The relatively new sport is evolving. Steve Gurney, a paddle boarder from Reston, Virginia, came up with the game concepts of paddle board and lacrosse, calling it Paddle Polo, which led him to develop a lacrosse stick-like product that attached to any canoe or SUP paddle.

We prototyped the design for about a year using the 3D printer at the middle school where my dad volunteers and progressed to Nova Labs a local non-profit in our community. After dozens of modifications, we applied for a patent and sold our first units in April 2015 at Carolina Cup, one of the nation’s largest Stand Up Paddle Board races in Wrightsville Beach, NC.

None of the four of us had ever played lacrosse before, but all of us had prior paddleboarding experience. We strapped the attachments to our paddles, took the floating ball that came with the set, and did our damnedest to throw and catch it

Here’s what we thought:

• Paddle Polo was seriously fun. Addictive, even. We were disappointed when the evening got too dark to play anymore.
• You don’t have to play an actual game of lacrosse. Playing catch is plenty fun enough.
• Throwing the ball is fairly easy, but catching it is hard — it’s that difficulty that kept us addicted to the game. Each of us was determined to catch it!
• Playing a game kept us motivated to keep exercising, and prevented the monotony that can sometimes result from paddling laps around the lake.
• The attachment is offset from the paddle’s handle, so it doesn’t interfere with paddling.
• The Paddle Polo product is solidly made, with simple and intuitive features. The ball throws easily and floats.

Our main retail customers are kids/families that play lacrosse and other sports and Paddleboard SUP enthusiasts. Our wholesale customers are Paddleboard Rental operations, youth camps, retailers that sell SUP and Canoes, Lacrosse Camps and Tournaments.