USA Lacrosse went back to school this year and the grade is looking A plus.
For the 2025-26 school year, USA Lacrosse launched a pilot program in four states – California, Colorado, Ohio and New York – that brings its new physical education kit to school teachers to help them introduce the sport to new players.
Introducing lacrosse through PE classes is not a new initiative for USA Lacrosse, but the organization is doubling down its efforts this year. The new kit includes unified sticks developed in partnership with Franklin Sports, goals, a drill book to help instructors teach the sport and access to additional educational resources from USA Lacrosse.
It’s been a hit at the more than 60 schools involved in the pilot programs. Combined with multi-sport and adaptive organizations, USA Lacrosse kits, including more than 2,300 sticks, went to nearly 100 locations and will help introduce the sport to nearly 50,000 new players this school year.
Carolyn Reide, a physical education teacher at Stony Point Elementary School in the North Rockland (N.Y.) Central School District, attended the SHAPE (Society of Health and Physical Education Educators) America Conference in Baltimore and learned about the opportunity from USA Lacrosse. She and fellow teacher, Anthony Hilliard, had more than 300 kids at their school participate in a lacrosse unit this fall.
“When we do sports that the kids know, they already come in thinking they know everything almost, so they’re already in game mode,” Reide said. “This kind of slowed it down and allowed us to teach the skills at hand. I think their attention was more focused on learning an individual skill because they haven’t done it before. Once it really got cold and we couldn’t use the field and it was muddy, they were asking for it. They want to do it again.”
A similar story is happening in Colorado where Tim Welch had about 350 kids from Grades 2-5 participate in a lacrosse unit at Steele Elementary School in Denver. They focused on throwing, catching, scooping and shooting.
“We also did some face-offs – both boys and girls – and they were pumped,” Welch said. “We even had a dad who played in college come to our class in his full gear and talk about the equipment and showed some fun moves. The kids loved the program and the equipment and skills.”
USA Lacrosse chose to expand its focus on physical education as a way to deliver the sport to new players for a variety of reasons.
“You have the infrastructure of a school and teachers to help deliver the curriculum,” said Ronnie Morales, Director of Sport Growth DEI for USA Lacrosse. “With the kits we provide to the schools, we can impact more kids through PE versus any other initiative.”
Morales attended the SHAPE Conference in Cleveland in 2024 to begin gathering ideas from teachers about what they were looking for and refined the PE kit to begin developing leads from the Baltimore SHAPE Conference earlier this year. The sticks developed with Franklin are a major upgrade from the old school blue plastic sticks previously used for PE classes.
“This is legit equipment,” Reide said.
USA Lacrosse also worked with SHAPE to align its PE curriculum with align with SHAPE’s national physical education standards by teaching age-appropriate skills, strategies, and physical literacy. It provides structured lesson plans that help educators meet all five SHAPE standards through progressive, standards-based instruction.
There have been a lot of learnings for Morales as he looks to make the program more scalable in the future. Oregon, Texas and Washington are among the states USA Lacrosse is looking to expand the program for next year while continuing to enhance its current pilot programs.
One of the learnings is that teachers have gravitated to the holistic approach of including lessons about the Native American roots of the sport into their units. Welch’s school utilized the lacrosse unit in November, combining it with National Native American Heritage Month.
Many schools introduced lacrosse in the fall and will look to do additional units in the spring. USA Lacrosse is also sharing information about local member leagues to help the students connect with the sport outside of their school activities.
“As we do this year after year, I see it growing in our youth sports,” Reide said. “I’m ready to play in the backyard with my own daughter.”
Anyone interested in learning more about the PE program can contact Morales at rmorales@usalacrosse.com
