JOUSTING

October 1, 2005, annual Maryland State Jousting Championship will be held at Darlington (Harford County).

Horseback rider spearing the ring at jousting event. Photo by R.A.R.E., courtesy of Peggy and Bruce Hoffman, Maryland Jousting Tournament Association.

Tournaments conducted in Maryland are "ring tournaments" which involve charging a horse at full-gallop through an 80-yard course toward suspended rings. Using a long, fine-tipped lance, the rider has 8 seconds to complete the course and "spear" the rings, scoring points accordingly. From three equally-spaced arches, rings are hung 6 feet 9 inches above the ground and range in diameter from one-quarter inch to nearly two inches depending upon the skill-level of the contestant. A family sport, jousting skills frequently are passed from one generation to the next.

LACROSSE

June 23-July 2, 2005: Annapolis, Maryland, hosts the World Cup, International Federation of Women's Lacrosse Associations.

Lacrosse players, University of Maryland vs. The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, April 2002. Photo by Rob Brown.

Known as the oldest sport in North America, lacrosse was played by native American tribes probably for centuries before the first account of it was written in 1636 by a French Jesuit missionary in Canada. Among native Americans, lacrosse was played by tribes throughout the Great Lakes region, and in what is now the southeastern United States, and all along the East Coast, a range which encompasses Maryland.

Lacrosse is a fast-paced game played on a field in which the ten players on each team attempt to get a small ball into their opponent's goal while keeping it out of their own goal. A team consists of a goalie, three attackers, three midfielders, and three defenders. A long-handled stick with a net pocket on the end is used to throw, catch, and scoop the ball. From the stick, the game derives its name. To early French Canadians, the stick resembled a bishop's crosier, la Crosse.

In the United States, lacrosse became popular on college campuses in the late 1800s, beginning with New York University in 1877. The University of Maryland fielded its first team in 1910. In 1926, the first women's lacrosse team in the country was established at the Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore. Lacrosse made its Olympic debut in 1928, with the Johns Hopkins University team representing the United States. That school has remained a lacrosse power-house, ranked number one in the postseason coaches poll in 2002, 2003, and 2004. Other Maryland teams have performed well. The U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis won its eighth consecutive intercollegiate title in 1967, and in 2005 is ranked fifth in the nation, behind Johns Hopkins, Duke, Georgetown, and University of Virginia. In 1997, the University of Maryland won its fifth National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) women's championship.

Since 1995, lacrosse has grown rapidly as a club sport and at middle- and high-school levels in Maryland.