Sedona Red Rock High School has the equipment to play lacrosse.
On Tuesday, Nov. 17, Rick Walsworth’s midday physical education class also had the coach and the field to bring the sport outdoors.
“Mondays and Tuesdays [are] pretty much my weekend,” said Travis Holland, introducing the sport to Northern Arizona youth ever since he founded a team at Flagstaff High School in 2004. “So, any chance I have to go to a school, I come out.
“We do how to run with the ball and passing. They’ll do some shooting on me for a couple rounds.”
Holland, who also plays indoor and outdoor leagues with the Tempe-based Arizona Wildfire when he is not at home in Cottonwood or a residential direct care practitioner in Flagstaff, has played lacrosse, and collected equipment to play the sport, ever since he was 16 years old.
“I think it’s easier to pick up lacrosse when you’re a little more mature. I’ve been impressed here [with] a lot of older kids. The kids found out I knew how to play, and they kind of pursued me.”
Six weeks after showing Rimrock students at the Beaver Creek School how it was played, Holland, who turned 36 Thursday, Nov. 19, celebrated his second decade in the sport by concluding a two-week series of classes with Walsworth at SRRHS.
“The last two times, we’ve been in the gym for some indoor scrimmages. I have some indoor goals, and we set them up.”
The Arizona chapter of U.S. Lacrosse hopes other high school students agree, not just at SRRHS or where Holland lives in Cottonwood, but all across a state in which there are currently 26 high school teams.
“It’s been a couple years — at first, I was just trying to get a camp [started],” said Holland, who has also coached at Northern Arizona University overnight camps which, he added, attract mostly Phoenix kids looking to escape the Valley heat. “No one around here really bit on that.
“Lacrosse in Arizona is one of those things you have to find.”
They did in Flagstaff, where a weekend diversion with a couple of students at the high school at which Holland worked turned into a full-blown, competitive team when 50 students showed up to tryouts. Holland, a former player at Goucher College in Maryland, ended up coaching the team through 2008.
“It was really hard back then to get games with anyone,” he said. “We set up scrimmages with Phoenix teams, but they finally figured out that if they want more people playing, they have to make it a little easier.
“There’s a lot of youth leagues, [but] I’m just looking to get kids to play. If you’re athletic, you can figure it out.”
For more information about scheduling a free lacrosse clinic, class or personal consultation, call Holland at 380-2584.
