By Chris Goldberg
Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 9/26/08

Registration is still being accepted for the Germantown Academy Fall Lacrosse League – a series of five Sunday morning boys’ clinics that start this weekend and are being offered for free to inner-city players.

The instructional league is for boys in grades 2 through 8. The price for five Sunday sessions, which will be held from 9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m., is $75. Inner-city players are eligible to receive scholarship money to defray costs of registration and transportation.

The program is being run in conjunction with the Philadelphia Lacrosse Association (PLA).

The other four sessions will be held Oct. 5, Oct. 19, Oct. 26 and Nov. 2. Spots are still open and interested players can contact Germantown Academy coach David Martin at dmartin@germantownacademy.org.

Dan Altschuler, president of the PLA, said the program was developed to help the association meet its chapter mission of helping build lacrosse in the inner city and in areas where support is needed.

“The idea came from Dave,” Altschuler said. “He runs these clinics in the Fall and is familiar with the Philadelphia Lacrosse Association’s initiative to help inner-city kids at the middle school level.”

Altschuler said the PLA recently received a significant grant to expand its efforts in building, supporting and promoting lacrosse in the city. Already, large funding has been provided to start middle school lacrosse programs for both boys and girls in the Public League.

“We are trying to continue to develop a program to expose these kids to higher levels of lacrosse,” Altschuler said. “The coaches in the inner city are doing a great job, but there are not that many people with experience and it’s difficult for the kids to get that higher level of coaching.

“We want them to get the skills at an early age.”