By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Publisher When the number of kids coming up to Cedar Creek Athletic Director Mike McGhee and telling him how much they wanted a lacrosse team began to grow — and grow, and grow — he knew he had to get to work on starting a program. But introducing a new sport to a school that itself was only a few years old was going to be quite a challenge. There were many things to consider. Finding enough players to fill out a boys and a girls team wasn’t going to be an issue, that much he knew. But how would starting a new sports program affect existing sports such as baseball, softball and track? Was Cedar Creek a large enough school to be able to handle bringing on a new program without bringing down existing programs? Could he convince the board of education that the added expenses involved were justifiable? Could the Pirates be competitive enough to begin playing a varsity schedule right away? These were all questions McGhee had to find the answers to, and although the Pirates now have varsity teams this year for both boys and girls lacrosse, the process of getting to this point has been years in the making. 
Brian Devinney and the Cedar Creek Pirates are in their first year of a full varsity schedule in the Cape-Atlantic League, but the groundwork for building the school’s lacrosse program began several years ago. (Glory Days Magazine photos/Dave O’Sullivan) “The lacrosse community was very good about helping us get started. I talked to Steve Fortis, the athletic director over at Absegami, and Dave Bennett at Oakcrest, our sister schools, and we talked to those two schools first, of course. The big thing for me has been getting the budget, the equipment, all that stuff in over the past couple of years. Our numbers went through the roof this year,” McGhee said. “I was nervous with us being a Group 2 school with what it was going to take away from. A couple of years ago, I did a lot of research on how many schools our size had lacrosse programs. We actually had about 50 girls come out this year and 48 boys. You could see the impact a little bit on softball, and track has taken a little bit of a hit, but the kids taking up the game who have never even picked up a stick before seem to be really enjoying it.” McGhee and boys coach George Cappuccio said that students played a big role in getting the programs started. They came to McGhee with a written proposal that was signed by dozens of student-athletes who pledged their commitment to playing, and that is what really got the ball rolling at Cedar Creek. “When we first opened the school we only had two classes of kids, and I guess they didn’t feel like we had enough students to have baseball, lacrosse and track all in the spring. There were a couple of kids who were upset about it because they played as freshmen at Oakcrest or Absegami, and they came over as sophomores to Cedar Creek and we didn’t have a sport that they liked,” Cappuccio said. “So they got things going at the student level, and their parents went to the board. We got a lot from the parents and we had a lot of local support, and that’s kind of what got it going. We were at full strength (as a student population), we had seniors, so there was no reason for us not to have it, and that’s how we ended up with a team.” “We’re in a district where the other two schools have it, so it was one of those things where we were going to get it, it was just a matter of picking the right time. We had a big senior class last year who, when they were juniors, kept requesting it and asking when we were going to start a program. We did it for that class, and it wound up being an independent schedule last year. The one negative we have out here is we don’t have a feeder system. My coaches have been working with the townships to try to get something going down at the lower levels to develops kids at a younger age. A lot of these kids aren’t picking up a lacrosse stick until they are a freshman,” McGhee said. “The kids came to me with a written proposal and all the kids signed it. I then went to my principal. And we have a very supportive board of education where a couple of the board members really wanted to see the programs get up and running. The district, financially, supported us. It costs thousands of dollars for each team to get them up and running because you have to get everything from soup to nuts — the goalposts, the nets, the sticks. A lot of parents and kids come with their own stuff, but we had to get the goalie stuff, uniforms, you name it. So it needed a big commitment from the board of education last year, and we were very lucky to get it done.” 
Paxton Antonucci is part of a Holy Spirit girls team that is one of several new squads competing in the Cape-Atlantic League. Cappuccio said the board members had no idea what a big undertaking it would be to add lacrosse, particularly on the boys side. Girls lacrosse features minimal protective gear. You basically just need eyewear, a mouth piece, uniforms and a stick, aside from the goalkeeper. But in boys lacrosse there is the cost of helmets, shoulder pads, elbow guards, gloves, etc. “It’s huge to have the parents and the athletic director supporting it. It’s a very equipment-heavy sport, and that’s one of the things (the board) didn’t realize. They were like, you guys need as much stuff as a football team. They definitely weren’t expecting the amount of equipment that we needed,” Cappuccio said. “The one thing that we don’t have that we will eventually need to be competitive is a feeder system. Right now a lot of the kids play soccer and other sports. You can really tell the kids who have done it for a while.” McGhee said it has taken several years to actually launch the program. The Pirates started with an independent schedule last year just to get some game experience, and joined the Cape-Atlantic League this year along with Atlantic City and Holy Spirit, which also put together both boys and girls programs. Holy Spirit and Atlantic City chose to start by playing junior varsity schedules last spring. “It’s been about a three-year process with meetings and research. Finding an independent schedule last year was tough, but a lot of teams throughout the Cape-Atlantic League helped us out,” McGhee said. “We were different from a lot of schools because we started right away as a varsity team. We got about 10 games last year just to get the kids acclimated to the sport.” McGhee said Cedar Creek is committed to growing the sport, which is why he is bringing in knowledgeable people to help the athletes learn the game, as well as working on trying to get some feeder programs going in the Egg Harbor City and Mullica Township areas. “We will be having the Stocking University girls team come over to work with our girls and we’ve had officials in to explain the game to the boys and the girls,” McGhee said. “As much as we love to hear from the coaches, we brought in the officials to help them learn the game a little more.” Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sully@acglorydays.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays [adsense]
Building a high school lacrosse program from scratch is a years-long process
