30-05-2025
Wall Street's Favorite Game Has a Long and Uncomfortable History
America's fastest-growing team sport happens to be its oldest, dating back nearly a millennium. This longevity is in spite of having little commercial success compared to football, basketball or baseball, and can partly be credited to its affiliation with Wall Street. Lacrosse, by dint of its sprawling history and geographic origins, traces a shared pipeline long associated with elite financial firms: East Coast prep schools and colleges.
But much like the US, lacrosse has a deeply uncomfortable past, plagued by racism and cultural appropriation. In The American Game: History and Hope in the Country of Lacrosse (Atlantic Monthly Press, May 20), S.L. Price delivers a heavily researched and well-crafted history of the sport, from its Native American origins as the 'Medicine Game' — so called because it is said to heal the body and spirit — to its ascent to the upper echelon of US sports.
