One on One with Shawn Evans
By Scott Arnold
Sometimes it’s outside the arena where it matters most and two guys making a difference right now are Rochester Knighthawks defender Brad Self and Calgary Roughnecks forward Shawn Evans. The Peterborough Ontario natives are the co-founders of Nationwide Lacrosse, a children’s camp they plan to take across Canada. Their motto is “Dream. Believe. Achieve” and they are hoping that each child who participates in their camp will not only reach their goals in lacrosse, but also in life. The camp is geared towards children ages 6-12 and it will teach the fundamentals of the game at a grassroots level.
Their intention for Nationwide Lacrosse is to start out by focusing on the smaller communities who don't have access to the knowledge that these two professional athletes can bring. "We're going to go to smaller communities who have lacrosse associations and we're going to try and develop those players” Evans said. “Hopefully we do a good job with it and these kids or even these cities will go pro one day".
Self told In Lacrosse We Trust that the idea for Nationwide Lacrosse started after they won the Mann Cup last summer with the Peterborough Lakers. "Shawny and I have been working at lacrosse camps for a long period of time and have helped out and instructed at other camps too. During the Mann Cup series last summer there was a high level of interest from out of town kids and people started getting in our ear that we should go off on our own and do our own camps. Shawny and I started talking and came up with the idea for Nationwide Lacrosse. We're going to work on the fundamentals skills that we as pro players aren't necessarily working everyday when we're at practice"
Once the idea was in place the pair started sending out emails across the country to get a sense of people's interest and the response was overwhelming. They received lots of feedback from association's who said they would definitely be interested in helping the pair out and getting a camp set up in their city. "It's been a bit of a whirlwind. Shawny and I have been on the road trying to continue to get Nationwide Lacrosse going. We have eight camps booked, we have a Facebook page set up, a Twitter account, a Youtube channel and we'll be updating things as we go" said Self. "We're pretty excited to continue to grow the game at a grassroots level"
Evans and Self will be at every camp instructing and depending on the amount of kids registered they may bring in some special guests. All of their instructors will be world class athletes who share the same passion for the game as they do. "We want to bring on guys that are playing in the National Lacrosse League or in Peterborough with the Lakers. Or people that have a high IQ's in lacrosse and are great with kids. We want people who share the same passion that we do for the game and who want to see it grow like we do. Those are the type of people that we want and if they have those traits than we're obviously open to bringing them on to help out" stated Self