lacrosse player vs athlete

lacrosse player and athlete both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
lacrosse player	Yes	No	No	No
athlete	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, athlete is a hypernym of lacrosse player; that is, athlete is a word with a broader meaning than lacrosse player:

Other hypernyms of lacrosse player include jock, participant, player.

lacrosse player (noun)	athlete (noun)
an athlete who plays lacrosse	a person trained to compete in sports