NIAA officially sanctions new sport, announces upcoming steps
A new high school sport is officially coming to Nevada for the 2026-27 school year.
The Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association unanimously voted to approve the sanctioning of lacrosse as a high school sport at a Board of Control Meeting on Monday at Clark High School. Boys and girls lacrosse will be played in the spring beginning in the 2026-27 school year.
“It’s great. I’m excited for the kids in Nevada,” NIAA executive director Tim Jackson said. “Lacrosse is a growing sport. It’s time for Nevada to play lacrosse and I look forward to opportunities for kids in all sports. Adding lacrosse increases our offerings.”
The board approved a timeline for the next steps for onboarding the sport. The NIAA will send a survey to schools to gather participation numbers and figure out how many schools will field teams in the coming months.
Schools are not required to field a team. Boys and girls lacrosse are two separate sports.
The NIAA will adopt the National Federation of State High School Associations’ rules for lacrosse and work with current officials associations to approve officials in upcoming board meetings.
The NIAA will then evaluate the results of the survey and begin the alignment process and create postseason formats by April. Jackson said he expects there to be just one division of lacrosse initially as the NIAA gets feedback on how many schools will offer the sport.
“The biggest priority is finding out where our schools stand on what schools are going to offer lacrosse,” Jackson said.
Lacrosse will be played during the spring sports season, with the first season it will be played under NIAA sanctioning in spring of 2027. Utah and California high schools also play lacrosse in the spring.
Schools will be eligible to play a maximum of 18 matches and participate in two tournaments per season.
Several Southern schools, such as Bishop Gorman, Centennial, Coronado, Faith Lutheran, Foothill and Palo Verde, have club teams.
This spring in the Nevada legislative session, Senate Bill 305 was passed through the Senate and the Assembly. The bill would have required the NIAA to sanction lacrosse as a high school sport, but it was vetoed by Gov. Joe Lombardo.
A late amendment to the bill would have created a committee that would have oversight over the NIAA. The organization’s legal counsel, Paul Anderson, said at Monday’s meeting that the committee was part of the reason why Lombardo vetoed the bill. The NIAA announced in June, shortly after Lombardo vetoed the bill, that the association would sanction lacrosse.
“The biggest struggle we’ll always have is we need knowledge of what we’re doing to be expressed through the legislature,” Jackson said. “We want the legislature to know that we’re working for kids. The NIAA is not a body that wants to keep kids participating, we want to have more kids participating. We built some good bonds this session.”
Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on X.
