Living in Fantasy Land... Part 2

In the first post, I laid down the basis for this series. Now we will really get into the expansion of high school lax in Iowa.

Waukee Warriors

It should surprise no one that I chose Waukee to be the second lax team in the metro. Roughly half of the current Valley team hails from the Waukee district. Last year the high school allowed the team to use its stadium for our home games. The only girls team in the state uses the "Waukee" name. Obviously the support is there and continues to grow.With an overabundance of schools (4) in the metro wearing purple and gold, Waukee is merely the first. If/when other schools add lax, I will run into the issue of duplicating uniforms and helmets. One way to get around this is to capitalize on the different options for gold. The logos at Waukee Stadium and on the football helmets are the more yellow "athletic" gold rather than the metallic "Vegas" gold; I am going with athletic gold for the lax team.As you can see, I chose to go the Delaware, UMBC & Towson route by giving the Warriors an athletic gold away jersey. Again, the plethora of purple in the metro lead me in a different direction with Waukee.

Dowling Catholic Maroons

This pick may be a little bit more controversial as we only know of two DCHS laxers right now and both play pole. I chose Dowling because I see the school as a logical choice with demographics similar to many lax programs across the country - including Creighton Prep in the Nebraska League. That is, Dowling is a well funded private school with a rich athletics history. They are a dominant force in nearly every sport and have the potential be so in lax as well. Given their intense rivalry with Valley, it is only logical that the Maroons would choose to compete on the lax field as well.Although maroon and white are their only official colors, black and silver are often used extensively on Dowling uniforms. Originally I planned to go with a white helmet like the Maroons' football team, but decided that this would be a good place to mix it up again. Right now the lax world has an overabundance of white lids so why add another? Besides, one white helmet is enough for West Des Moines.With the home jersey, I decided to continue the silver theme. This gives the Maroons a nice alternative to the usual white while still contrasting with other teams' away jerseys.
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Living in Fantasy Land... Part 1

I say that at this point because that is the best way to describe my vision of high school lacrosse in Iowa. At the moment we have only two teams in the state, but one of them is in Council Bluffs which means it is practically in Omaha, Nebraska. By now you should very well know the other team - the team I help coach - is in West Des Moines.

I have a grand vision of a high school club lacrosse league spread across Iowa. It is not hard to picture it as a multi-state league akin to the hockey league, including Nebraska and South Dakota, either. For the purposes of sharing my vision, I will focus simply on the Iowa teams. The Des Moines area teams will get the most attention primarily because I am the most familiar with them.

Make no mistake though; I will address other areas of the state as well. As I previously stated in an unrelated post, there are people in other metros that have expressed interest in lax. Using a mix of logic and the inquiries I have received, I will provide a rough outline of growth. I do not see lax clubs springing up at every school in the state; I would love too, but even Fantasy Land needs a little reality.

The upcoming posts will feature uniform and helmet concepts. Because I am doing most of this during my break times at work, I will not be applying the team logos to the helmets. I am not doing custom gloves at this time either, but may in the future. Because I am assuming that lax will remain a club sport, I will not delve into field usage at all.
So sit back and enjoy my little fantasy land of lacrosse...

Valley Tigers

I am starting with the only team currently playing in Central Iowa. Our current uniforms do not look like this and we do not have team helmets. This uniform is a concept and not binding in any way; it is just something fun. The uniform template is Warrior Insert. It is a sublimated jersey which gives us some options and has a nice online designer. Originally I played around with an orange jersey, but ultimately I decided to stay with the black.Valley currently rocks black jerseys and shorts with white helmets and gloves. We have begun moving to orange visors and chins on the helmets and black trim on the gloves. This allows us more glove options and incorporates all of three colors in our equipment. The concept below is the realization of this helmet on a Cascade Pro 7. In Fantasy Land, every team has matching Pro 7s...
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