Toward a Strategic Future – Where

By Todd Powless

One of the wisest things I have ever heard about lacrosse organization was said by another well-known builder, in a room full of people

starting up a new minor club: “Take care of house league, rep will take care of itself.” By the time he said this, he had about 30 years of experience in minor lacrosse, was a high-level coach, ran Team Ontario tryouts, and so on. He knew what he was talking about – it was a strategic statement.

I have seen the inverse of this wisdom at work, and it almost killed that same club only a few years later. The club was run by well-meaning people, hard workers, doing their best. But they simply did not pay enough attention to house league and their registration numbers fell year over year. (This attitude towards house league impacted many of the clubs in the Zone and some are still struggling in that area to this day.)

What happens when your house league registration numbers fall is fairly predictable: less registrants means less programming, which in turn results in less numbers of players developing, and less developing players means fewer rep teams. This is an incredibly important point to emphasize: less rep teams means less income, players, resources, etc., for the OLA. Ignoring house leagues is a very bad business model for the OLA. They’ve already blamed the shrinking registration numbers on the Blue Jays once already, it won’t work again.

Here is a strategic problem that almost never gets the attention it deserves, other than a little hand wringing, and an ‘oh well:’ most, if not all, of the volunteers in minor clubs are parents of Rep players. Don’t get me wrong, this is not a statement about laying blame, it is a statement about how priorities are organized at the club level. Rep parents are motivated to volunteer, they have a stake in the outcomes of the minor club decisions. A few of them, like most minor sports volunteers, eventually see the big picture, and by the time enlightenment is achieved, they have usually left the organization as their children age out of minor sports.

Some volunteers will move on to other work within the lacrosse community, some even make it to working in the upper levels of lacrosse such as Zone or OLA boards, OLA staff, or as OLA volunteers on committees and special projects. When they do move on to bigger and better things within the hierarchy of lacrosse administration and governance in this province, they naturally perpetuate the ideas and methods they learned through their time with the minor club. Now let me cycle back on the idea that neglecting house leagues is a very bad business model.

It’s academic that ignoring – and I mean ignoring – house league reduces the overall registrations numbers. When this happens, resources either contract, costs inflate, or both. Perhaps the idea is that the minor club should get used to the shrinking numbers, form interlock house leagues, or send their house league players elsewhere when not enough of them show up to form teams. The latter scenario is the worst because the club doesn’t capture any income from an interested participant within their boundaries. Zero return. However, maybe the answer to financing a minor lacrosse club is to simply raise the fees for rep players. Parents are used to it, by way of the costs of hockey nowadays. And the OLA, well, they continue to afford their sumptuous general meetings, hire staff to run them, and so on.

The OLA’s Semi-Annual General Meeting agenda is a window-view of what priorities the OLA have developed from, one would hope, the Annual Genera Meeting a few months prior. The SAGM is a showcase of sorts that encourages everyone to attend. “We are thrilled to offer an exciting lineup of sessions and interactive forums that cover a variety of critical topics for our members.” Critical topics!

The SAGM organized into topical ‘modules’ hosted by subject experts designed impart “critical” information to participants. A quick review of the 2024 SAGM agenda shows that not a single session is devoted to “take care of house league.” Sure, the topic may come up in the strategic planning session “Reflect, Aspire, and Shape the Future of Ontario Lacrosse,” but what are the probabilities when the organizers can’t even devote 50 minutes to this “critical topic.” Alas, perhaps I am simply tilting against windmills, the OLA is fine, all is well, no worries.

Except it isn’t fine, well, or worry-free.

I pointed this out in my previous article Toward a Strategic Future – Why. The evidence of the problem is visible – you can actually see it with your own eyes. The complete lack of diversity in a changing population, especially in the GTA, is a stupendous loss of opportunity. The OLA’s strategic plan says it straight up in the first two points:

LACROSSE IS FOR EVERYONE – FOSTERING GROWTH AND PARTICIPATION
BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS OF PARTICIPATION

Identify the most common barriers to participation in lacrosse and then look at practical solutions to overcoming them.

FOSTERING A CULTURE OF DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION

Become a larger and more diverse lacrosse family by championing the game and developing a province-wide approach to inclusion.

Generally, a strategic plan is integrated into operational planning, policies, bylaws, and so on. A strategic plan is purposeful. However, having a publicly published strategic plan and not executing it kind of follows the course of idly watching opportunities evaporate. I say this because a strategic plan will also evaluate risks. Let’s face it, lacrosse is a niche sport, and it is heading towards the inevitable law of diminishing returns. (In other words, lacrosse is getting nichier.)

In the brief outline above, ‘b’ follows ‘a’ and suggests there is a somewhat linear process to achieving goals. The third point ‘c’ to increase female participation in lacrosse. It should actually read re-establish female participation, but that will be a topic for another day

Simply put diversity is the goal, and the means is house league.

This is not to suggest that the OLA somehow take administrative control of house leagues. It means that the OLA needs to send a clear message about how strategic goals can be achieved in practical, structural ways and offer a range of support options to help minor clubs set up successful house league recreational lacrosse programs. For that to happen the OLA needs to have an internal discussion about how they are organized. It is evident that Zones are not the solution. It is also evident that every chance must be given to the growth of house leagues.

Over a decade ago Lacrosse Canada hosted a sport development process for lacrosse. This resulted in the Lacrosse for Life - Long-Term Athlete Development model, which provides an excellent starting point for not only developing a house league or recreational program but also measuring the effectiveness of the program against the most common barriers to participation. As I stated in the previous article, as an experienced minor lacrosse administrator the most common barriers to participation I see are:

Cost & affordability, including equipment costs,
Safety & the reputation of lacrosse violence,
Scheduling and time commitment,
And the most important: visibility.

There is no point in having any sort of program excellence if lacrosse is mainly invisible in the community. (Yes, I know, the irony here.) We can build the best house leagues in the world, but if no one knows about us, nothing changes, opportunity blown.

Here is the biggest problem to overcome: the OLA believing that if they simply download the strategic solution to local clubs, the problem is solved, they’ve done their bit. The reason this is the biggest problem is because club organizers and volunteers tend to be Rep parents who place the better part of their focus, if not all of it, on their local Rep teams. And let’s be frank here, most of the volunteers and staff at the OLA have far more involvement with Rep in their lacrosse careers than anything else. Where else did they come from?

When we talk about ‘lack of diversity’ at the OLA, let’s also talk about this hard pill.

I am not suggesting that OLA, Zone, or club executives and volunteers drop what they are doing and pour everything into designing the perfect house league, but change has to start somewhere. I suggest it starts with this corny, but strategic motto: “Take care of house league, rep will take care of itself.”