The History of Lacrosse in San Antonio

This has never been written down. Not in a book, not on a website, not anywhere. If your kid plays lacrosse in this city, they are part of a story that took forty years to build and that almost nobody has bothered to record.

I have coached in this city for over a decade and played here before that. Some of what follows comes from published records. Some of it comes from people who were there. Where the record is thin I say so, because a history full of guesses is worse than a short one that is true.

1. It started with one game in a domed stadium

April 1971. Johns Hopkins played Navy inside the Houston Astrodome in front of more than 18,000 people. It set an NCAA regular-season attendance record that stood until the late 1980s.

It happened because one man made it happen. Ralph O’Connor, a Houston businessman and Johns Hopkins class of 1951, got the Hopkins head coach interested and lined Navy up to come to Texas. Sources: THSLL, Houstonia, and St. John’s School — three independent accounts.

2. Texas builds a league

The first Texas scholastic team was St. John’s School in Houston, 1987, founded by Randy Bryan and Coach Matt Harder. Kinkaid and Memorial followed in 1988. Austin Westlake and Dallas Jesuit by 1989. Nine programs existed by 1990.

What follows is the Texas end of a much longer story — the history of lacrosse itself runs back a thousand years before any of this. THSLL was founded in 1989 by the Texas Scholastic Lacrosse Association, and its first commissioner was Randy Bryan — the same man who started the first team two years earlier. Source: thsll.org. Note the name is Scholastic, not “Schoolboy” — the wrong version circulates widely.

Girls’ scholastic lacrosse in Texas began in 1990.

3. The first lacrosse in San Antonio

The earliest organized lacrosse in this city that appears anywhere on the record is the San Antonio Lacrosse Club, which won league titles in 1990 and 1993.

The coach was Earl Bill — four years before he ever set foot at Saint Mary’s Hall.

4. Coach Earl Bill

If this city’s lacrosse history has a founding figure, it is him. And almost none of this is published anywhere. Every sport has names like his — ours has a whole list of them, and he belongs on San Antonio’s.

4.1 Before lacrosse

Earl Bill, December 14, 1939 to June 10, 2011. Born in Greenfield, Massachusetts. Deerfield Academy, then Dartmouth.

Twenty-four years in the Air Force, 1959 to 1983, retiring as a Senior Master Sergeant. A drill instructor at Lackland, with tours in Korea and Vietnam. Head lacrosse coach at the Air Force Prep School in Colorado Springs from 1974 to 1976. Source: Earl Bill obituary.

The man who built lacrosse in San Antonio came here because the Air Force sent him.

4.2 Saint Mary’s Hall

Athletic Director and Head Lacrosse Coach, 1994 to 2004.

Championships and record confirmed by Saint Mary’s Hall and his obituary.

4.3 The career number

369–100 overall. A member of US Lacrosse’s 300-win coaching club. Four Vail Lacrosse Shootout titles across twenty-five years.

4.4 The Alamo Lacrosse Camp

Founded in 1998 and held at Saint Mary’s Hall. It peaked around 2001, grew past 150 players, and remains the largest lacrosse camp San Antonio has ever had. Its final season was 2008.

Nothing about that camp is published anywhere. It exists in the memory of the people who worked it.

5. The high school programs, in order

5.1 Central Catholic — 1994

Founded in 1994 by Jay McCracken. The same year Earl Bill arrived at Saint Mary’s Hall. The first San Antonio high school game was almost certainly Central Catholic against Saint Mary’s Hall, though the exact date is not recorded anywhere I can find.

5.2 TMI Episcopal — 1999

Founded in 1999 under a Coach Cole, a military man. His first name does not appear in any published record — not on TMI’s site, not in MaxPreps, not anywhere. If you knew him, we would like to finish this sentence properly.

TMI added girls lacrosse in Spring 2025 under head coach Meg Bahara — a first in the school’s 132-year history.

5.3 Reagan — 2005, and the best origin story in San Antonio lacrosse

This one is documented, and it is worth telling in full.

A biology teacher named Ms. Minard threw a lacrosse ball at a student, Jared Daniels, in class. His father, Joel Daniels, got involved. They met at Ms. Minard’s home to plan the program. Two recent college graduates and a parent named Greg Brooks signed on to coach. The program incorporated as a 501(c)(3) after its first year. Reagan added girls lacrosse in 2016. Source: reaganlax.com.

5.4 Alamo Heights — 2006

Founded by David Monnich, the program’s first coach and administrator, who in the program’s own words “galvanized the community, along with the school district.” It moved to a parent board in 2017.

Girls varsity started in 2023 and won the 2025 TGHSLL Division III state title in its third year. Source: ahlacrosse.com.

5.5 Smithson Valley — 2009

Started as a middle school program directed by Dr. Keith Markey, with the boys traveling into San Antonio to play at Concordia Lutheran. Kelly Evers — an eighth-grade history teacher and former Cornell player — became the first head coach. Joined CTYLA in 2010, entered THSLL as a Division II high school program in 2011 with 85 players, and had about 100 by 2012. Source: svlax.net.

5.6 Boerne — 2010

Founded by James Boone as a 501(c)(3), built to grow the game in Boerne, northwest San Antonio and the I-10 corridor.

5.7 Canyon, New Braunfels and Antonian

Canyon and New Braunfels have both fielded teams for at least five years, and both moved up from Class D to Class C for this season. Two programs in the same corridor rising together.

Antonian ran a varsity program in 2024 and 2025 and is off for 2026. The program has been on and off historically. There is no team this year and there is intent to build back to a full-time one.

6. The youth league

STXYLA — the South Texas Youth Lacrosse Association — has always run the youth level in this city. Roughly a decade, though the exact founding year, the founders and the original member clubs are not published anywhere. The old domain is dead and the current site has no history page.

Today STXYLA covers grades 1 through 8, boys and girls. Girls divisions were added in the last several years — grades 1–4, 5–6 and 7–8. If you see a directory that lists STXYLA as boys-only, that directory is out of date.

7. The girls’ game arrives

Girls lacrosse in Texas traces to the 1990s statewide — the fuller version is in girls lacrosse in Texas. In San Antonio the modern arrivals are documented and recent: Reagan in 2016, Alamo Heights in 2023, TMI in 2025.

Alamo Heights won a state championship two years after starting. That is how young and how open this side of the game still is here.

8. College and adult

UTSA was founded in 2003 and plays MCLA Division II in the Lone Star Alliance South. It is the only collegiate lacrosse program in San Antonio. The San Antonio Lacrosse Club — the Luchadores — carries the adult game.

9. Where the city stands now

TMI and Alamo Heights play Class A. Boerne plays Class B. The rest of the metro sits in Class C — Smithson Valley, Reagan, Saint Mary’s Hall, Canyon, Central Catholic and New Braunfels, with Antonian pending.

Seven girls programs. One college team. A market that is small but no longer new. Where San Antonio sits inside the state picture is covered in boys lacrosse in Texas, and if you are trying to work out where your own child fits into all of it today, start with how to play lacrosse in San Antonio.

10. The timeline

Everything above, in the order it happened.

Fifty-five years from one exhibition game in a domed stadium to a metro with programs in every class, a girls side that wins state titles, and a college team. A great deal of that happened inside the working life of one coach.

11. Carrying it forward

The Alamo Lacrosse Camp ended with Coach Bill in 2008.

My brothers and I worked that final summer. We were young, the camp was the biggest thing lacrosse in this city had ever built, and then it was over. Summer Showdown exists because somebody had to pick the torch back up.

That is the whole reason Great American Lacrosse is here.

12. Help us finish this

Real gaps remain in this page, and they can only be filled by people who were there:

• Coach Cole’s first name — TMI, 1999
• What league the San Antonio Lacrosse Club won in 1990 and 1993, and where they played
• When Saint Mary’s Hall’s program actually started — it predates Earl Bill’s 1994 arrival
• The date of the first San Antonio high school game
• Who founded STXYLA, and when
• The first San Antonio girls program

If you know any of it, tell us and we will add it with your name on it. This city’s lacrosse history deserves to exist somewhere other than in the memories of the people who lived it.

For the practical questions this page raises but does not answer — which league, which season, which age group — the San Antonio lacrosse FAQ is the short version.