Our Mission…
The Lancaster Amateur Sports Program Inc. is a non-profit corporation formed to provide youth and young adults in the western New York region with the continuing opportunity to participate and compete in amateur competitions, with a goal to compete at a regional and national level by:
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The operation of competitive teams across a variety of sports.
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Increasing options of available sport programs in the western New York Communities.
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Support of existing community and scholastic sporting programs that share our mission through professional services, financial assistance, and partnering to establish and avenue for the next level of competition and development.
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Setting goals to be highly competitive at a national level in the selected sport.
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Preparing participants for continues opportunities in the chosen sport.
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Providing a positive environment for participants to learn, grow and compete.
About Us
The Lancaster Independent Guard is a sports and performance team, operated by Lancaster Amateur Sports Program Inc., a not for profit corporation. The team is a registered member of the Winter Guard International Sport of the Arts circuit, and operates in the Greater Buffalo area, serving multiple communities.
The team represents youth and young adults between the ages of 14 and 22, and it competes at a local, regional, and national level against teams from Canada, Japan, Western Europe, and the United States. The activity requires significant training and practice to succeed, involving several months of preparation before taking the floor for the first competition of the season. The program is a winter program offering a viable athletic challenge and creative outlet during the winter months, involving a season that spans from October to May every year. The team is an adjudicated Sport of the Arts program.
A panel of judges adjudicates the team in movement, technique, equipment technique, and performance. The Winter Guard Program is educationally sound and has a dramatic and positive influence on the participants. They learn to dance and manipulate 3 pieces of equipment; a flag, a rifle, and a sabre. In addition to the physical skills, intangibles traits are learned, including striving for excellence, hard work, dedication, teamwork development, sportsmanship, goal setting, diversity, and how to entertain an audience. These skills are carried through life, and are critical building blocks for positive contributions to workplace and communities as adults.
The program is also unique, as the students must train physically for the athletic aspects, but must also learn elements of performance and entertainment. This can be likened to theatre with elements of drama and music. This indoor guard activity is a blend that produces the Sport of the Arts.
Participants grow physically, mentally, socially, and learn organizational skills, teamwork, group cooperation, and time sequencing. The activity demands a physical involvement in rehearsal and performance involving muscle tone, conditioned response to music, simultaneous coordination of head, arms, legs and body stature, as well as grace, poise, and control while experiencing physical and mental pressure.
In a season, the team will train more than 288 hours, learn a synchronized performance involving the movement, spinning, and tossing of wooden rifles, sabers, and flags, dance, perform at 14 competitions, entertain more than 6000 people and will travel3800 miles. We invite you to join the journey by supporting the participants and our organization.