Women’s lacrosse has become one of the fastest-growing sports in the country, with new teams popping up at high schools, colleges and clubs every year. But beyond the shiny statistics, there is an uncomfortable pattern. African American girls are still largely absent from the field. Celebrating growth and “expanded access”,  the culture of lacrosse’s pipelines and success continue to leave black athletes on the margins. 

Lacrosse is a huge commitment like any other sport but with added obstacles for black athletes. 

The obstacles are economic, cultural and systemic barriers that collectively play a role in limiting the minds of our black kids, students and athletes. The most impactful problem that remains harder to ignore is the cultural barrier. In today’s world cultural segregation and stereotypes are normalized, labeling anything from sports to hobbies as “black” or “white”.  This narrative is pushed everyday, thus reinforcing cultural barriers by segregation . Dividing things by color, trait and ignorance creates a trickle effect that takes away access and opportunity for others.

 “Not a lot of black kids know what that is at all, I feel like it’s more popular in the white community”, Gabrielle Jackson 10, said.

With women specifically in 2019 the NCAA data shows white women making up 84 percent and black women only make up 3.5 percent of lacrosse athletes. There are more recent statistics made in 2020-21 that show white women accounting for 68 percent of NCAA’s lacrosse athletes while black women has dropped to only 3 percent. 

At Hazelwood West Highschool lacrosse sounds like a distant land, not an accessible sport. At the start of the 2025 school year, women’s lacrosse was cut from activities. This adds to the cultural divide, widens the gap of underrepresentation and again limits access and opportunity for black athletes. 

When a school gets rid of a sport they have to follow up with MSHA and Title IX to prove there is no sex-based discrimination in the school. Meaning that after removing a women’s sport it has to be replaced, lacrosse was replaced with Women’s Flag Football. In the late 1870’s, basketball and football were the cheapest for black students due to segregation and under-funding. This meant little access to country club sports like swimming, golf, tennis, hockey and lacrosse.  

Because of segregation and the footprints it left behind, it wasn’t just hard to bring attention to lacrosse, it was a missionary project; letting black girls know sports have no color. Replacing lacrosse with flag football reinforces harmful stereotypes and takes away opportunities to help diversify the sport.

This problem has carried on for years, lacrosse isn’t the first “white” sport to be removed from Hazelwood West activities. DESE, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, shows the demographic enrollment of West in 2006: there were 24% of black students and 72% of white students. During this time west offered hockey, tennis, girls golf and boys golf in sports activities. The demographic breakdown in 2025 is 68.99% of black students and 17% of white students and no longer offers the previous activities. 

As data shows, it can be noted that most African Americans often remain on the outside looking in. Not due to a lack of talent, but because the sport’s structure was never designed with them in mind.  “Recognizing the underpresentation isn’t about pointing fingers, it’s about opening doors” said former lacrosse coach, Marvis Jackson.