A Bonanza of Central Texas Youth Lacrosse; the Texas Longhorns Hosted Weekend Tournament. Dec. 6th & 7th, 2025

--Written By Alumni Texas Lacrosse Reporter; George Vance McGee (Austin Silent Market Real Estate Broker Associate 512.657.9281 georgevance@gmail.com)

 After I acquired a legal & rare parking spot in the North Loop neighborhood in the morning, I took an easy stroll over to EPOCH for a smooth and calm morning drip coffee awakening. Post caffeination, it was now time for my Texas Longhorn Lax Shootout baptismal experience.

Surprisingly, this was my 1st ever in-person Longhorn Youth Tournament Weekend Experience. Simply put; There's a lot going on!

The Texas Intramural Fields circa 51 & Guadalupe street are looking pristine, upgraded, green, well-kept and ready for action. I witnessed a festival of lacrosse! Every field in sight my eyes could advance and venture to was brimming with Active Youth or High Lacrosse players, coaches, parents, volunteers, friends or family. I'd guesstimate there's roughly 2 thousand + physical humans in attendance at all times on site.

Saturday December 6th, 2025. The outside weather was Beautiful! A sunny, clear day yet still light jacket cool. Neither a player or a fan could have requested a more perfect winter day in Austin, Texas to lace 'em up, fire some shots, make some hits and play lacrosse.

The 2 Northern Fields on the grounds are where the upper level High School and JV players commence their games. Represented Jerseys and Schools I noticed were; Lake Travis, Anderson, Westlake, Austin High, Bowie, & Georgetown TX Gateway Prep. 

A referee confided in me, the goal in patrolling the games was to encourage game flow, high speed movement and limit the nominal ticky-tack penalty foul calls. The black and white stripes ref told me, "George we're really just here to call the obvious egregious fouls and checks."

The Most populated action oriented area is the Southern Intramural Fields. These 10+ fields are loaded with game time action! The youths appearing as young as 2nd, 3rd grade, and up were out there. To my amazement the Middle School aged kids in the 5th & 6th grade were gainfully talented and possessed varsity level stick skills, already. I witnessed and mentally applauded a barefoot sideline coach, as the day's weather yearned for it.

The stands and sidelines on ALL of the countless fields were pleasantly flush! Tents, snacks, helpful parents, encouraging positive counselling coaches, you name it. All in All, it was a very promising and cool experience to partake upon as a spectator. It reminded me, how fun it was to be an athlete and actually hit the field and PLAY LACROSSE. One Anderson High School parent told me, "they love that their kid plays lacrosse as a safer alternative to football, especially his mom. My son enjoys all of it, even the constant practicing in our backyard."

To summarize, the Texas Longhorns Youth Weekend Lacrosse Tournament is an overwhelming and impressive success! I'm not privy to the financial number$$, but one would think it's a financial boom for the Texas Horns Lax Club Team. This Shootout Tournament, is like if the Austin City Limits ACL Music Festival was free & instead of live blasting music, there is action packed youth lacrosse players from all over Central Texas mixing it up instead.

 So, bring your own lawn chair and join in.