Lacrosse in the PLA’s service area at all levels is thriving, dynamic and increasingly
coordinated. The game is played at the youth level, in middle schools and high schools, at the
college level, in travel programs and post-collegiate clubs and, since 1986, professionally.
Lacrosse and its celebrated history as the Creator’s Game played by indigenous North
Americans is also taught in physical education programs in lower, middle and upper schools in
the state.

In 1998, after making an impressive debut the previous year as an exhibition novelty, lacrosse
became an official sport in the Keystone Games — the annual summer sports festival that
draws many of the finest youth and high school athletes in the Commonwealth to venues
around Harrisburg for the chance to compete against the best in the state. Inclusion of lacrosse
in the Keystone Games during its heyday, which the PLA helped engineer, was one of the many
positive developments for the game in Pennsylvania.

School boards, athletic directors, youth associations, indoor sports facilities and others are
increasingly recognizing the growth and popularity of the “fastest game on two feet.”