Boys lacrosse club hopes to join high school ranks

School board hears idea for sport to be sanctioned by district

BY DANIELLE MEDINA Correspondent

BY DANIELLE MEDINA
Correspondent

BRICK — The goals for the members of the Brick Lacrosse Club are simple.

The boys want the pride that comes with taking the field for their high schools and they want to cut down on the time they spend traveling to play the game they love.

So, at the Board of Education meeting on June 16, Cindy Masefield, the club’s president, asked the district to adopt a pay-to-play policy for what she said is the township’s fastest growing sport.

“We’re not asking for any money,” Masefield said. “We just want to be sanctioned by the school.”

Sanctioning by the Board of Education, and in turn the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA), would mean that the boys could play local high schools that field lacrosse teams, like Toms River.

This spring, Masefield said, the team had to travel for an hour or more each way to play other club teams in places like Avalon, Cherry Hill and West Deptford.

It would also give the boys an enormous sense of pride, Masefield explained, with the opportunity to play for their school, earn varsity letters and be a part of the school’s athletic community.

But because of the financial situation the district is in, Masefield, a special education teacher at Midstreams Elementary School, said the club’s parents have agreed to foot the bill for the entire cost to play, including coaches, transportation and equipment.

“The main focus of the district should be education,” said Board of Education member Dan Rosa, who is also the club’s head coach. “School books are more important.”

The club estimates that the cost of fielding a team at each high school could cost between $15,000 and $20,000, but members hope to offset the cost to parents by securing corporate sponsorships and holding fund-raising events such as golf outings.

There is also a possibility of creating one high school team, much like Point Pleasant Beach and Point Pleasant Borough did when they started their ice hockey team.

The Brick Lacrosse Club was founded in the spring of 2004, after the club team in Toms River, where most of the Brick boys played, including Masefield’s son Mike, folded because the sport was introduced in the high schools.

Masefield recruited her neighbor, Rosa, to coach the team because of his prior coaching experiences in Clark and New Providence, as well as his experience as a player at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

In 2004, there were 25 players on the high school level, which increased to 45 in 2005. A grammar school program that has 80 boys and girls enrolled was also started this year.

A majority of the Board of Education members surveyed said they’d support a parent-funded team. But Superintendent of Schools Dr. Thomas Seidenberger said on Friday that in the coming weeks the issue will get its “due respect.” He said he already has a lot of questions regarding pay-to-play.

“If the parents are willing to fund it, will the community expect other parents to pay for the other sports?” Seidenberger said. “What am I supposed to say to senior citizens who ask, ‘Why don’t parents pay for football and ice hockey time, too?’

The district will have to look at how adding a boys sports team will impact the district’s overall athletic program, Seidenberger said. Under Title IX, the NJSIAA would require the district to add a girls sports team with a comparable number of participants within three years of the boys lacrosse team’s start. A girls lacrosse team at both high schools was started in 2003.

“If we offer a girls volleyball team, are those parents expected to pay also?” Seidenberger asked.

Seidenberger also wondered what would happen if a student who played lacrosse for free at his old high school moved to Brick and had to pay. And, he asked, what happens in a few years when a new crop of boys will be playing, with new parents who don’t want to fund it anymore?

“Issues like these are fluid. They don’t stand still,” Seidenberger said.