Lacrosse: A new sport taking shape in Uganda

It has been an eventful year for the sport of lacrosse in Uganda.

Over the weekend, the lacrosse fraternity elected Liberty Twesiime as its new president. He replaces Kenneth Kasule, who was imprisoned six months ago, because of alleged mismanagement of the Uganda Lacrosse Association funds (Shs 37m), that had been provided by the government for air tickets to the World Cup.

Kasule was recently released on bail. But that is not the biggest news to come out of lacrosse this year. In June, the Lacrosse Cranes, as the national team is called, flew to the USA, to compete at the World Cup. But four of the 23-man squad that was in San Diego for the tournament did not return home.

BACKGROUND

There does not seem to be a dull moment in Ugandan lacrosse. Not anymore than the mystery that the sport itself is to many Ugandans. If you, like many, have been wondering what the sport is, I will help you. Lacrosse was first introduced in Uganda in 2011, yet even with the fact that it remains a sport that is not so popular in the country, Uganda has already been to three successive World Cup tournaments.

Uganda’s first appearance (the first by an African nation) was in 2014 in Colorado, Denver, and they finished last out of 38 teams, before heading to Israel for the 2018 edition, where they finished at number 40 out of 46 participating nations.

In the most recent edition, however, Uganda yet again carried the wooden spoon, finishing thirtieth out of 30 nations with seven defeats in seven games, scoring 19 and conceding 92 goals. The head coach Patrick Oriana said there was a lot to learn from their recent experiences.

“We need to be exposed to more competition in order to match the teams at international level. But we hardly get any test games, to enable us improve. But also, the lack of enough equipment and resources has held back the sport,” Oriana said.

Lack of resources has also meant that there is no defined national league. It was one of the major talking points during the Annual General Assembly last weekend, that the lacrosse fraternity discussed extensively. The parties feel that without a league, it is going to be difficult to follow up players’ development and growth, before they are selected for the national team.

It is for that matter that the sport is more predominantly a Kampala one, particularly in the areas between Nakawa and Kyambogo. In fact, there are just the five established lacrosse teams in Uganda from which the national team is picked. It remains a small sample size of players that play the sport.

SPORT DESCRIPTION

Lacrosse started in 1100 in the city of New York. And it is no surprise that the USA has won the game’s World Cup a whopping 11 times, since the first event in 1967. Canada are the second seeds in the world, and have won the Lacrosse World Cup three times. Lacrosse is a sport that is a cross between football and lawn tennis, in a way.

While the football field’s standard size is 53 yards wide and 120 yards long, the standard size of a lacrosse field is 60 yards wide and 110 yards long. Essentially, it fits almost the same size of a football field. The sport of lacrosse is played by 10 players at a particular time, with each holding a racquet-like object with which to play the ball.

In as far as lacrosse terminology is concerned, it is known as the lacrosse stick with a bowl-like mesh up top in which the ball is carried, before passing it to the nearest teammate, who also picks it up in the air using his stick, to try and get as close to the opponent’s goal as possible, to score in a goal whose standard size is six feet high and six feet wide.

An ordinary lacrosse team has a goalkeeper, three defenders, three midfielders and three forwards. But it is a sport of rotating substitutions. In other words, like it is in basketball, the player substituted can return to the field of play.

Actually, a team is free to use all its twenty-three players if it deems fit. This is largely because of the high intensity at which the game is played. So, players easily get exhausted. A normal lacrosse game is played for an hour, but it is divided between four quarters of 15 minutes each.

Incidentally, there is also the offside rule in lacrosse. This happens when an attacking team does not have at least four of its players in its
own half. But all players on the field are at liberty to move anywhere on the field, including the goalkeeper, provided they feel that they
have enough cover behind them whenever they decide to go forward.

THE COST OF PLAYING LACROSSE

Considering how young the sport is in the country, Uganda’s lacrosse has relied on donations from outside. Otherwise, it would have been difficult to sustain the sport here in its form. For example, the playing kit for one player would range between $100 and $150.

Add the helmet, which, depending on the brand, ranges from $100 to $180; the playing shoes, which are designed for running, go for at least $100 while the playing sticks go for $100 to $150. In essence, one lacrosse player needs an investment of at least $500 (Shs 1.8m) to be fully equipped. Therefore, a complete team of 23 players would require a budget of at least Shs 42 million to equip, any other logistics aside.

FOOTPRINT OF THE SPORT

On top of that, lacrosse is not the kind of sport that one can regard as lucrative, to pay the bills. Allan Amone, who is a goalkeeper on the Lacrosse Cranes team, said: “It is still a growing sport. So, it will take some time before it begins to pay. Right now, I play it because of the passion I have for sport, period.”

A host of individuals, who play lacrosse for the national team just picked it up a few years ago through information passed on by friends.
John Brian Mukaga, 20, was one of the Lacrosse Cranes players that competed at their first senior world cup this year, and he revealed that it was largely during the Covid-19 lockdown that he got to know much about lacrosse.

It is a sport that is catching on in the schools around Nakawa and Kyambogo especially the universities in those areas. Being a rare sport, but one that is physically engaging and quite athletic, it has its own traction. But what remains a fact is that it is not a sport that has spread out widely across the country.

Apart from a few teams in Jinja and in West Nile, the sport is hardly in twenty Ugandan districts, yet. One of the major issues on the to-do list, following the general assembly last weekend, is establishing a seasoned national league, as opposed to just having tournaments, where national team players are selected. Without sustained competition, it is hard to register a competitive team at the world stage like was the case in June.

And there, you have it; what lacrosse is, should you want to pick up a sport soon.

jovi@observer.ug