VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) – –It’s been a long time coming. Since the late 1980s, lacrosse has done nothing but grow as a sport year in and year out.
“We tried to just grow the game with some young players from wherever they were in school, it didn’t matter to us. And the numbers started to increase year after year,” said Neil Duffy, the vice president of the Tidewater Chapter for USA Lacrosse.
Despite that growth, over the years, Hampton Roads remained the only region up and down the East Coast that didn’t play as a varsity-sanctioned sport through a school district.
Instead, coaches and players have been playing at the club level through organizations like HR Lax.
In recent years, the fight to make it a varsity sport has picked up steam, but the Virginia Beach School Board denied the proposal three years ago.
Last fall, momentum picked up again when former president of HR Lax, Sandi Dittig, began speaking with VB School Board member Carolyn Rye.
“I just believe that we as a community we’re ready to have something bring us together and lacrosse was it,” Dittig said. “We had hundreds of kids every year play the sport, join our teams and they came out of pocket for it.”
In club sports, players and teams pay fees to compete in order to keep the organization sustainable and ability to pay referees, rent field space and host tournaments. Varsity-sanctioned sports at the high school level don’t require players to pay fees.
“I was invited to join in and realized this group of coaches and board members were looking for direction,” Rye said. “They needed a road map.”
So that’s what happened. Rye, Dittig, coaches, and others began to converse more consistently about putting together a concrete plan to present to the school board. Last fall, that plan was presented and the board granted a hearing for more information soon after.
More meetings followed until the final vote in November. The decision was unanimous.
“I think our first words were ‘Finally, thank goodness.’ We’re really excited,” said Gianna Delavan, a junior lacrosse player at Kellam. “It was just kind of overwhelming and feeling like our hard work has paid off.”
The transition won’t officially happen until spring of 2023.
Estimated start-up costs are north of $800,000, while estimated annual costs are around $530,000 for 11 Beach district teams to field boys and girls teams.
Rye says the money will come from the “athletics fund” which is a special reserve fund that supplements the Virginia Beach School Board operating budget.
For more, watch the video in the player at the top of the story.
