By LARRY HARTSTEIN The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

THE BASICS
• 110-yard field, 12-minute quarters.

• 10 players per team: goalie, three defensemen, three midfielders and three attackmen.

• Players may run with the ball in the crosse, pass and catch the ball; only the goalie may touch the ball with his hands.

• A player may dislodge the ball from an opponent's crosse with a stick check, the poking and slapping of the stick and gloved hands.

• Body checking is allowed if the opponent has the ball, but all contact must occur from the front or side, above the waist and below the shoulders.

Source: www.laxrules.com

It wasn't a pretty sight when Michael MacDonald began teaching lacrosse in Snellville last year.

"The first couple practices, the kids were getting hit in the head with the ball," he said.

Most of those 25 boys returned to the South Gwinnett Athletic Association program this summer, along with a few newcomers. MacDonald sees a big difference.

"This year, there's not a lot of throwing the ball all over the place," he said. "Everybody has improved quite a bit."

A scientist who played high school and college lacrosse in Pennsylvania, MacDonald is trying to build the sport in Gwinnett County. Ultimately, he wants to create a summer lacrosse league with 10 to 12 teams of high schoolers.

While no Gwinnett public high schools have their own lacrosse teams, the Gwinnett Blackhawks of the North Georgia Lacrosse League feature players from Norcross, Brookwood, Collins Hill, Duluth, Dacula and Greater Atlanta Christian high schools.

MacDonald is encouraging some of his players to join the Blackhawks next spring.

The South Gwinnett players, who range from sixth-graders to high school seniors, practice Tuesday and Thursday nights from the beginning of June until early August.

"We go over fundamentals first, catching and throwing, picking up ground balls," MacDonald said. "Then we move into more technical and tactical stuff like how to double team, how to move the ball around the field, how to make the proper cuts. We always scrimmage at the end."

The boys would love to scrimmage "all day long," but MacDonald stresses the basics of throwing and catching.

"That's about 80 percent of the game," he said. "If you watch a college or pro game, the ball is in the air all the time. It rarely touches the ground."

Once you introduce kids to the sport, MacDonald said, they're invariably hooked.

"It's the action of the game -- everybody's involved," he said. "It's not slow like soccer. It goes up and down the field quite a bit. It's like ice hockey on a field."

The Blackhawks, who went undefeated in 2002, had nearly 40 players on this year's team. The talent level ranged from first-timers to players such as J.J. Cavanaugh, a rising Brookwood senior who played three years in a Maryland youth league before competing the past two years with the Blackhawks. Cavanaugh is hoping for a college lacrosse scholarship. Some former Blackhawks are playing in college now.

Cavanaugh's father, assistant coach Steve Cavanaugh, said it's only a matter of time before Gwinnett schools start lacrosse teams. "We're reaching a critical mass in terms of demand and players and people moving into the area," the elder Cavanaugh said. "Whichever teams get out there first are going to be the powerhouse schools."

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http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/gwinnett/0703/11lacrosse.html