How many schools will drop lacrosse?

[Farfromgeneva]

I have heard of some of those schools, a cousins daughter who grew up in York PA went to Millersville. Figured they didn’t play much lacrosse, football is big for many, John Mobley made Kutztown famous. Growing up mostly in Binghamton I recall in the 1980s how areas like Berwick PA were loaded with tough kids who were way better at football than us upstate NY kids were (played on a semipro team two college summers called the BC Jets and we played Berwick and they weren’t much but our owner was actually paying a number of D1 starters and we did win that league championship even if we did have to leave one guy in Canada after beating a team in Montreal bc the guy had weed on him).

But all this is related. The SUNY examples I mentioned are similar boat. Do we really need Brockport, Fredonia, Plattsburg, Potsdam (my sister got her undergrad degree in....drama...from there) when most of northern NY State and western NY is emptying out other than visitors in the summer in the Adirondacks, Great Lakes and (not sure what there is SW of Roch once you get past Keuka Lake/Hammondsport, Steuben Co and the area around Alfred U/Alfred St is a wasteland we could just as easily peel off and give to Ohio). Have to assume this is true for every satellite system though more acute where the state school money is somewhat more evenly distributed than the models in some states where you have one or two flagship schools that suck up most of the resources like a Va or Mi and will float into lacrosse at all levels.

Had posted this somewhere last year after visiting with a former grad school professor I stayed close to who’s President of Temple’s Fox School of Business whom verified that LaSalle is in survival mode and it’s prognosis ain’t good and his theory is we’re heading to a two tier system of the top whatever % of elite schools (Ivy, NESCAC, UAA and other one off institutions maybe or maybe not including a lot of solid places like the LL, Centennial, ODAC) continue to do the decadent, out of touch, learning for learnings sake combined with high end research and the rest will morph into more sophisticated trade schools. If that’s the case the latter won’t have athletics much at all. And this is before we see the real long term effects of the NCAA finally losing in court on Obannon and starting to pay kids combined with the whole FBI raid and adidas scandal in BB.

Man now I’m depressed for college sports in general thoigh it’s these same greedy administrators and inflated ego, often non participant and unathletic sports sycophant donors that got us here in many respects.

[10stone5]

The PSAC conference (home to all of the PASSHE "state" schools in PA) is in trouble. Cheyney U (the oldest HBCU in the nation) has maybe 500 students on campus, but neither the state nor the middle states accrediting agency wants to make the call to kill an HBCU. Cheyney dropped a couple of sports last year. It will eventually merge with West Chester, which is maybe 6 miles away.

West Chester is the only institution in the system that is growing and financially stable (location, location, location).

Not just location.
West Chester has put out some good people.

There going to have to put a lot of work in,
to make that merging work,
Lincoln also, could have problems.

[Dip&Dunk]

https://www.si.com/.amp-cal/college/cal ... -11-sports

Stanford cuts 11 varsity programs. (Does not have men’s lax program and women’s was not cut). Six time women’s Capital Cup winner and two time men’s Capital Cup winner. Their 8 total is the most with second place being 3 (Florida). Wow.

[ggait]

Stanford is dropping obscure sports like sailing and squash to reclaim 240 precious seats of enrollment. Which Stanford (4.5% admit rate) will re-allocate towards future tech entrepreneurs, Rhodes Scholars, Senators and cancer cure discoverers.

And to also shut down the admissions fraudsters who were so successful in targeting these obscure niche sports programs.

D1 mlax at Stanford just went from extremely unlikely to never ever ever gonna happen. But wlax remains solid.

[keno in reno]

Stanford is dropping obscure sports like sailing and squash to reclaim 240 precious seats of enrollment. Which Stanford (4.5% admit rate) will re-allocate towards future tech entrepreneurs, Rhodes Scholars, Senators and cancer cure discoverers.

And to also shut down the admissions fraudsters who were so successful in targeting these obscure niche sports programs.

D1 mlax at Stanford just went from extremely unlikely to never ever ever gonna happen. But wlax remains solid.

Stanford Men's Volleyball isn't an obscure sport, and their alumni include many national team players and Olympians. Stanford Volleyball is certainly no more obscure than any D1 lacrosse program. If one of the richest schools in the world like Stanford has to cut a program of this stature, then that means no D1 lacrosse program is guaranteed survival either. You seem to be gloating about the Stanford news, but this is a looming disaster for every sports program at every school.

[wgdsr]

I have heard of some of those schools, a cousins daughter who grew up in York PA went to Millersville. Figured they didn’t play much lacrosse, football is big for many, John Mobley made Kutztown famous. Growing up mostly in Binghamton I recall in the 1980s how areas like Berwick PA were loaded with tough kids who were way better at football than us upstate NY kids were (played on a semipro team two college summers called the BC Jets and we played Berwick and they weren’t much but our owner was actually paying a number of D1 starters and we did win that league championship even if we did have to leave one guy in Canada after beating a team in Montreal bc the guy had weed on him).

the jets!!! knew them as the triple cities jets but caught them for several games, was like being at training camp scrimmages, unis and all!

[Farfromgeneva]

Yep, they came back in 97 under ownership of a local businessman named Ray Stanton, think he might’ve played on the TC version. He paid a lot of guys, Trent Patterson, Dan Davis, Mike Ramil, a running back who was super cool who played on Wagners championship team named Lynn. Ton of D1 guys still in their 20s. Davis was a captain at army and Patterson in Alabama’s 1991 championship team where Ramil also started. I was lucky to see the field as an OLB (and unpaid except Ray gave me a case of these restaurant coupon books which he built into a heck of a business) as I was just a FR/Soph athlete at Hobart. Was a great experience and helped me a ton when Id head back to Geneva (and have to miss part of the playoffs and championship unfortunately but they still counted me as on the team).

[ggait]

You seem to be gloating about the Stanford news, but this is a looming disaster for every sports program at every school.

Not gloaing at all. I just don't believe that Stanford's decision was about money or Covid. I think they just don't have the number of seats to support 36 varsity sports -- which is a crazy number. Especially for a school with a 4.5% admit rate and only 1700 kids per class. At 25 varsity sports, their athletic department is still huge after the cuts.

I was surprised by mens volleyball, since that is a marque college sport in California and a producer of Olympic medals for Stanford. My guess is that MVB got cut due to the combination of (i) title ix and (ii) not being Pac 12 sport.

If it was about money, you'd think Stanford's MVB alumni could have raised the needed dough in minutes. So I don't see it being about money.

[MDlaxfan76]

You seem to be gloating about the Stanford news, but this is a looming disaster for every sports program at every school.

Not gloaing at all. I just don't believe that Stanford's decision was about money or Covid. I think they just don't have the number of seats to support 36 varsity sports -- which is a crazy number. Especially for a school with a 4.5% admit rate and only 1700 kids per class. At 25 varsity sports, their athletic department is still huge after the cuts.

I was surprised by mens volleyball, since that is a marque college sport in California and a producer of Olympic medals for Stanford. My guess is that MVB got cut due to the combination of (i) title ix and (ii) not being Pac 12 sport.

If it was about money, you'd think Stanford's MVB alumni could have raised the needed dough in minutes. So I don't see it being about money.

Will these sports move to club status?

Not unheard of, and could be a trend across the board.
Totally agree that they could have raised the dough in minutes.

[pcowlax]

I read that the plan for most if not all is transition to club. And yes, completely agree that they could fund these in a heartbeat if they wanted to, they are using the very real (but comparatively minor for Stanford) increased losses from the COVID shutdown to do something that they already wanted to do.

[wgdsr]

You seem to be gloating about the Stanford news, but this is a looming disaster for every sports program at every school.

Not gloaing at all. I just don't believe that Stanford's decision was about money or Covid. I think they just don't have the number of seats to support 36 varsity sports -- which is a crazy number. Especially for a school with a 4.5% admit rate and only 1700 kids per class. At 25 varsity sports, their athletic department is still huge after the cuts.

I was surprised by mens volleyball, since that is a marque college sport in California and a producer of Olympic medals for Stanford. My guess is that MVB got cut due to the combination of (i) title ix and (ii) not being Pac 12 sport.

If it was about money, you'd think Stanford's MVB alumni could have raised the needed dough in minutes. So I don't see it being about money.

it of course isn't about money and very well could be about seats. but not solutions. for many years, stanford has positioned themselves as an olympic sports and athletic department paradise. and it didn't hurt their brand or their coffers.
you can bang them for being disingenuous but not for supporting athletics before and now.
this is likely about the shift that's occurring now. they want to be on the forefront of that. an argument could easily be made that they could do that:
- without cutting these spots
- by expanding their enrollment
they have the money, space, economic supply/demand for students and teachers/researchers...

but for whatever reason, are choosing addition thru subtraction. my guess is bc it's easier and expedient. and helps quicker with pr with a fast moving animal.

what's been mentioned as a trickle down is not necessarily their fault and certainly could/will happen anyway. but they do not care and have decided to become a leader on another front to whatever effect. lazy.

[ctbagataway]

Dartmouth just joined the ranks of schools using COVID as an opportunity to cull varsity sports teams. Dropping men's and women's swimming, men's and women's golf, and men's lightweight crew. Also closing the Hanover Country Club--ouch.

[wgdsr]

sports and recreation, which have been major drivers for so many of us here and so many people we know and have influenced... are going to take a major hit here for not just the short term but maybe much longer.

all in the interest of p&l, short term cya and in some cases pr. which they could actually work harder at or have a real long term vision but doing this is easier. like it doesn't have consequences. sad.

[44WeWantMore]

You seem to be gloating about the Stanford news, but this is a looming disaster for every sports program at every school.

Not gloaing at all. I just don't believe that Stanford's decision was about money or Covid. I think they just don't have the number of seats to support 36 varsity sports -- which is a crazy number. Especially for a school with a 4.5% admit rate and only 1700 kids per class. At 25 varsity sports, their athletic department is still huge after the cuts.

I was surprised by mens volleyball, since that is a marque college sport in California and a producer of Olympic medals for Stanford. My guess is that MVB got cut due to the combination of (i) title ix and (ii) not being Pac 12 sport.

If it was about money, you'd think Stanford's MVB alumni could have raised the needed dough in minutes. So I don't see it being about money.

25 Varsity Sports for a class of 1700 is not huge, unless your point of reference is some SEC football factory. Back in the day, JHU admitted about 500 in a class, and working from memory (so I might have missed a couple) I counted 21 teams.

[JBFortunato]

sports and recreation, which have been major drivers for so many of us here and so many people we know and have influenced... are going to take a major hit here for not just the short term but maybe much longer.

all in the interest of p&l, short term cya and in some cases pr. which they could actually work harder at or have a real long term vision but doing this is easier. like it doesn't have consequences. sad.

Exactly. If lacrosse isn't played in the spring, that will be more or less two seasons that kids will have missed. How many of those kids just won't ever play again? How is this justifiable in light of the almost zero risk to the health of college students posed by Covid?

And what is the endgame? In 2018 we had a flu season that killed 80K+ Americans - hospitals were overwhelmed, treating patients in tents, etc. - and that was with a vaccine. https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-hand ... -patients/ https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2018/01 ... 516800130/

We didn't shut our economy down in 2018, lock kids in their houses, mandate mask-wearing, cancel college athletics - we carried on despite the risk, as we always have before 2020. In March it was "two weeks to flatten the curve" - and here we are in July, with no end in sight.

There may never be a vaccine, and Covid may be with us for years, perhaps decades. For all of those folks who think colleges and schools should be closed in 2020-2021 - what about the next year? And the next? Would it be reasonable to have all learning online forever, close down college campuses altogether? How does this make any sense?

[Wheels]

COVID isn't the flu. Stop comparing it to the flu. It's far more contagious.

And maybe if we did wear masks, flu deaths would decrease, too.

We failed as a country. We didn't didn't test enough soon enough to stop this back in February. Because we didn't mitigate well enough in March and wear masks early enough, we missed another chance to stop this.

We're going to have to live with this until there is a vaccine. Even then, given that less than 50% of Americans even get yearly flu vaccines and that even flu vaccines have like 50% effectiveness...well....

[JBFortunato]

COVID isn't the flu. Stop comparing it to the flu. It's far more contagious.

And maybe if we did wear masks, flu deaths would decrease, too.

We failed as a country. We didn't didn't test enough soon enough to stop this back in February. Because we didn't mitigate well enough in March and wear masks early enough, we missed another chance to stop this.

We're going to have to live with this until there is a vaccine. Even then, given that less than 50% of Americans even get yearly flu vaccines and that even flu vaccines have like 50% effectiveness...well....

You're right, it isn't the flu - the flu is far worse for most of us than Covid could ever hope to be, and attacks young people with much more ferocity. I get the flu vaccine every year, I wouldn't think of getting a Covid vaccine. For someone like me, it would be akin to getting a vaccine for the common cold.

Japan has done very little testing, no government-mandated lockdown, and they've had less than 1K deaths nationwide. The idea that testing is the answer is just wrong. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53188847

We do have to live with it, but that should not mean we hide under our beds, close our schools, cancel athletics. That isn't living, that's something else entirely. And the health risks associated with continuing to "live" like that far exceed the risks presented by Covid.

[MDlaxfan76]

some pretty dumb posts on here, how about we return to the topic and leave the nonsense to the political threads...

[youthathletics]

Okay dad.

[JBFortunato]

some pretty dumb posts on here, how about we return to the topic and leave the nonsense to the political threads...

Do whatever you want. Covid isn't necessarily a political issue - I certainly don't discuss it here as political - and the measures taken in an attempt to control it are destroying the ability of our sons and daughters to fulfill their dreams and play college lacrosse. A narrow view of the situation, certainly - but this is a lacrosse forum after all. Just trying to stay on topic.