How many schools will drop lacrosse?

[jhu06]

If you look at the rationales in the darmouth/brown/stanford statements you see both reasons for concern for lacrosse and then reasons that other schools may want to keep it.

on the concern front in their statements you see a lot of stuff going against what lacrosse is viewed as/reasons the game was added. corona-loss of $, usc/blm-universities are much more attuned to the racia/socio-economic makeup of their student bodies and what they bring and lacrosse which has a lot of kids/needs a lot of resources and has a demographic that aside from perhaps albany doesn't resemble the diversity goals schools want.

on the plus side for the future of the game, most schools are not in the 3 aboves category where they're going to be on most elite students radars regardless of what sports teams they have and have the luxury to pass on the kinds of opportunities lacrosse provides. For a st josephs, a bellarmine, a robert morris, a providence, a colgate, lacrosse gives you another level of visibility in certain communities with certain students/donors/administrators/recruits you might not otherwise have that other sports might not provide. The game is not as regional as it once was and so you can get more kids, some schools may already have more diversity because of individual colleges that attract other applicants, and so on.

[MDlaxfan76]

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.

ok, in that context, I'd agree that COVID is having a huge impact upon all sorts of ways we work and play, or do not, including the opportunities to play sports, including lacrosse.

Most of us on here played a college sport, many of us have kids who have played or hope to play in college, or other family members who have done so. Some of us have also coached kids who have ended up playing high school and college ball and others on path to do so.

So, we value this opportunity...a lot.

In my case, three generations of top level college lacrosse, would love to have future generations be able to do so as well.

However, let's be clear that this opportunity to play is very much a 'first world problem' in the context of COVID.

130,000 + Americans dead already, about 4 months in, with perhaps as much as 10-15% of Americans infected so far (only about 1% confirmed), meaning that if we are unable to slow the spread enough to get to a vaccine or prophylactic therapy or cure, we're looking at 500K + deaths.

But that's just the deaths, it does not include the health impacts on the hospitalized who survive, including long term adverse impacts on lungs, heart, kidneys, etc. These appear to be serious as well, including on younger victims of the virus.

Unfortunately, we're seeing exploding spread right now, including surging deaths trailing behind. So, we definitely have this problem ahead of us still.

All of the above are simply the reality.

We can debate how best to slow the spread of the virus and whether we've even tried hard enough to do so, as well as what measures we should do going forward, but the loss of a season or two of playing sports, IMO, pales in comparison to various other sacrifices we may well be called to make.

This thread in particular, however, addresses the question of whether and how many and perhaps which schools may drop lacrosse altogether.

We're seeing a number of institutions, large and small, cutting various sports programs, not just for a season or two, but apparently permanently.

[MDlaxfan76]

Okay dad.

Back at ya...

[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.

ok, in that context, I'd agree that COVID is having a huge impact upon all sorts of ways we work and play, or do not, including the opportunities to play sports, including lacrosse.

Most of us on here played a college sport, many of us have kids who have played or hope to play in college, or other family members who have done so. Some of us have also coached kids who have ended up playing high school and college ball and others on path to do so.

So, we value this opportunity...a lot.

In my case, three generations of top level college lacrosse, would love to have future generations be able to do so as well.

However, let's be clear that this opportunity to play is very much a 'first world problem' in the context of COVID.

130,000 + Americans dead already, about 4 months in, with perhaps as much as 10-15% of Americans infected so far (only about 1% confirmed), meaning that if we are unable to slow the spread enough to get to a vaccine or prophylactic therapy or cure, we're looking at 500K + deaths.

But that's just the deaths, it does not include the health impacts on the hospitalized who survive, including long term adverse impacts on lungs, heart, kidneys, etc. These appear to be serious as well, including on younger victims of the virus.

Unfortunately, we're seeing exploding spread right now, including surging deaths trailing behind. So, we definitely have this problem ahead of us still.

All of the above are simply the reality.

We can debate how best to slow the spread of the virus and whether we've even tried hard enough to do so, as well as what measures we should do going forward, but the loss of a season or two of playing sports, IMO, pales in comparison to various other sacrifices we may well be called to make.

This thread in particular, however, addresses the question of whether and how many and perhaps which schools may drop lacrosse altogether.

We're seeing a number of institutions, large and small, cutting various sports programs, not just for a season or two, but apparently permanently.

You're obviously a man who switches on the 6:30 news on NBC and eats up all of the "surging" and "spiking" and "new epicenter" screeching headlines. I'll say it for what feels like the millionth time: this disease has a fleetingly small impact on the health of college students - this is an easily verifiable FACT - but preventing college students from living their lives has been and is going to continue to be a tragedy of epic proportions. We have misapprehended the danger for this segment of the population. Talking about 130K deaths blah blah blah doesn't tell any part of the story when it comes to our young people. Why don't you do a little research and figure it out?

And a first world problem is destroying the lives of a generation over a disease that mostly kills the elderly and calling it a first world problem.

[DMac]

I get your frustration, JBF, but it's not destroying their lives, that's a bit over the top.
Throwing a little snag into it tempoarily, yes, but not destroying it.

[MDlaxfan76]

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.

ok, in that context, I'd agree that COVID is having a huge impact upon all sorts of ways we work and play, or do not, including the opportunities to play sports, including lacrosse.

Most of us on here played a college sport, many of us have kids who have played or hope to play in college, or other family members who have done so. Some of us have also coached kids who have ended up playing high school and college ball and others on path to do so.

So, we value this opportunity...a lot.

In my case, three generations of top level college lacrosse, would love to have future generations be able to do so as well.

However, let's be clear that this opportunity to play is very much a 'first world problem' in the context of COVID.

130,000 + Americans dead already, about 4 months in, with perhaps as much as 10-15% of Americans infected so far (only about 1% confirmed), meaning that if we are unable to slow the spread enough to get to a vaccine or prophylactic therapy or cure, we're looking at 500K + deaths.

But that's just the deaths, it does not include the health impacts on the hospitalized who survive, including long term adverse impacts on lungs, heart, kidneys, etc. These appear to be serious as well, including on younger victims of the virus.

Unfortunately, we're seeing exploding spread right now, including surging deaths trailing behind. So, we definitely have this problem ahead of us still.

All of the above are simply the reality.

We can debate how best to slow the spread of the virus and whether we've even tried hard enough to do so, as well as what measures we should do going forward, but the loss of a season or two of playing sports, IMO, pales in comparison to various other sacrifices we may well be called to make.

This thread in particular, however, addresses the question of whether and how many and perhaps which schools may drop lacrosse altogether.

We're seeing a number of institutions, large and small, cutting various sports programs, not just for a season or two, but apparently permanently.

You're obviously a man who switches on the 6:30 news on NBC and eats up all of the "surging" and "spiking" and "new epicenter" screeching headlines. I'll say it for what feels like the millionth time: this disease has a fleetingly small impact on the health of college students - this is an easily verifiable FACT - but preventing college students from living their lives has been and is going to continue to be a tragedy of epic proportions. We have misapprehended the danger for this segment of the population. Talking about 130K deaths blah blah blah doesn't tell any part of the story when it comes to our young people. Why don't you do a little research and figure it out?

And a first world problem is destroying the lives of a generation over a disease that mostly kills the elderly and calling it a first world problem.

"destroying the lives of a generation"???
"a tragedy of epic proportions"???
Because they can't play sports for a season or two???

JB, I'm pretty sure I understand the dynamics of the disease quite thoroughly by listening to the public health specialists. And watching the trends in the data, cases, hospitalizations, deaths, etc. (no, I don't watch 6:30 NBC, I'd recommend the WSJ and Worldometer) We're all learning more and more about the disease but we do know that it's very infectious and quite deadly for way too many, and damaging to multiples of those who die. Yup, the college students are at lower personal risk, but all those who provide their food, housing, teaching, coaching, are at increasing levels of risk, and they all represent risks to the communities in which they interact.

How best to deal with that is an interesting topic, but not the subject of this thread.

Again, this thread is about schools dropping lacrosse altogether.

[Farfromgeneva]

Wesley College, a school of small consequence and may not be a total canary/coalmine, is done. They'll have this academic year (and I guess participate in fall sports, they have a few strong D3 programs, just don't seem to care about academics with a sub 25% graduation rate) in 20-21 but then get folded into Del St, a HBCU.

There's going to be more, especially as schools see the variance between their budget and actual for fall semester/trimester in a few months. Hobart is still good on lacrosse, but if I were involved with men's tennis, squash or golf I'd be concerned.

[NElaxtalent]

surging deaths trailing behind

Have read the thread & your response. No desire to quibble with your analysis other than...

I don't see anything indicating impending 'surging deaths'. The death rate continues to plummet as the # of tests & # of confirmed positives increases. Isn't this precisely how we get to herd immunity??? Has the US been outperformed by nearly every other country? Yes most notably NZ, Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam, So Korea, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands & even Sweden.

Fwiw I'm very "middle of the road" on Covid right now (I DO wear a mask when in public-indoors yet I don't think it's the Spanish Flu or Black Plague). So I catch flack from both extremes. FTR my mother is a retired cancer/virus researcher w/ over 35 yrs at an Ivy so I'm hearing feedback from a relatively knowledgeable, apolitical source, not either D's or R's MSM outlets. Just my $0.02

[Farfromgeneva]

But his point is dropping lacrosse. The relationship to Covid is simply the opportunity to use it as cover to do what some (many) college administrators desire to do anyways and the related cost. For the majority of colleges, maybe not within D1 lacrosse, but certainly for all college lacrosse, there is alignment in that these schools are tuition dependent (that would include most or all of MAAC, NEC, SoCon, probably some CAA too and maybe some others I'm not noting) and have heavy debt service from infrastructure expenditures and growth of student body to carry in their OpEx (technically debt service would be "below the line" but it's not treated that way in reality day to day) so they are incentivized to be open not shut down. They are taking painful medicine by shutting down fall terms, this isn't some conspiracy to further an agenda to shut down sports and ruin kids lives.

*Pathetic and weak management from Deans & Presidents as well as terrified of civil recourse BOTs contribute to this a good bit as well, which is disappointing, but a separate debate that infects other areas of higher ed than just college lacrosse.

[MDlaxfan76]

surging deaths trailing behind

Have read the thread & your response. No desire to quibble with your analysis other than...

I don't see anything indicating impending 'surging deaths'. The death rate continues to plummet as the # of tests & # of confirmed positives increases. Isn't this precisely how we get to herd immunity??? Has the US been outperformed by nearly every other country? Yes most notably NZ, Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam, So Korea, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands & even Sweden.

Fwiw I'm very "middle of the road" on Covid right now (I DO wear a mask when in public-indoors yet I don't think it's the Spanish Flu or Black Plague). So I catch flack from both extremes. FTR my mother is a retired cancer/virus researcher w/ over 35 yrs at an Ivy so I'm hearing feedback from a relatively knowledgeable, apolitical source, not either D's or R's MSM outlets. Just my $0.02

Yes, death rate as a % of confirmed cases is lower for three primary reasons: 1) more confirmed cases (nationally) have light or no symptoms as a % of the whole; 2) more of these cases are in younger people, who are less likely to die if they get sick (that's the big group with serious health problems, though have survived); and 3) actual improvements in care, protocols and therapies. #3 is helping, but is relatively small when controlling for age and co-morbidities.

However, you may be a bit out of date with actual deaths. After getting down toward 500 a day from the peak of above 2,000 a day, they have recently ticked back up to just below a 1,000 a day and, from the rapid increase in hospitalizations, the models would suggest that this tick upward is actually 'surging deaths' trailing hospitalizations, which in turn trails spread.

We know that there's 'exploding spread' because the positivity rates on testing are increasing so quickly in the key regions where this spread is occurring. 10-20X the positivity rates of the areas which have the virus currently tamped down.

As to 'herd immunity', that was my point...if we did wish to get to 'herd immunity' without a vaccine, then we're looking at 5X the current deaths from COVID before we get there. If we do this fast, we absolutely crush the health system, with lots and lots of very negative ripple effects. Talk about a crisis.

Likewise, if we do this fast, we risk overwhelming our food system as there will be too many sick workers to be able to get the products on the shelves and to us. Which would translate to social breakdown like we've never seen. Think some looting was bad?

So, we really can't afford to do this fast, and there remains legitimate hope for continued improvement in therapies and for an effective, safe vaccine.

Back to lacrosse and sports generally. The question is how, temporarily, schools can adjust so as to not become super spreaders of the virus?

Yes, there's concern for the kids at each age/risk level, but the spread to faculty, cafeteria and janitorial etc workers, and to the community at large are the big concerns in terms of the overall public health challenge.

And financially, this is creating a crisis for some schools looking at all of their discretionary costs. For many, they need to do so simply to survive, if they survive. Sports are often considered discretionary.

[NElaxtalent]

MD, fair enough. Thank you for the measured response. Agree that the semi-mythical "herd immunity" is a long way away. Lots of ground to cover if a vaccine isn't on-line early 2021.

[MDlaxfan76]

MD, fair enough. Thank you for the measured response. Agree that the semi-mythical "herd immunity" is a long way away. Lots of ground to cover if a vaccine isn't on-line early 2021.

Fingers crossed.
For so many reasons.

Best to you and yours.

[wgdsr]

surging deaths trailing behind

Have read the thread & your response. No desire to quibble with your analysis other than...

I don't see anything indicating impending 'surging deaths'. The death rate continues to plummet as the # of tests & # of confirmed positives increases. Isn't this precisely how we get to herd immunity??? Has the US been outperformed by nearly every other country? Yes most notably NZ, Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam, So Korea, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands & even Sweden.

Fwiw I'm very "middle of the road" on Covid right now (I DO wear a mask when in public-indoors yet I don't think it's the Spanish Flu or Black Plague). So I catch flack from both extremes. FTR my mother is a retired cancer/virus researcher w/ over 35 yrs at an Ivy so I'm hearing feedback from a relatively knowledgeable, apolitical source, not either D's or R's MSM outlets. Just my $0.02

daily deaths are noisy, 7 day averages are a much better indicator though far from perfect.

"herd immunity" is not a simple multiplier of anything. and we have no real idea about what the infection rate is right now. suffice to say though, getting to herd immunity should not be some kind of goal.

[Wheels]

Herd immunity in the context of coronavirus, if I'm not mistaken, is really more of a "it won't kills us when we catch it again", correct? Humans have been exposed to coronaviruses for a long time (nasty head colds) that just no longer kill us. What's clear about this particular virus, and why even putting flu in the same sentence, is that this virus spreads more easily than the flu. The death rate is going down, but the expansion of the number infected is skyrocketing (and probably under-reported even at that).

The study out of Spain showed that herd immunity isn't a sure thing. It seems that asymptomatic infected people only carry the antibodies for a couple of week. Those that have a stronger (symptomatic) reaction are the ones who carry immunity longer (unknown expiration date on that).

So this virus is a nasty one on multiple fronts, if I'm reading things correctly. Spreads super easily, and asymptomatic people are part of that easy transmission. Then it leaves the asymptomatic exposed again pretty quickly to get sick.

[wgdsr]

do you have a link for the spain study?
herd immunity concept is more you can't catch it and then be infectious to others. bc your antibodies will keep you from taking a viral load and allowing it to replicate and get sick/infectious. so you can't pass it on and as enough people are in that category it fizzles without the chance to spread.
we don't know the numbers on actual infection surge bc so many people have it and aren't tested. including asymptomatic. you can def conclude it's higher than several weeks ago, but to what degree, it's unknown. for now.
testing at the end of april was 200k per day. end may 400k plus. end june 600k plus.
ex fda chairman said today we may have as many as 700k new cases per day (he's guessing like everyone else). not tests, cases.
asymptomatic spreaders make this a very difficult virus to corral.
i am interested in any immunity studies as they come out.

[caneedsmorelax]

Chiming back in again for the first time after starting this thread oh such a long time ago.

Regarding the "disruption" to students' lives, and the economic damage to schools and sports programs: Would not the Civil War and WWII (each four years long) have created a much longer-term disruption to people's lives and schools' economies? All sorts of colleges were severely depleted by students volunteering/drafted into service. Even some professors were (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Chamberlain, for instance) involved in combat. There were virtually no sports at schools in the 1860's, though. In WWII, women were recruited to go to college in large numbers to fill classrooms. But sports programs at numerous schools were put on hiatus - for years, not 1+ years like today.

What we're seeing, as far as colleges and college sports go, is that the system(s) had been stretched so thin so that they could not endure a crisis like the one we're seeing now. Combine this with the loss of full-tuition-paying, foreign students to the schools' coffers. Now imagine if a major war had broken out, on the scale of the CW or WWII. Things would be far, far worse than at present.

It can be argued that schools at all levels had put too much attention and emphasis on sports to the detriment of education. After this crisis is over - boy I hope that by fall 2021 we can get back to business in all facets of society in the US - we may be able to set priorities. We don't need to have 100+ football scholarships at some D1 school that were 6-36 in the past 4 years. No schools need 36 varsity sports programs. And maybe we don't need colleges with graduation rates of <35%.

[Farfromgeneva]

What's the ratio of administration to students and % of opex that goes to non educators today? If it's meaningfully higher then that should merit as much focus in cost or operational management. What is this layer doing if not managing across areas. Not to defend big time FB/BB programs exactly, but they could look at operational and managerial results a little too instead of looking to areas that support the student body more directly.

Maybe adjacent to this but in the spirit of Covid discussions and this upcoming theoretical academic year, what does this visa law/executive order (or however it was implemented) do to all the canadians playing lacrosse here? Are they covered or excluded as part of NA, or can they not show up to colleges in the spring if the school is online only in the fall?

[DocBarrister]

First of all, the price for so-called “herd immunity” will be over a million dead Americans ... which is beyond even WWII type numbers. Now you’re getting into genocide-type figures. And herd immunity may not even be applicable to this particular virus. So please stop talking about herd immunity.

Frankly, many universities and their sports programs were living on borrowed time. Too little support from state and federal governments. Endowments that were too small for what the schools wanted to do. Tuition too high because of the lack of other financial support. Too much spending on luxury facilities when the basics, like paying junior faculty a living wage, went unmet.

Coronavirus only pushed some schools to do what they should have done long ago. Too many athletic programs had become bloated beyond what was sustainable for most schools.

I think too many colleges and universities forgot what their primary purpose was.

DocBarrister

[wgdsr]

First of all, the price for so-called “herd immunity” will be over a million dead Americans ... which is beyond even WWII type numbers. Now you’re getting into genocide-type figures. And herd immunity may not even be applicable to this particular virus. So please stop talking about herd immunity.

DocBarrister

with the exception of your last proclamation, you're just making up figures. so take your own advice?

[FMUBart]

First of all, the price for so-called “herd immunity” will be over a million dead Americans ... which is beyond even WWII type numbers. Now you’re getting into genocide-type figures. And herd immunity may not even be applicable to this particular virus. So please stop talking about herd immunity.

DocBarrister

with the exception of your last proclamation, you're just making up figures. so take your own advice?

How many in Sweden have died? They NEVER shutdown, just asked its citizens to use common sense..