Lacrosse Program Loses Travel Team in Town Takeover

The Manalapan Recreation Department terminated their outside partnership with Nomad Lacrosse in the beginning of the year, including their travel program, due to inadequate funds from the program and because the majority of the children on the travel team were not Manalapan residents, which violates Township law. The lacrosse program is now completely run by the Manalapan Recreation Department, however there is no travel team.

The Manalapan Recreation Department informed Bill Marra, the founder of Nomad Lacrosse, that they would be taking over the youth lacrosse program and that Nomad would not be able to continue within Manalapan at the start of 2013.

“I was fine with that because it all comes back to the children,” Marra said. However, Marra said that the Recreation Department sent out flyers to the Manalapan schools informing them of the cancellation of travel lacrosse, but that he was unaware of the cancellation.

Therefore, Nomad Lacrosse still advertised for travel tryouts in Manalapan and recruited hundreds of children for their spring 2013 season, all of whom were disappointed by the cancellation of the travel program which Marra only discovered last week.

Deputy Mayor and liaison to the Recreation Department Jordan Maskowitz said that the Township never approved a travel lacrosse team and a proposal from Nomad Lacrosse to have a travel lacrosse team in Manalapan was never submitted.

Maskowitz said that the Township pays $55,000 a year for fertilizer and grass maintenance of the Manalapan Recreation Center fields, which does not include the salaries and benefits of Recreation Department employees. As a way to mitigate this expense, the Recreation Department fees have recently been increased. Maskowitz explained that Nomad Lacrosse is a for-profit company that uses the fields at the Manalapan Recreation Center for “next to nothing” and it is not fair for Manalapan residents to pay taxes on the fields that non-residents are utilizing.

Furthermore, the majority of the participants in the program are not from Manalapan. According to Manalapan ordinance, 85 percent of each Manalapan Recreation sports team must consist of Manalapan residents, a criteria which Nomad Lacrosse's travel team does not meet.

“It seemed the travel was jammed down our throats and we had all these outside kids on our fields,” Maskowitz said. Nomad Lacrosse charges $190 for each child, only $5 of which the Township received. Marra disputed that fact saying that his company is a non-profit and that he sometimes lets children play on his travel team for free.

The partnership between Nomad Lacrosse and the Township began five years ago and, at the time, Marra said he was happy to run his program on Manalapan’s beautiful fields and in a town that wanted to build up the lacrosse sport. Over the past five years, Marra said that Nomad Lacrosse has followed the strict guidelines Manalapan has and built a successful program.

“Our Nomad Lacrosse Tournament is the largest tournament in South Jersey and that is a testament to the excellent facilities we have, to the Board we have, to the people we have, and to the volunteers in the program,” Marra said; Maskowitz noted that the Township does not see a dime from that Tournament which takes place on their fields.

“It’s a tough decision because there are Manalapan kids involved, but we have a lacrosse program with high level trainers,” Maskowitz said.

Registration for Manalapan Recreation Youth Lacrosse is currently open. A new, local organization with highly recommended trainers has been hired to run the program, according to Maskowitz.

The outside organizations that do run travel programs for football, baseball, and soccer all worked with the Manalapan Recreation Department from the ground up, the Deputy Mayor explained, building the program with Manalapan residents and eventually branching out to a travel program mostly including Manalapan residents. This is a plan of action which Maskowitz recommends for lacrosse in order to garner participation in the sport at a local level.

“We cannot in good faith open up to an outside company to come in and make a profit on our dime,” Maskowitz said. “Why have a Rec Department if we’re going to bring in outside companies to run our programs? That just doesn’t make sense.”