Mountain Brook: Lacrosse capital of Alabama

MOUNTAIN BROOK — The University of Denver brands itself as the Lacrosse Capital of the West, and rightfully so. In 2015, the Pioneers became the first college program west of the Mississippi River to capture an NCAA Division I title in men’s lacrosse.

Zachary Carroll, a 2017 Mountain Brook High School graduate, will join the perennial power this fall. He signed a letter of intent in May to continue his playing career in the Mile High City, which has emerged as an outpost for a sport with deep roots in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions of the United States.

Carroll’s commitment to one of the country’s top programs signified a watershed moment for local lacrosse. According to his Mountain Brook head coach, Brian Doud, Carroll’s was undoubtedly the highest-profile signing in Spartan lacrosse history. Doud compared the rarity of Denver recruiting Carroll to the Alabama football team recruiting a kid from Madagascar.  

“That’s how remote Alabama is when it comes to lacrosse in the eyes of the major powers,” said Doud, who is from Maryland and played collegiately at Johns Hopkins. “We’re far away. We’re small, so for Denver to find a player that they believe is capable of playing and contributing at the Division I level, that’s a big deal.”

Carroll put pen to paper only one year after Altamont’s Olivia Mannon, who played girls lacrosse for Mountain Brook, became the first Spartan — regardless of gender — to sign with a Division I lacrosse program. Mannon inked in 2016 with California’s Fresno State University.

The pair of marquee signings, though certainly reflective upon the prowess of the individuals, hints that a broader force is at work among Mountain Brook lacrosse. In the future, commitments to national-caliber squads may become more prevalent. 

Participation rates across the Greater Birmingham Youth Lacrosse Association during the past two seasons, along with a recent surge in success, suggests that the sport is flourishing in Mountain Brook at a rate rarely seen in the state or region. 

The city has become a lacrosse capital of its own. 

“It’s the fastest-growing sport in the United States,” said Doud, “and Mountain Brook is leading the way in the state of Alabama.”

Like soccer in the ‘80s

Lacrosse has been gaining traction nationally for quite some time, but Alabama has traditionally lagged in its embrace of the non-traditional game. That has started to change.

High school and college lacrosse programs have popped up around the state, and participation continues to increase. 

This past spring, 1,516 boys and girls from 11 different communities across the Birmingham metro area played in the GBYLA, which serves as the state’s main channel for competition from the under-7 to high school varsity age divisions. Lacrosse has yet to be sanctioned by the Alabama High School Athletic Association, despite its surge in popularity. 

“In it’s earliest stages, instead of talking about 1,500 kids, you’d be talking about a fraction of that playing,” said Jamey Harris, president of the Mountain Brook Lacrosse Association. “It’s taken off almost like soccer did in the ’80s.”

The sport appears to have struck a particular chord in Mountain Brook. More than a fifth of the GBYLA player pool this past spring wore Spartan green and gold. 

According to data provided by Harris, 346 Mountain Brook youth ranging from ages 5 to 18 picked up a stick and joined a team in 2017. It was the second spring that Harris, who entered office two years ago, noticed an uptick in participation. In 2015, fewer than 300 Spartans suited up. Last year that number jumped to around 330. 

The girls side, specifically, has experienced unforeseen growth. 

“In the last four years, the girls game has grown tremendously,” said Hunter Faulconer, Mountain Brook’s varsity girls coach. “A lot of them are starting younger now than they did.” 

Across almost every age division, the number of Spartan boys and girls participating in the sport exceeds those of other GBYLA communities. 

The chasm is considerable. 

The Hoover Youth Lacrosse Organization in 2017 registered the second-largest player population, with 252 kids. Only in one age group, high school boys, did its total numbers surpass Mountain Brook’s. That isolated tally, however, included the rosters from two high schools: Hoover and Spain Park. 

Lacrosse is simmering in surrounding cities. In Mountain Brook, it’s already piping hot. 

“I think that over the past 10 years that I’ve been involved, it’s grown exponentially,” said Jeff Rusert, an assistant coach for the Mountain Brook boys middle school and varsity teams. “I’ve seen it grow from where we could barely make one team to where now at most of the levels we have three teams.”

Why the boost in popularity? There are a bevy of reasons to explain lacrosse’s local growth. 

From a technical standpoint, coaches said it’s plain fun. The fast-paced sport features constant movement, physical contact — in the boys game, primarily — and countless opportunities to score. 

It’s not uncommon for lacrosse games to end with football-like tallies.

“It takes elements of basketball, soccer and football,” said Doud. “Throw in a stick and some cool equipment involved, and the kids just seem to be drawn to it.”

Lacrosse, Harris said, also appeals to a wide spectrum of kids from a variety of athletic and non-athletic backgrounds. The game’s different positions can provide an optimal fit for many types of players, and its continual rotation of personnel affords more chances for playing time. 

Lacrosse, as a whole, combines elements of speed, smarts and skill.

“It’s a sport that I think allows kids to come into it regardless of their ability,” Harris said. 

But perhaps the biggest factor spurring lacrosse’s citywide growth is exposure. Mountain Brook and Crestline elementary schools include a two-week lacrosse course as part of their physical education curriculum. At Cherokee Bend and Brookwood Forest, local coaches like Faulconer and Tom Lewis have made visits to introduce the game. Lewis was the Mountain Brook varsity boys coach from 2001-11 and now coaches his daughters’ youth team. 

To reach kids outside of the classroom, the Mountain Brook Lacrosse Association holds an inquiry day each fall. The event allows kids who have never picked up a stick to gauge their compatibility with the sport.

“The big hurdle is that people are unfamiliar with it and don’t know how to get into it,” Harris said, “but once they do, a lot of our kids stay with it.”

Booming talent

Quantity doesn’t guarantee quality, but Mountain Brook’s expanding player population certainly has become more polished. Since 2014, five Mountain Brook boys varsity players, including Carroll, have been named U.S. Lacrosse All-Americans. 

On the girls’ side, seven varsity players, including Mannon, have moved on to college programs in the past two years, whether at the club or varsity level. The Spartan girls  have advanced to four of the past five GBYLA championship games and won the title in 2013. 

“There’s not only more players playing, but there’s also a higher level of coaching and a higher level of player development in terms of their skills,” Lewis said. 

While the aforementioned accomplishments measure success, Doud said he prefers to calibrate a program’s health using another barometer: athlete retention. In the past, players dropped off as they progressed through high school. Seniors, especially, were hard to come by. 

“They wanted to move on to other things, but the last three years we’ve been able to keep our seniors,” Doud said. “There’s been an excitement around the program. We’ve been winning again, and they want to be a part of it.” 

The Mountain Brook boys varsity team has triumphed in 23 of 27 games the past two seasons, rebounding from a relative rough patch in the years prior. Historically, the Spartan boys have fielded a competitive varsity squad since the original team formed in the late 1990s. At the time — and until its recent boom — lacrosse was still a fledgling sport in Alabama. Frequently, the team traveled to cities like Atlanta and Chattanooga just to find games.

 Doud credits the resurgence of his boys program in this new era of state lacrosse to players like Carroll, who picked up the sport in fourth grade after quitting Little League baseball. 

“It all starts at the youth level, and we’ve developed quality youth players who can contribute at the varsity level,” Doud said.

Carroll has since evolved into one of the country’s top threats, and he leaves Mountain Brook as an all-time great. That’s what he always had aspired to be. The Spartan grad used to attend varsity games as a kid and dream about the day he would take the field.  

Times have changed for Carroll in the past eight years, just as they have for the sport he loves. The numbers underscore that lacrosse is now more popular in Mountain Brook than anytime in its past. There are tangible signs of the spot it has carved in the community. 

When he originally traded in baseball for lacrosse, Carroll recalls being prodded by friends who questioned his decision. Why, they asked, would he exchange a traditional pastime for torch-like sticks and downsized nets? 

The rising generation of Spartans no longer confronts those queries. 

“Now the tables have turned,” said Carroll. “You see kids, driving around Mountain Brook now, and the kids will have a lacrosse stick in their yard, or they’ll have a goal out there. It’s pretty sweet, because when I was growing up, it was not like that at all.”