The story of the stripling warriors in the Book of Mormon portrays a group of men who were valiant, diligent, righteous and victorious (see Alma 56). A lacrosse club has taken on this same name, with its players striving to uphold these values on and off the field.
Coaches Jason Lamb and Marty Wescott established this LDS faith-based lacrosse club in the summer of 2015 to combat what they saw as an increasingly negative atmosphere for young lacrosse players.
“We just felt like in the lacrosse community there was too much emphasis and pressure on kids to play on Sundays, or they were just getting put in bad environments with maybe coaches or clubs that were more out to build a brand rather than to help the kids,” said Wescott, who is the current offensive coordinator for Brigham Young University lacrosse as well as the head coach at Olympus High School.
“We wanted to provide kids the experience of playing with other kids of their faith and have an uplifting experience while making sure that the lacrosse part of it was top-notch as well," he added.
The coaches got the idea for the Stripling Warriors Lacrosse Club from an organization known as the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, said Lamb, who was the head lacrosse coach at BYU from 1995 to 2010 and is now the athletic director and head coach at Southern Virginia University. Lamb spoke to Wescott, his fellow friend and coach, about creating something similar to FCA but on a Mormon scale.
“When I first got hired at SVU, I spent the summer trying to recruit and I went around to all of the current lacrosse tournaments and saw hundreds of thousands of boys playing lacrosse,” Lamb said. He said that he realized quickly that he wanted recruit many of them.
“They were really good players," he said. "But obviously most of the kids aren’t going to want to keep the honor code."
Lamb admitted the “inception of (the club) was a little bit selfish,” stemming, in part, from a coach’s recruiting standpoint.
“We really wanted to foster up this ‘proud to be a Mormon lacrosse player’ that would go to SVU or BYU,” he said. “But the other positive consequences have been absolutely unreal.”
The Stripling Warriors compete in the summer and fall. With the club not having a set roster for its teams, 75 high-school-age boys from 15 states participated last year. This summer and fall, they had 78 players from 14 states participate.
The club has competed in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; Baltimore; San Francisco; Las Vegas; and Annapolis, Maryland, where they played one of the top five teams in the country.
“We went big. We went bold. When we filled our schedules, we went after the big events playing the best teams, and we’ve done very well,” Lamb said.
The players typically get together just the day before a tournament. They only practice once or twice before a game, often competing against teams that practice on a regular basis and have been together for years. While these would appear to be serious disadvantages, the Stripling Warriors come away with winning records.
“We believe it’s because they have a common core belief where all of a sudden they’re playing for each other right out of the game,” Wescott said. “They’re not about impressing some college coach or showing how cool they are. They go out and play a team game, and they play for each other, having met each other just 24 hours before.”
Although the club is LDS-based, there a few players who haven't been members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“We didn’t create (the club) as a missionary arm. This was truly created as a ‘let’s be proud to be Mormon boys and go play the game we love’ (club),” Lamb said. “The irony is that we also attracted some nonmembers, and we’re happy to have that continue.”
However, the coaches let players know up front they'd be expected to participate in devotionals, temple visits and firesides.
Stripling Warriors isn’t just a name on a jersey for these boys — it’s something they talk about each night of the tournament when they hold a devotional.
“We want (the boys) to have a deeper association with the stripling warriors story so they can relate it to their lives and to lacrosse,” Wescott said.
During the nightly devotional, they discuss different characteristics of the Stripling Warriors.
“We talk about how they were valiant and proud to be who they were and how they were righteous and victorious,” Lamb said. “When we talk about playing lacrosse we use those terms. You need to be valiant, disciplined, righteous and you need to be victorious. You’re in a battle environment. You’ve got a helmet on and people are whacking at you. It’s pretty violent. So be strong, be proud and control your emotions. That’s a hard thing for young men."
The coaches mentioned how in the course of just a few days they could see a major difference in the boys and the way they play the game.
“We really try to teach that lacrosse is a team game; life is a team game, and if you play with your team you’re going to be much better off. And they embraced that right away,” Wescott said.
However, the changes in the players have extended far beyond the field.
Lamb pointed to a fireside the boys attended where the emphasis was on missionary work. They discussed how serving a mission is an opportunity for the missionary to practice humility, to go through the refiner’s fire and learn more about his own capabilities.
After the fireside, one of the players approached the coaches saying he had never thought about a mission in that way. He contacted the coaches after the trip to tell them he was committed to serving a mission.
Lamb has also witnessed these unanticipated, yet powerful spiritual changes in his own life. He recalled how his son joined him for a Stripling Warriors trip and later referenced it in a talk he gave in church. In the talk, he mentioned how rewarding it was to spend time with members of his faith who share similar values and interests — boys who love lacrosse, are preparing to serve missions and love being members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“It was pretty powerful for me to see that witness to know that that’s what we’re creating,” Lamb said, “this pride in the Stripling Warrior kind of way.”
“That’s why we chose the Stripling Warriors name,” Wescott said. “It creates for the kids and parents an opportunity to talk about the church. It’s created missionary opportunities for these kids in places all over the country. To be honest, that’s something we weren’t really expecting. We knew we could provide a good lacrosse experience, but to see (the boys) come together and then have all of these off-field experiences, that has been most rewarding and unexpected and it turned out to be the best part of it.”
A prospect camp is scheduled for Oct. 28-29 in Vineyard and South Jordan. For information, see striplingwarriorslax.com.