ABOUT BRIDGE LACROSSE

What is Bridge Lacrosse?

We, Bridge Lacrosse, are a sports-based youth development nonprofit serving the often under-resourced communities of North & Central Texas. We are a certified 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. Our primary demographic focus include traditionally low- and middle-income communities of color.

What is the mission of Bridge?

Our mission is to use lacrosse to broaden the horizons of our community’s youth. We exist because we believe that our programs can be an integral part of youth development and that lacrosse can be used as a tool to help close the opportunity gap, especially in the under-resourced communities of southern Dallas and East Austin.

What is the vision of Bridge?

We believe that lack of opportunities and accessible resources in many low- and middle-income communities of color is a social justice issue. We believe strongly that sports can help alleviate many of these gaps that exist in southern Dallas and East Austin. Our vision is that all those who participate in Bridge programming have access to the same benefits and opportunities that exist in other more affluent neighborhoods.

What is the history of Bridge Lacrosse?

What is today Bridge Lacrosse, first began in 2003 as the organization called the Friends of North Texas Lacrosse. As the sport grew in North Texas, the need to bring lacrosse to a new and diverse area was recognized. A meeting about starting a lacrosse program at St. Philip's School & Community Center, in South Dallas, took place in the summer of 2004. The following summer, we began programming at the Irma Rangel Young Women's Leadership School of Dallas. Bridge officially reincorporated as a new nonprofit, Bridge Lacrosse, in 2008. In 2024, the organization New Horizons Lacrosse in Austin, officially merged with Bridge Lacrosse to become Bridge Lacrosse Austin.

How is Bridge funded?

Like most nonprofits, we are funded through the generosity of other private and individual donors. We have been fortunate enough to receive grants from several local foundations and large corporations. We also run several events per year, too, to help offset the costs of fundraising, employees, operations, and, of course, our programs. Roughly 60% of our funding come from individuals and families, 30% from grants and foundations and the last 10% from corporate giving and earned revenue.

What is the budget for Bridge?

Our annual budget is almost $600,000. We welcome you to visit our financials page for additional information. We are dedicated to financial transparency as a nonprofit and have earned Platinum Seal of Transparency from GuideStar.

Who runs Bridge?

As a nonprofit, Bridge does not have an owner or ownership group, we are governed by a volunteer group of Board of Directors, who oversee all major strategic and fiduciary needs of Bridge. In both Dallas and Austin, separate Advisory Boards play a role in the leadership and advocacy of Bridge. These boards are comprised of nonprofit professionals, business leaders, parents, coaches, young professionals and passionate advocates of kids! Bridge is staffed by full-time and part-time employees and oversee all operations and programs of Bridge.

Who coaches Bridge programs?

We’ve been fortunate enough to help an amazing and experienced core group of coaches, through the years. For our spring programs we have various coaches with strong playing and coaching backgrounds. In addition, we also have parents serve as coaches to assist and provide support. In addition, we also have many high school volunteers that assist, and we oversee a high school Leadership Board.

ABOUT LACROSSE PROGRAMS

What is lacrosse?

Lacrosse is a team sport that originated among Indigenous people of North America, often called the Creator’s Game or Medicine Game. We recommend everyone watch the History of Lacrosse to better understand the game and the evolution of the sport. Lacrosse has both a male and female version with different rules, equipment and style of play.

Statement of Play

We believe that sports should be accessible to all and that the most important factor in all aspects of youth sports are fun and joy. Bridge Lacrosse will always emphasize a recreational first approach and provide a fun and safe environment for all student-athletes to learn, engage and compete. While we believe that competition and winning is important, we emphasize those aspects as a secondary outcome.

Our Safety Policy

Safety is incredibly important and we understand all concerns related to safety in a sports environment. All coaches review the National Alliance for Youth Sports Concussion Training, as well as review our safeguarding training and materials. All primary coaches our members of USA Lacrosse and undergo a national background check and a sexual abuse training module. All Bridge coaches attend a mandatory training meeting at the beginning of the spring. All staff members are also First Aid/CPR/AED and mental health first aid certified as well.

Is lacrosse a UIL (University Interscholastic Sport) sport in Texas?

No, lacrosse is a non-sanctioned, non-UIL sport, that functions primarily as a club and volunteer run program. With the exception of some private schools, lacrosse in Texas is volunteer organized and not directly associated with a school or district.

USA Lacrosse

Bridge Lacrosse chooses to utilize the membership insurance provided by the governing body, USA Lacrosse. USA Lacrosse provides each student-athlete of Bridge, a one-year renewable membership that includes insurance related to lacrosse play as well as other benefits of the sport. Bridge provides this membership at no-charge to all spring registered student-athletes.

League Structure & Play

Because lacrosse is not a public school sanctioned sport, our teams play in various leagues across the state. These leagues operate under their own rules and guidelines related to eligibility, play style and league structure. In North Texas, the local leagues are TGYLL and DFWL. In Central Texas, the local leagues CAPLAX and CTYLL. Finally, all high school teams are members of THSLL and TGHSLL. For spring lacrosse, we choose to participate in these leagues to provide our student-athletes with competition and engagement in the larger lacrosse community.

Because of the nature of lacrosse as smaller and less accessible sport, within these leagues our teams may have differing game schedules, timelines and rules of play. A variety of often uncontrollable variables play a role in how each season operates per team. Please reach out to us for any questions or concerns.

What are the costs associated with lacrosse?

The cost of lacrosse is one the largest barriers to growth. Lacrosse can be an expensive sport with average programs costing student-athletes between $500-$2,000 for a year’s worth of lacrosse, not including equipment. Our fundraising efforts allow us to offer completely free programming, including all equipment necessary to play safely.

Does Bridge endorse or recommend other lacrosse organizations, such as club or travel programs?

Bridge has close friends across the entire Texas lacrosse landscape. However, we do not endorse any one organization over another. We recommend doing your research when seeking out additional lacrosse opportunities. Be sure to recognize cost, location, schedule and culture. If you like the coaches there, that's a big plus!

ABOUT NON-LACROSSE PROGRAMS

What else does Bridge offer?

We are proud to be a year-round organization that offers a variety of lacrosse and non-lacrosse programming. We believe that our services and activities, off-the-field, can be a great resource for the needs of our student-athletes.

Academic Support

We offer a range of academic resources and tools to help all of our student-athletes succeed in the classroom. We currently provide free online-tutoring access to our student-athletes via a partnership with UPchieve. In addition, we operate year-round test prep and provide test prep material related to ACT and SAT tests, as well as AP tests.

Enrichment Programming

We are proud to offer a range of off-field programming geared toward our middle school and high school student-athletes. These enrichment activities range from overnight camping trips, rock climbing, kayaking, hiking and other outdoor activities. In addition, we provide other fun and cultural trips including museums, cultural centers and more. This programming, like all our programming, is completely free for all student-athletes.

College Exploration

Throughout the summer, we offer a variety of trips related to college visits across the state. We believe that for many of our first generation student-athletes, stepping foot on a college campus provides an immense amount of value to our high school student-athletes. Each summer we work to take more than 20 student-athlete to college campuses such as U of North Texas, Texas Christian U, UT-Austin, St. Edward’s, Southwestern, Southern Methodist U, Texas Women’s U, and more.

Career Exploration

In addition to providing valuable college exploration experiences, we also provide a number of industry and career visits, too. Each summer, we visit a wide range of companies to get a one-of-a-kind perspective and access. In previous years, we have visited companies such as Richemont, Charles Schwab, Lincoln Property, Falcon Realty, Deloitte and more.