Product Description

North America's Indian peoples have always viewed competitive sport as something more than a pastime. The northeastern Indians' ball-and-stick game that would become lacrosse served both symbolic and practical functions -- preparing young men for war, providing an arena for tribes to strengthen alliances or settle disputes, and reinforcing religious beliefs and cultural cohesion. Today a multimillion-dollar industry, lacrosse is played by colleges and high schools, amateur clubs, and two professional leagues.

In Lacrosse: A History of the Game, Donald M. Fisher traces the evolution of the sport from the pre-colonial era to the founding in 2001 of a professional outdoor league -- Major League Lacrosse -- told through the stories of the people behind each step in lacrosse's development: Canadian dentist George Beers, the father of the modern game; Rosabelle Sinclair, who played a large role in the 1950s reinforcing the feminine qualities of the women's game; "Father Bill" Schmeisser, the Johns Hopkins University coach who worked tirelessly to popularize lacrosse in Baltimore; Syracuse coach Laurie Cox, who was to lacrosse what Yale's Walter Camp was to football; 1960s Indian star Gaylord Powless, who endured racist taunts both on and off the field; Oren Lyons and Wes Patterson, who founded the inter-reservation Iroquois Nationals in 1983; and Gary and Paul Gait, the Canadian twins who were All-Americans at Syracuse University and have dominated the sport for the past decade.

Throughout, Fisher focuses on lacrosse as contested ground. Competing cultural interests, he explains, have clashed since English settlers in mid-nineteenth-century Canada first appropriated and transformed the "primitive" Mohawk game of tewaarathon, eventually turning it into a respectable "gentleman's" sport. Drawing on extensive primary research, he shows how amateurs and professionals, elite collegians and working-class athletes, field- and box-lacrosse players, Canadians and Americans, men and women, and Indians and whites have assigned multiple and often conflicting meanings to North America's first -- and fastest growing -- team sport.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #567807 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-14
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 404 pages

From Library Journal
Highlighting cultural and social developments, this volume offers a sweeping history of the game. Fisher (history, Niagara Cty. Community Coll.) traces the emergence of modern lacrosse in both Canada and the United States, pointing out that the sport's early Mohawk roots precluded early mass popularity. However, its appeal during the close of the 19th century, at institutions like Johns Hopkins University, enabled lacrosse to strike a chord with elite young men. Then, in the first half of the ensuing century, the American version of the game spread throughout the Northeast. Through the 1960s, lacrosse's devotees still lauded its amateurism while contending that the players harkened back to "noble savages." By the 1970s, the "old Indian game" became part of popular culture in America and elsewhere, and organizers increasingly argued that lacrosse required greater professionalization and financial support. The proliferation of "middle-class lacrosse" threatened "the elite aura" that had long characterized the sport. Fisher presents his story competently, if methodically. Another history might have dwelled more on tales about the sport's brightest stars, including the legendary Jim Brown. Still, this is a useful volume about a sport that has not received much coverage. Recommended for public libraries. R.C. Cottrell, California State Univ., Chico
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

—Ronald A. Smith, Pennsylvania State University, author of Play-by-Play: Radio, Television, and Big-Time College Sport
"This is the most complete history of the sport of lacrosse to date."

About the Author

Donald M. Fisher is an assistant professor of history at Niagara County Community College.

Customer Reviews

What was I thinking?
I love lacrosse and was thrilled as I perused this book the first time, but on a recent trip I re-read it and realized I needed to change my review. After a very thorough examination of the book, I came to realize that most of what the author says is merely repetition of the same points he makes in the first chapter. His book takes the view that modern lacrosse exploited native people, and this may be true in his area, but it is not true everywhere else. Lacrosse is played throughout England, Australia and ALL of Canada, not just in the few places Mr. Fisher describes. He fails to note the game's merits and paints it as little more than a muscle-headed goonfest in Canada and an elistist boys club in the Eastern US. I can't believe I missed it the first time around, but Mr. Fisher seems to almost dislike the game whose history he has set out to chronical. He is overly cerebral about a pastime whose greatest assets are merely the fun and camaraderie it involves. His perspective reminds me of the detached and cold hyperbole used by George Will in his book about baseball. Neither Will nor Fisher seem to have considered it important to play the game they describe. Given that Fisher's audience will chiefly be players, coaches and lovers of the game, this seems to me to be a huge error. This book reads like the university thesis it is. I can't believe I lugged it all over Europe!

Hands down one of the worst books I ever read. Save your money.

Quite simply, the definitive story of lacrosse
This is a pithy book, and deserves to be read that way. It starts from the start and takes the game into modern times, looking at the cultural influences that created lacrosse, as well as its impact on us. Not an easy read, but not a slog either, it is a must-read for anyone who loves the game. Fisher goes beyond the more typical concept that lacrosse is a game with native origins, instead contemplating more recent influences too.

This is not a how-to, nor is it a study of the game's who's-who.

Excellent
A great work that provides a phenominal amount of historical content. A good book about a great game.