Soon after, Philips Academy, Andover (Massachusetts), Philips Exeter Academy (New Hampshire) and the Lawrenceville School (New Jersey) were the nation's first high school teams in 1882.
As the sport began to grow, it started to become recognized as an international sport and was featured as an Olympic sport in 1904, when the games were held in St. Louis, Missouri. In the first Olympic championship, Canada defeated the United States, and then held there title in the 1908 Olympics against England. After 1908, lacrosse was not played in the Olympics again until the 1928 games as an exhibition sport and not an actual event. Although it did not gain much recognition as an Olympic sport, it helped the growth of lacrosse as a collegiate sport. In 1905, the intercollegiate lacrosse league was formed. This league contained a northern and southern conference that was made up of teams primarily from the northeast. As the game grew as a collegiate sport, it began to receive more recognition as a national sport and in 1928, a reporter from the Baltimore Sun Newspaper called lacrosse "the fastest game on two feet"; which later came to be the slogan of the sport. In 1932, the largest crowd ever attended a lacrosse game. 80,000 people turned out to watch an exhibition game played between John Hopkins University (a national powerhouse) and the Canadian National Team. To this day, it is the largest crowd ever to attend a game. This really helped to boost the sport and helped it grow nationwide. .
The major surge in popularity of NCAA lacrosse started in the late 80's, when attendance to games first began to rise. This is largely due to the Gait twins, Paul and Gary, who played for Syracuse University, winning three consecutive NCAA Championships from 1988-1991. Paul and Gary were excellent athletes and did many amazing moves, such as the Air-Gait, lacrosse's version of basketball's slam dunk. The Gaits' ability to execute such maneuvers helped the game of lacrosse because they were the first lacrosse players that were given extensive media attention throughout the United States.
