Keith Quigley’s annual LAX619 youth lacrosse camps have helped turn up the heat during the summer.
The series of three camps at Eastlake’s Sunset View Park has helped expose the game to a new generation of children while reinforcing fundamentals among active players.
The camps attracted children from third grade up and focused on drills and skills, with fun scrimmage games to end the day.
“Because we have a mix of skill and age levels, I want to make sure everyone is having fun,” Quigley said.
The first session took place June 10-14, followed by additional sessions June 24-28 and July 15-19.
Drills focused on fielding with passing/catching, ground balls, shooting, dodging and situational play such as four-on-three and three-on-two.
The most popular part of the day camp seemed to be the interactive scrimmages and games.
“Kids get to know other kids and make friends here,” Quigley said.
Volunteer coaches at the camps included Airik Ranjo, Steven Boudreaux, Brock Hayes, David Garcia, Elvene Alcos, Jacky Wang and Max Yale.
Ranjo and Wang attended Montgomery High School while Boudreaux attended Olympian High School. Hayes and Yale attended Eastlake High School.
Garcia coaches at Mar Vista High School while Alcos is a fifth grade teacher at Hilltop Elementary School and assistant boys lacrosse coach at Olympian High School.
Hayes, who discovered the sport in the fourth grade, said he enjoys giving back to the local lacrosse community that helped nurture his own playing career.
“Seeing the kids grow up and being part of their future is important to me – seeing how hungry they are to learn,” said Hayes, who was a member of Eastlake High School’s history-making team that finished runner-up in the 2018 San Diego Section championship game.
“It’s an amazing culture,” Garcia noted. “It’s definitely different from a lot of other sports. It’s a growing movement for the lacrosse community in San Diego.”
Members of the San Diego Seals professional National Lacrosse League team made appearances at two of the camps, Johnny Pearson and Austin Staats assisted Quigley with instruction at the second camp while the same two players attended the final camp.
“To see a little kid come over after handling a lacrosse stick for the first time with a smile on their face and interact with other kids is special,” Pearson said.
“I saw a lot of smiles,” Staats acknowledged. “It’s competition but it’s fun, too.”
The Seals concluded their inaugural season with a 10-8 regular season record to place second overall in the Western Conference standings. The Seals hosted the third-seeded Calgary Roughnecks in a first-round playoff game, coming up short by a score of 12-11 to end their championship run.
The Seals did exceptionally well for an expansion franchise both on and off the field. The Seals averaged 7,769 fans per game while Staats received honors as the NLL’s 2018-19 Rookie of the Year.
Several campers wore Seals replica jerseys in support of the team.
Staats called it a “pleasure” to participate in the summer youth camps as a guest instructor.
“To come here and have such great support from fans, and to have kids wearing my jersey and number, it shows that we have the ability to be a role model,” he said.
The Roughnecks went on to defeat the Eastern Conference champion Buffalo Bandits two games to none to win the 2019 NLL title.
“It was great,” Pearson noted of the team’s first season. “We came in with high standards. After seeing the competition throughout the league, we’ll come back with better standards. We hope to be able to capitalize on that next year.”
Quigley welcomed the attendance by the two Seals players at the summer camps.
“It’s a real treat to have the professional players down here,” Quigley said. “Their presence helps reinforce what I’m trying to do in Chula Vista.
“I was really excited to have such great attendance at all three of my lacrosse camps this summer. It was great to see so many returning faces but also lots of new faces that want to learn the game of lacrosse.”
Quigley had 17 players from Olympian, Otay Ranch, Mar Vista, Eastlake and Bonita Vista high schools participate in his summer high school lacrosse league LAX619 program. Two more weeks are left in competition at Rancho Bernardo High School.
“I really enjoyed coaching my LAX619 summer team because we had such a great group of South Bay high school kids that respected each other and respected the game,” Quigley said. “We did well competing with the various other teams in the Pacific Lacrosse Summer League at Rancho Bernardo High. I liked that our team had players from five different high schools in the South Bay. Looking forward to coaching winter ball with many of these same players/high schools.”
Quigley noted that as his summer programming comes to a close and kids head back to school he will be re-launching his popular after school lacrosse programs at local elementary schools.
For more information, visit www.puckidz.net.
Lacrosse en español program offers inclusion in sport for underserved communities
Keith Quigley’s LAX619 program operates under the umbrella non-profit PUCKidz organization, which is a member of US Lacrosse’s Urban Lacrosse Alliance and is actively involved in bringing the sport to the area’s Hispanic population.
One of the primary obstacles to participation, however, has been helping these parents and families to understand the sport.
US Lacrosse has now developed new resources to support those like Quigley as they introduce lacrosse to non-traditional participants. These materials include general and detailed information in Spanish about both men’s and women’s lacrosse, including a Spanish-language infographic and Spanish-language version of the US Lacrosse membership form.
Quigley termed the initiative a positive step forward in expanding the sport at the youth level.
“I think this is great,” he said. “I love being able to give these handouts to many of the families in my after school lacrosse programs, camps and clinics. Being able to provide families and kids with some Spanish language resources is wonderful.”
The hope is that these resources will make it easier for Quigley to explain lacrosse to those who have never seen it before.
“If we truly want to grow the game in every community, we must be able to make information about the sport readily accessible for everyone,” said Eboni Preston-Laurent, senior manager for diversity and inclusion at US Lacrosse. “We don’t want language to be a barrier to participation for families that want to get involved.”
It is estimated that 20 percent of the U.S. population will be comprised of Hispanics by 2050. Lacrosse is currently being played in more than 60 nations across six continents, including 10 World Lacrosse member nations in which Spanish is the predominant or official language.
Preston notes that additional online resources will continue to be added on the US Lacrosse website.
“We just started the translation process, but our commitment is to do more in this space,” she said. “We’re in the process of finding more translators to help us effectively convert the English-language resources that we have traditionally provided to the lacrosse community.”
“Having something like this to give them helps to learn and understand the game better, and most likely even enjoy the game more because they understand it more,” Quigley said.
—US Lacrosse
Photo Gallery by Phillip Brents
