NAIROBI, Kenya, February 7 – The upcoming Kenya Premier Lacrosse League has been hailed as the first step towards building formidable men and women’s teams to represent the country at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.
Kenya Lacrosse Federation vice president Fredrick Osore said they will pick some of the most talented players in the league to form a national team that will eventually compete at the quadrennial games in the United States.
“This league is going to help us to start identifying the talents to be able to build a national team. We are hoping that during this league we will be able to pick the best 12 who will then form a roster for the national team. We will be having the national league and once in a while we will have the national team playing matches. We hope the national team will continue to evolve,” Osore said.
Lacrosse – a game where players use a long stick with a net at the end to scoop the ball and try to score in their opponents’ goal – was readmitted as an Olympics sport by the International Olympics Committee (IOC) in October last year.
It is scheduled to feature as a medal sport at the Los Angeles Olympics for the first time since the London Olympics in 1908.
Osore is optimistic the resultant national team will evolve in leaps and bounds courtesy of regular matches within and outside the country.
“The version that is going to be played at the Olympics is the Sixes. We will form one for boys and one for girls…we already have one national team in place but we felt the need to upgrade it…so that is how the league is going to help us prepare for the Olympics in 2028. We will pick maybe the best 20 and put them in a camp…or something like that…and then when we need to go out for some friendlies, we will be able to pick from our roster,” he explained.
The national league is set for lift off on March 2 at the United States International University-Africa (USIU-A) in Nairobi where four teams will be contention – both in the men’s and women’s divisions.
Each team will consist of 15 players and will play once every month.
The vice president said the formation of the respective teams as well as the league was a meticulous process that examined the pool of lacrosse talents in the country.
“We looked at the pool of players we have and picked a pool of about 100 players. From there, we picked 15 players for each team, which would be around 60 players for the four teams. The players are coming from across the country and this is the first Kenya Premier Lacrosse League…we have never had any other,” he said.
Osore added: “There is a possibility we might consider increasing the number of teams in the future. You know lacrosse is a relatively new sport in the country so we didn’t want to have so many numbers and then dilute the quality of play. That is why we started with four teams for men and four for women and then afterwards if the pool of players is greater, then we can have six teams…and so forth and so on.”
Spreading the lacrosse gospel
Furthermore, Osore said the federation has an open door policy for those interested in taking up the sport.
He pointed out that they are on a mission to expand lacrosse across the country, including at the high school and universities’ level.
“When you talk about where the game is being played…we have Nairobi, Eldoret and Mumias. We are now looking at Coast and the Nyanza region. Anybody who is out of school and is interested in the sport can be able to reach out to our people in Nairobi or in Mumias where we have four academies and Rift Valley where we have one academy. Both of them are public and they can be able to join,” the vice president explained.
He added: “Right now we have six universities that have picked up the sport and they include Kabianga, Kibabii, Kaimosi, Daystar University, Kenyatta University and USIU. We have also ventured into high schools; remember the Sports Cabinet Secretary talked of the need to link up with where the talent is. So, we have ventured into high schools including Lenana, St Joseph’s in Kitale and St Peter’s in Western…we have also ventured in Kapsabet Boys in Rift Valley as well as Musingu High School in Western.”
These growth efforts have culminated in the inclusion of lacrosse as one of the disciplines to be contested at the forthcoming St Peter’s Mumias Makambo Annual Open Tournament on February 17-18.
The expansion plan also involves inclusion of lacrosse in the Kenya Secondary Schools Sports Association (KSSSA) games for which the federation is lobbying the Ministry of Education.
“Inclusion in the KSSSA will be a huge step in the right direction because it will help us popularise our sport and then we see how to move forward. Uganda has already added lacrosse to their secondary schools sports association and so if we get ours into KSSSA, then our teams will also play in the East Africa Secondary School games,” the vice president explained.
He added: “So, for those who want to play lacrosse, that is how our distribution looks like…and lately in Mumias we have ventured even to the junior secondary school level.”
The federation recently appointed Derrick Sagini as its first CEO and head of Secretariat.
Lacrosse is one of the oldest sports in North America and was first played at the Summer Olympic Games in St Louis Missouri in the United States in 1904.
