22-05-2025
‘The American Game' Review: The Roots of Lacrosse
There are countless books that conflate the American character with various sports. To take two examples, consider Tom Stanton's 'Hank Aaron and the Home Run That Changed America' (2004), about the great slugger's record-breaking 715th dinger, and Sally Jenkins's 'The Real All Americans' (2007), about the Carlisle Indians football squad in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
S.L. Price's 'The American Game' is about lacrosse, a sport that hasn't changed America but instead reflects changes in America. Once a niche pursuit, lacrosse is now a national passion—if not a national pastime—and Mr. Price makes a persuasive case that the sport is the true American game. Baseball and football can arguably trace roots to Great Britain (rounders and rugby). Lacrosse sprouted on North American soil.
'On the one hand it is the most spiritual sport on Earth, a religious practice fashioned by Indigenous Americans to honor their god, heal their ailing and play in their heaven,' Mr. Price writes. 'On the other, it is the sport of Range Rovers and Vineyard Vines, a lifestyle with little on its mind beyond the right college, the next red cup of beer, and graduation into some slick-haired, big-money career.'
The conundrum at the center of Mr. Price's book and its ambitious title is how the word 'American' is defined. The author is not concerned with who won this collegiate championship or that international tournament. He explores the roots of lacrosse in the indigenous experience of North America before the continent acquired its name, and how the sport flourished on the huge landmass now home to the U.S. and Canada. Lacrosse is a complicated game. This is a complicated story.
