal, Zietz continued working to build her company.
She has also partnered with US Lacrosse Hall of Famer Casey Powell to launch a signature edition of the rebounder. Gladiator Lacrosse also made it into Dick’s Sporting Goods stores.
“I never envisioned it being as big as it is today, especially in this short period of time. I knew I wanted to get to this point, but I never knew it would take as little time, fortunately, as it did.”
OfficialLax Girl- Tariro Kandemiri
Tariro Kandemiri, also known on social media as Official Lax Girl, fell in love with the game of lacrosse after emigrating from Zimbabwe when she was 8. Her passion for the game led her to establish her Twitter account, which has expanded to over 21,000 followers.
Kandemiri, who played briefly at Sewanee (Tenn.), has energized her following by sharing relatable stories and tweets. She’s also not scared to speak out on the issues of the game.
“I’m in this weird new position that I’ve never really been in before,” she said. “Now, I’m realizing, ‘Holy cow. You have a platform that you can use for something really good and you can use it to make change.’”