Battleground Lacrosse gives area players place to shop

The Memphis Daily News/The Memphis News

Jan.

Damon Waxler was led into the world of memorabilia by collecting as a child. It would eventually lead to opening the store Dixie Pickers in October 2012 on Main Street in Collierville’s Town Square.

And it would be his son Dylan, a senior at Christian Brothers High School, who would lead him into the world of lacrosse.

Waxler and his wife, Dawn, opened Battleground Lacrosse, an equipment and supplies store for the sport, just across the square from Dixie Pickers on Nov. 1.

Damon Waxler and his wife, Dawn, have opened Battleground Lacrosse on Main Street in Collierville’s Town Square. 

(Photo: Andrew J. Breig)

Dylan plays for CBHS and with the traveling team No-Excuse, and on trips to the Northeast, the family would stop in at lacrosse stores, a common site in that region. In Memphis, though, Battleground is the only such store. When Damon began to consider it, he was introduced to Rhett Douglas who owns a shop in Nashville and was looking at coming to West Tennessee, and the two would become business partners.

“I knew nothing about it,” says Waxler, a former high school football player and shot-putter, of his knowledge of the sport before his son strapped on a helmet and took up the stick. “I’d love to say I had a passion for it my whole life, but I didn’t know that much about it.”

Lacrosse is a newer sport in the South, its popularity gaining purchase in the past decade or so with teams in area schools such as Collierville High School, Memphis University School, Houston High School and White Station High School. Rhodes College has had a men’s lacrosse team for years and has added a women’s NCAA team only this school year.

Being the only specialty lacrosse store in the area – a previous store, Stickhead Lacrosse, has since closed – Battleground has become a destination for those interested in the sport. Of the schools that offer the sport, and the youth-oriented Collierville Lacrosse Club, Waxler says, “All of those programs are big, they’re very big … so from a numbers standpoint, as far as how many people are playing lacrosse right now, the majority is on this end” of the city . . . (read more)