Hidden away from the oppressive heat on a Tuesday afternoon in mid-July, gaggles of young girls chased brightly colored balls with lacrosse sticks around the East County Community Center gym in Silver Spring, laughing and yelling as they tried to win a real-life version of the children’s board game “Hungry Hungry Hippos.”
The girls were participating in lacrosse lessons offered at county summer camps by MoCo Lacrosse, a nonprofit program founded in 1998 by Bethesda resident Jeff Wagner, 73.
Although the girls weren’t playing an actual game, they were trying their hand at some of the fundamental skills needed for the official team sport of Maryland. Since 1995, lacrosse has increasingly gained popularity in middle and high schools across Maryland, according to the Maryland state archives.
In parts of Montgomery County, that popularity is reflected in the sheer number of kids who play the sport from a young age, said Wagner, who serves as president of MoCo Lacrosse. He notes that some children in wealthier communities such as Bethesda, Chevy Chase and Potomac have been playing lacrosse since they were 5 years old while kids who attend MoCo Lacrosse’s program may not have held a lacrosse stick before attending a session.
That’s because the cost of the sport can be a big deterrent for many families. The average annual equipment cost is $280, according to data from the Aspen Institute of Play and the Utah State University’s Families in Sports Lab.
For 25 years, Wagner has been trying to rectify that disparity and level the lacrosse playing field through his nonprofit, serving 2,000 kids ages 6 to 13 each summer at existing camps and after-school programs in lower-income parts of the county. Wagner and MoCo Lacrosse Program Director Zhané Ruffin estimate they’ve put a lacrosse stick in the hands of more than 15,000 students over the years.
“Here they’ve never seen a stick unless they’ve come to camp and happened to see one,” said Wagner, a partner at a communications company, as he watched the children play at the East County Community Center.
Wagner, who’s originally from Baltimore, started MoCo Lacrosse with one location in the Gwendolyn E. Coffield Community Recreation Center in Silver Spring. The nonprofit has since grown to 25 locations in partnership with the Montgomery County Department of Recreation.
Fifteen of those locations are in community centers, where MoCo Lacrosse brings in a handful of staff from the more than 100 high schoolers or other adults involved with the program to introduce lacrosse to would-be players of all genders.
For the summer camps or after-school programs, MoCo Lacrosse is offered as a free activity, providing equipment for the kids to try for the afternoon. Wagner said some of the nonprofit’s funding is subsidized by the county but much of it comes from him and his wife, Nancy Leopold.
Disparities continue in schools
Lacrosse has a long history in both the U.S. and in Maryland, but only became an official team sport in high school in Montgomery County Public Schools in the last 30 years. According to The Washington Post, lacrosse operated as a club sport in MCPS high schools before it gained varsity recognition in 1997.
Jeff Sullivan, MCPS director of systemwide athletics, said the increasing popularity of lacrosse over the years spurred the transition to a varsity sport. Roughly a decade after adding varsity, the system added junior varsity at high schools. Schools provide equipment for players.
Even with the popularity of lacrosse in public and private schools, Wagner said, students in lower-income parts of the county continue to have less access to the sport from a young age.
At Wheaton High School, junior varsity lacrosse coach Jack Martin said that of the 22 players on his team, only one student had experience in the sport before high school.
“You go to teams in Bethesda or Potomac, and all the kids have played since they were really young,” Martin said. “Around where I coach, the Wheaton area, they really have no [experience], a lot of them really just do it because they wanna condition for other sports.”
Building confidence
During the MoCo Lacrosse sessions at summer camps, staff members run 45-minute sessions for different genders and age groups, helping kids practice tossing a ball or play games such as “Hungry Hungry Hippos.”
“[The best part] is just watching their confidence grow,” Ruffin said. “They built so much confidence over the amount of time they’re exposed to the sport. And I think that translates in other things that they do. … The more they have the exposure, the more confidence they have, and they’re more willing to try new things.”
Wagner points to the program’s success stories, such as Tari Kandemiri, a MoCo Lacrosse camp counselor who went on to play lacrosse in college and co-hosted an ESPN show on the sport for three seasons.
Kandemiri, who moved from Zimbabwe to Silver Spring when she was 7, said the program inspired her love of lacrosse and passion for teaching the sport.
Since being involved with MoCo Lacrosse for much of high school and college, Kandemiri has been deeply involved with lacrosse across the world and is even building the first-ever lacrosse program for players of Zimbabwean heritage with her sister.
“MoCo Lacrosse was my first step along a journey of just loving lacrosse at its core, but then also establishing and building my own leadership skills,” Kandemiri said.
Camp counselor Harem Mesfin, a student at James Hubert Blake High School in Silver Spring, said he was introduced to lacrosse through the program at a summer camp he attended as a kid.
“It’s a full circle experience, giving back to the kids,” Mesfin, 17, of Silver Spring.
Wagner and Ruffin said they’re proud of how much the program has grown to include formal training and curriculum, as well as developing community engagement.
“It’s a great way of showing that we care about kids in our community, because I think a lot of times you don’t recognize that they truly are the future of this community,” Ruffin said. “The fact that we’re able to pour into them and help them build those transferable skills … is really important.
Although Wagner joked that celebrating a quarter of a century of the program made him feel old, he said he’s hoping to expand to more locations to serve more kids.
“Just watching these kids have fun year in and year out … that’s inspiring,” he said.