There's no denying the rapid growth of lacrosse. The game gaining more traction in the western United States everyday, something I wrote about in The Daily Progress the other day.
Virginia coach Dom Starsia said last week that Michigan adding men's and women's lacrosse as NCAA varsity sports is maybe even more influential to the game's growth as Denver making the final four. In an email exchange with New England Patriots' coach Bill Belichick (a huge lax fan and father of a Division I player), he said he wasn't sure how quickly the game could continue to spread, but "it's certainly growing quickly, especially with BCS schools picking it up every year."
The number of kids high school aged and younger playing the game multiplies each year. The number of Division I-caliber players is coming close to exceeding the number of Division I teams, if it doesn't already.
Along with Michigan, Marquette is also adding men's and women's lacrosse. So who's next? That's the tough question. It's certainly not as simple as an athletic director or university president saying 'hey, this game is popular, let's get ourself a team.'
The truth is lacrosse would have been much better off if the boom had occurred a decade or two earlier. Right now there are a variety of factors working against schools that may want to add a men's lacrosse team.
First, there's Title IX. I think almost everyone can agree the legislation was created with the best of intentions, but today it's flawed and in some cases out-dated. The biggest issue is that many major colleges use money made by their football programs to fund the rest of their men's and women's athletic teams. But because football teams use more than 80 scholarships, far more than any women's teams, it creates an imbalance in the eyes of Title IX enforcers.
We can argue that perhaps any program that is self-sufficient financially should be exempt from Title IX, but that's not going to change anytime soon and a debate for a different time. Right not, I'm just going to examine what that means for men's lacrosse.
What it means is that several schools that seem, on the surface, to be prime candidates to add a men's lacrosse team are not because they already have women's teams. Schools such as Virginia Tech and Boston College use the scholarships and roster spots devoted to women's lacrosse to offset their football programs. Marquette and Michigan are adding both men's and women's, so there's no change to their Title IX status.
The other factor is money. We're still in a bad economy and even the largest athletic departments in the country are scaling back. The bottom line a lot of places is that administrators can't justify adding any more programs.
All that said, there are several schools that get mentioned as possibilities, so let's take a look at them:
Virginia Tech
Like I mentioned before, Virginia Tech already has a women's program, so if a men's team was created the Hokies would likely either have to cut another men's team or add a women's. Of course Virginia Tech is in Virginia, where tons of high school kids play and nearby ACC rivals UVa, Maryland, UNC and Duke all play. It makes sense there would be a push for lax in Blacksburg.
Florida State
A more likely addition to the ACC lacrosse league than VT, Florida State is similar to Michigan in that it has a well organized and well funded club program that could likely make the transition to D-I with relative ease. The drawbacks are that FSU has had to make athletic budget cuts recently and the campus is more than 55 percent female, so it can be hard to reconcile Title IX figures. But the Seminoles don't have a women's team, so both could added at the same time.
Georgia Tech
The more I think about this, the more intriguing the Yellow Jackets seem. First, the GT campus is overwhelmingly male. Like, 70 percent dudes. I didn't even realize there were still schools that unbalanced until I started working on this. Also, like FSU, Georgia Tech has a pretty impressive club program and the sport is getting huge in the Atlanta area.
Colorado
You would think that if Denver can do it, so could the University of Colorado. The club program rivals that of Michigan, but the Buffaloes have had big budget concerns in recent years.
California
Plenty of good players are coming out of the Bay Area, UVa's Rob Emery included. It seems logical some school out there would add lacrosse, but it's not likely to be Cal, which earlier this year announced plans to cut a bunch of sports and had to go scrounging for money just to save the baseball program.
Stanford
So how about the other Bay Area school? Stanford LOVES racking up points for the Sears Cup, so the more programs the better. The Cardinal already has a women's program, so that's a drawback, but if there's any BCS conference school that doesn't have to worry about money, you'd think it'd be Stanford.
Northwestern, Boston College, Florida, Louisville, Vanderbilt and Cincinnati
All are located in areas where lacrosse is either a big deal or getting there, but they all already have women's teams.
0 comments:
Post a Comment