As the president and co-owner of three youth lacrosse organizations—Extreme, Verve and Timberline—Amy Yu’s only downtime tends to be in her car when she’s driving home after an event.
Such is the busyness of life for Yu, who recently spent a couple of days in Santa Barbara watching current coaches and former players from the Extreme program playing in a tournament. Yu’s No. 1 goal is to grow the game of lacrosse—especially on the girls side—which vie for youth in a competitive sports landscape.
Extreme and Verve are South Bay-based youth lacrosse clubs with different schedules and focuses. Extreme runs at the recreational level in the spring and is currently registering girls for the U6 to U14 age divisions. In order to help promote the game, Extreme is running free beginner clinics at Redwood Middle School in Saratoga on Feb. 22 and March 1.
The clinic will be co-led by Madelyn Trimpi, who is entering her first season as the Los Gatos High School girls lacrosse coach.
At the recreation level—where the emphasis is participation and growing a love for the sport—everyone gets a spot on a team. Verve, meanwhile, is an all-girls competitive program, designed for those who have aspirations to compete at a higher level, either as a player, coach, or both. Oftentimes, players from Extreme feed into the Verve program.
Verve has four high school comp teams, along with a U12 and U10 team. The competitive club season runs in the summer, fall and winter. While competitive club teams offer athletes increased opportunities to get recruited, Yu always keeps the bigger picture in mind.
“One of our goals is to have a place for girls to play, but we have an equal amount of focus on growing the game and teaching the fundamentals so when they enter high school, they already have the experience to excel,” she said. “For instance, Extreme is feeding girls into Los Gatos High School, Saratoga, Wilcox, Leland, Willow Glen, Pioneer, Presentation, and Harker. So our goal is to grow the game in the South Bay, but also pick up girls who want to continue competitively with Verve.”
Aside from increased participation, Yu said it’s vital that Extreme and Verve serve as teaching environments where girls can thrive not just physically but in all aspects of life.
“I strongly believe the field is a place for girls to be aggressive, learn how to be leaders, have a safe place to play, and to feel confident in their skills and take risks with their skills,” she said. “We want to create great leaders and create women who are excellent employees and good partners, and it’s really important we provide that safe place where they’re honored. We absolutely do all of this just for them, but I wish we had a little more support from the community in regard to resources.”
Yu said Redwood Middle School has been “very supportive of Extreme,” but the typical high school district will charge upwards of $150 an hour to rent out their field.
“For Extreme, the biggest obstacle is field space and field prices being so unbelievably expensive,” Yu said. “We want to be a feeder program into high schools, but we can’t use those fields because it costs $100 per hour or more. We’re priced out immediately.”
It’s an issue that all youth sports programs face in the Bay Area, where hundreds of programs vie for field time. Despite the challenges, Yu loves the sport and wants it to continue to grow at all levels. Former players who have gone through the Extreme or Verve programs have wound up playing at LGHS, Saratoga, Mitty, Presentation, Willow Glen, Pioneer, Valley Christian and Leland.
Former class of 2023 LGHS standouts Jackie Enns (UC Santa Barbara), Tessa Dennon (Penn State) and Keira Dodd (St. Lawrence) all play for their club college team or NCAA-sanctioned program. Addi Cooper and Hudson Gannon are two of the Extreme’s current top U14 talents.
“They are stellar players who add a strong and positive energy on the field and have proven themselves to be strong leaders,” Yu said. “Both put in the work off the field playing wall ball and independently practicing on their own to elevate their skills. They have their eyes on the college level of play and are great candidates to get recruited.”
Still middle schoolers, Cooper and Gannon also play for Verve’s highest level Mint squad during the competitive club season. Yu has put an emphasis on hiring quality coaches, and she feels confident that Trimpi will do an excellent job at LGHS.
Trimpi is also part of the Verve coaching staff and formerly served as the president of the UC Santa Cruz women’s club lacrosse team.
“We’ve hired girls from Santa Clara University, UC Santa Cruz and current (college) players to coach for us,” Yu said. “Maddy played for UC Santa Cruz and this is the perfect pathway for her. She’s running a youth program and is very organized, very smart and energetic. She’s wonderful.”
