Most leagues piggyback on the insurance provided for USL members. Several tournaments and camps also require a USL membership as well.
You may not like their stance on youth lacrosse at the moment, but they are very much involved in running the sport.
I'm 100% with their stance and hope somehow lacrosse as a sport will figure out the best equity in any youth sport are age appropriate teams. My point is more than just sarcasm. The question needs to be asked, is the endorsement of US Lacrosse in its current leadership form a help to this sport anymore? Consider that youth lacrosse raced toward grade based teams in the months following USL's Golden Stick published guidelines. I'm skeptical about USL having the credibility to do anything now. The most profound issue position they've taken in the prior 3 years was both laughed at and ignored.
Reforms would need to come from elsewhere. Right now it is hard to see the club operators yielding any ground. If the NCAA blows up early recruiting, that would make a lot of the early recruiting strategies including reclassifying before high school a lesser advantage. That would be the tipping point for parents to say 'forget it' if the sizzle of a 15 year old going against 13 year olds goes down and private school tuitions keep going up.
I've heard it all now that MIAA and IAC and WCAC schools excitedly recruit and scholarship kids in sports like lacrosse. That said, how do these schools that have 100-125 boys per class stay solvent if we're just assuming all the jocks are scholarshiped? I tend to believe something else. Lots of middle and upper middle class families are getting financially hammered to play the early recruiting reclassify game. Saying nothing of the fact that scholarship money for college lacrosse is very low, this is a harmful trend.
