Grow the Game®

Cali*Lax ALL-STARS
Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on linkedin
Share on reddit
Share on whatsapp

Get To Know The Cali*Lax ALL-STARS!

You may have seen a post a little earlier today about all the success that the Cali*LAX All-Stars box lacrosse teams saw up in Calgary, and asked yourself, “yeah, but who the heck ARE these guys?” and it would be a fair question.

Box isn’t huge South of the Canadian border, at least not yet, and Shaydon Santos, and the US Box Lacrosse Association, is trying to change that. Shaydon runs the Cali*LAX All-Stars club in California, and these guys have embraced the box game like few Americans before them. What they’re doing on the floor is impressive, and I thought it might be helpful to learn a little more about what’s going on out West.

I also asked Shaydon some questions, and of course, he fired back some answers.

Here are the basics:

  • The Cali*LAX Midget team has been playing the longest. They’ve been at it for 4 years, and the team has been on 5 Canadian tours.
  • All of the kids play field lacrosse as well.
  • When I asked him about getting booed, or unwelcome, Shaydon said, “We’ve lost so much up there in Canada – I think people like seeing us win now.  It is pretty cool for these more established teams to be playing California, Denver and Washington players and it’s great for the game.  Plus we now get BC and Alberta teams down to our Box tournaments in the USA – which is just as cool for us”. There clearly isn’t a lot of negativity.
  • The Washington (Lewis Ratcliff), Denver (Matt Brown) and California programs all view themselves as US representatives each time they play. There just isn’t that much more US Box Lacrosse! We love it!
  • The biggest hurdle for the Cali*LAX All-Stars was box insurance for the USA and up in Canada – which was solved via US Box Lacrosse Association. The next biggest hurdle was getting kids engaged enough to practice year round, so that the teams could compete in Canada.
  • One of their players recently signed up to play JR A ball with Whitby!
  • How can you start box lacrosse in your area? www.membership.usboxla.com is as good a place as any!

Thanks to Shaydon for Growing the box Game, and sending so much great information our way. Is New York City the next place to embrace US Box Lacrosse? If I have anything to say about, maybe!