Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 2/25/10
Haverford High and Beaver College graduate Barbara Longstreth, originator of Longstreth Women’s Sports in Parker Ford and a pioneer for lacrosse in the state of California, has been selected for induction into the Northern California chapter of the US Lacrosse Hall of Fame.
Longstreth will be inducted at a ceremony and dinner Feb. 27 at the Marines’ Memorial Club in San Francisco.
Longstreth, a member of the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame, started women’s lacrosse on the West Coast in the 1970s. She coached at Long Beach State and later moved to Northern California where she coached club lacrosse at Stanford while promoting and organizing the sport around the state.
With her contacts in the United States Women’s Lacrosse Association, she helped arrange a game between California players and the Australian national team – the first game ever played on US solid by the Aussies.
Longstreth served as president of USWLA from 1977-80 and helped make women’s lacrosse grow to other schools at the club level. Schools such as Palo Alto, Berkeley, and San Jose played in the north and UC Santa Barbara, Cal Poly Pomona, and Claremont colleges played in the south. Longstreth earlier played for the nation’s top lacrosse club, Philadelphia 1 for 13 years and traveled abroad with both the U.S. National Field Hockey and Lacrosse teams.
Longstreth also became an accomplished umpire She later took a California team to the USWLA National Tournament back East in 1980 – the first team from California to go to this tournament. Longstreth received her national umpire rating at that tournament.
Longstreth was captain of the Haverford High team as a senior in 1954 and served as captain for Beaver (now Arcadia University) in 1957 and 1958 (senior year). She was an All-American pick for both the lacrosse and field hockey teams.
During her sophomore year, Longstreth was named to the US national team and she played attack on the squad from 1956-64, and again in 1967. Longstreth was inducted into both the Philadelphia Lacrosse Hall of Fame and the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1998.
Longstreth coached high school and club lacrosse for more than 17 years, and has more than 25 years of umpiring experience
