Increasingly, a numbers game

Packed with action, lacrosse Final Four draws a crowd

Lacrosse fans, perhaps 50,000 or more, are expected to make their way to Gillette Stadium in Foxborough this weekend to watch the NCAA Division 1 men's Final Four. One of the fastest-growing sports in the country the past decade, especially in the youth ranks, lacrosse is hotter than a blistering shot from the slot.

"It's a game that gets in a kid's blood," said longtime Georgetown coach Dave Urick, whose Hoyas, though not in the tournament, are a perennial contender. "And you don't have to be the Incredible Hulk to play it."

Once a cult sport within the NCAA, played predominantly in upstate New York and mid-Atlantic colleges, college lacrosse moved its championship weekend off downsized college venues and into larger NFL stadiums at the start of this decade. According to those closely associated with the sport, the huge uptick in youth participation, as well as collegiate audiences that grew in lockstep with the youth craze, forced the shift to the bigger, glitzier stage.

In the last four years, for example, the Final Four was played in NFL arenas in Baltimore and Philadelphia, and the average attendance was slightly less than 47,000. Last year's attendance at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore was a record 52,004.

All of it a far cry from the day more than 35 years ago when Urick, now 59, drove to Boston from his home in western New York to see the sport's annual North-South college game. In those days, the North-South duel, essentially an all-star matchup, stood as the NCAA's premier lacrosse event.

"The game was at Tufts, and I'll bet the crowd was around 5,000 . . . which wasn't too bad," recalled Urick, reached earlier this week at his campus office in Washington. "Most of all, I remember getting lost in Boston traffic, pulling over, and when I asked for directions, a woman asked me, 'Are you familiar with the rotary concept?' The rotary concept? Hey, I just wanted to get to a lacrosse game."

This weekend, beginning with today's semifinals that will pit Virginia against Syracuse (noon) and Duke against Johns Hopkins (2:30 p.m.), should bring cars streaming down Route 1 to Gillette Stadium, where, in stark contrast to Patriots games, parking will be free. Across from the stadium, in a car dealership's parking lot, a number of interactive lacrosse exhibits will be on display. The Cannons and Blazers, Boston's professional lacrosse franchises, will be among the vendors in the area, attempting to cultivate new fans and customers.

"I went to my first lacrosse Final Four in 1988, when it was at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse," said Tom Ryan, coach of the indoor lacrosse Blazers, who will begin play at TD Banknorth Garden in January. "I was a junior in high school, and I'd played lacrosse since maybe I was 5 years old. But that Final Four changed my life, opened my eyes to a level of play and excitement that I'd never seen before."

Lacrosse lacks nothing in action, which in large part is why it is proving to be such an enticing alternative for high school athletes who traditionally have chosen between baseball and track in the spring. There is little downtime in a sport that demands constant running, and includes contact and skilled stickwork that requires keen hand-eye coordination.

"The kids like the action, and they like the gear, especially the stick and putting on the helmet and gloves," said Jack Piatelli, 45, who grew up in Brookline and became an All-American in high school (Kent) and college (Springfield). "And the action is nonstop. It's not like standing out there in center field, waiting for a ball to come to you."

Piatelli, a regional sales manager (hockey and lacrosse) for New Balance, a dozen years ago helped start a youth lacrosse league in Wrentham that had 75 players enrolled. Today, the program boasts 460.

"The last 15-20 years, the growth around the country has been incredible," said Urick, the Georgetown coach. "You're seeing it take off everywhere now . . . in Denver and Florida and California. Once it gets a toehold in an area, there is no stopping it."

Figures provided by US Lacrosse, the sport's national governing body, show nearly a 90 percent increase in participation, boys and girls combined, since 2001. As of last year, more than 480,000 athletes were playing the game at the youth, high school, and college levels. Seven years ago, that number was just under 254,000.

A significant portion of the crowd going to the games this weekend, which will include the Division 2 and 3 championship games tomorrow and the Division 1 title game Monday, will be stick-toting children, ages, say, 6-16. Just as it is proper to see a youngster bring a baseball glove to Fenway Park, young lacrosse fans like to show up ready for action. They will use the sticks to play catch in the Gillette parking lot, as well as for interactive exhibits around the arena and in the concourse. When the game is on, they're likely to be still clutching their sticks.

"You see a lot of families attending," noted John Tesoro, 46, an investment banker from Sudbury who plans to be at Gillette this weekend with his wife, Jennifer, and son Jonathan. "I'd imagine security is counting on parental supervision to keep the stick thing in check. I went to the Final Four five years ago in Baltimore, and I didn't witness any trouble at all."

Prior to 1971, the NCAA's best lacrosse team was determined via committee rather than a title game. The US Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association, said Jason Yellin, director of sports information at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, designated a "mythical champion" each year, by virtue of a coaches' poll. The practice, he said, sometimes led to co- and tri-champions.

There was far bigger interest in those days in the annual North-South game, such as the one that brought Urick decades ago to that Medford rotary. The tilt brought together the best players from around the Northeast. But finally, in '71, the NCAA introduced the more traditional playoff format to crown its champion, and Cornell that spring bested Maryland for the title. Powerhouse Johns Hopkins played in the next three finals, losing to Virginia and Maryland before capturing its first title with a win over Maryland in 1974.

"That first title game only had around 2,500 spectators," recalled Warren Kimber, who will be on the field this weekend as coordinator of officials, an NCAA post he has held for 15 years. "It was a much smaller deal then, but it has grown into this truly wonderful family event. People come in around noon, and there is all this stuff going on in the parking lots, the games are just great, and people hang around until it gets dark."

As the weekend approached, tickets remained available via Ticketmaster. Cost per package: $70 or $80, which includes tickets to all five games over three days. Single-day tickets were also available, at $35 for today and tomorrow, and $30 for Monday.

"It's really a great atmosphere," said Mark Kastrud, the Cannons' vice president and general manager, who has been to a few Final Fours. "Fans come out of the woodwork for it, connecting with old buddies, and for some, just having it at a big venue like Gillette is a draw in itself. The parking lot will have a lot of tailgating, with kids throwing the ball around, grills going . . . everything you'd see at a Patriots game, but with nicer weather."

Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at dupont@globe.com.