Next Big D1

[HooDat]

There is a school out there that is the most obvious school to add a team. Everything a new team would want is already in place. Location within a hotbed. Desirable school. Ability to recruit and get good players on Day 1. Built-in top-notch conference schedule. Locally competitive non-conference scheduling ability. Ability to get a top coach immediately. All they need is an athletic dept that says "go" and a coaching staff.

I never hear a valid reason as to why this school will not field a team. All of its peer group/conference schools field a team.

There would be good players breaking down the door to get a place on this team.

Does it rhyme with Rolumbia?

[palaxoff]

Does it rhyme with Rolumbia?

Always wondered why Rolumbia didn't have a team, anyone know why?

[SCLaxAttack]

Add to that an alum who’s already such a generous athletic donor that his name’s on their football field and whose most successful employee (some might argue his second most successful) is probably the most high profile lacrosse advocate on the planet. Doesn’t “The Kraft Family Head Coach of Men’s Lacrosse” sound nice?

(Don’t go down the massage parlor route. If that was important his name would already be off the field.)

[hbglaxman]

I've wondered why La Salle Univ in Philadelphia doesn't have a mlax team? No football and in a lax hotbead area. Anyone have any insights?

[44WeWantMore]

No insights, but while there are plenty of natural local rivalries, would there be a problem with getting into a conference?

[Wheels]

I've wondered why La Salle Univ in Philadelphia doesn't have a mlax team? No football and in a lax hotbead area. Anyone have any insights?

LaSalle is really hurting financially.

[QuakerSouth]

^This.

They were selling off their art collection a few years ago to raise funds.

[10stone5]

I've wondered why La Salle Univ in Philadelphia doesn't have a mlax team?

I never really have.
LaSalle.

I mean you’ve already got Penn, Drexel, St. Joe’s, Cabrini, Haverford, Swarthmore, Villanova, Widener, Chestnut Hill — all in close proximity — about 20 Pennsylvania schools in all playing NCAA lacrosse and any number of others playing club lacrosse.

[Wheels]

^This.

They were selling off their art collection a few years ago to raise funds.

Sadly, they're at the top of the list of schools you've heard of that are in real danger of closing or merging with a stronger/better resourced university. And St. Joe's wouldn't be that merge partner. If not for a couple of very large gifts from a single donor, St. Joe's would be in worse shape, too. LaSalle has a large and successful alumni base, but the university hasn't historically done a very good job of cultivating donor behaviors. It's left them way, way, way behind in building a more sustainable endowment. They're pretty much tuition dollar dependent. So is St. Joe's. When they don't hit their enrollment targets, which they've struggled to do and will likely continue to do, their financial models can't sustain the universities. Budget cuts. Layoffs. Cut program. It begins a reinforcing drain spiral. When the next recession hits, we'll see a lot of consolidation among the small, Catholic colleges and universities in the Philly area. Supply and demand. Gonna get ugly out there...and when the yield curves invert and bond markets get skittish, well...

[10stone5]

I gotta admit, it is news to me if actually Saint Joe’s is in jeopardy or vulnerable, other than the tuition being outrageous.
I don’t believe La Salle’s problems are all that new, but am not close enough to that program.
Drexel is a private, and from what I heard, its been a while, but they were close to losing it. That school rebounded, and actually expanded, opening a medical school, purchasing Hahnemann. Maybe someone like that could salvage La Salle if it comes to that.

[Wheels]

I gotta admit, it is news to me if actually Saint Joe’s is in jeopardy or vulnerable, other than the tuition being outrageous.
I don’t believe La Salle’s problems are all that new, but am not close enough to that program.
Drexel is a private, and from what I heard, its been a while, but they were close to losing it. That school rebounded, and actually expanded, opening a medical school, purchasing Hahnemann. Maybe someone like that could salvage La Salle if it comes to that.

Here's the big gift:

https://www.inquirer.com/philly/educati ... 70719.html

Last round of big layoffs:

https://www.phillymag.com/business/2015 ... s-layoffs/

That layoff was a mix of permanent and temporary jobs. But it was done to close a significant budget deficit.

They recently hired a new Provost from another Jesuit university in Missouri. Gotta think that she'll be tasked with boosting their enrollment, which has fallen off, especially at the graduate level. Although, the PHL market is the most competitive market for grad programs in the nation. People think it's the Boston market, but it's not...Philly is saturated with graduate programs.

https://sites.sju.edu/academicadmin/fil ... 180517.pdf

[Farfromgeneva]

I have a buddy who’s the interim head of fox (bschool) at Temple and while it’s not existential, the fraud in their online MBA program is, by his words, setting the graduate programs back by decades”...

[HowieT3]

Here's an interesting Title IX quirk. Many of the top D-1 women's b-ball teams practice each day against male players. Those male players count as females when computing the schools' "athletic opportunities" for each sex, the balanced compliance number each school is trying to reach.

Such a simple solution for compliance. Declare half the football team females. heck, why not all mens sports? Who is really going to touch this issue? is the lgbtq community going to support it? Or, for that matter, The, " your sex is what you think your sex is" crowd going to support it? Being completely serious.

First off it's about 10-15 slots. And they're non-scholarship non-roster practice players, which doesn't affect the 85-scholarship hole that D-1A football schools are in. The biggest problem to overcome is the number of scholarships and not how many total athletes each school has. If they need to build up their athletic opportunity numbers, it's easier to bump up the roster size of field hockey, soccer and rowing (the serious rowing teams have rosters of over 50). Plus, since they're non-roster practice players only, no group cares because the schools that do this are trying to get their women's team to practice against the toughest competition possible. I'm sure that if a woman at a school wanted only to play in practice against the team with no opportunity to make the team since they already have walk-ons on the roster ahead of her (the number allowed on the roster by the NCAA exceeds the number of allowed scholarships for both basketball teams), she wouldn't be turned away, since it would be another athletic opportunity available for a woman.

[HowieT3]

Lacrosse became an official HS championship sport in Georgia for both boys and girls a few years ago. There was a discussion back then on Laxpower (RIP) whether this could lead to Ga Tech's moving from MCLA to D-1. This also probably contributes to the number of players from Georgia starting to make rosters of D-1 teams.

Something to keep in mind, when Richmond (D-1AA football (65 scholarships)) started their MLax team, they dropped MSoccer.

[wgdsr]

Here's an interesting Title IX quirk. Many of the top D-1 women's b-ball teams practice each day against male players. Those male players count as females when computing the schools' "athletic opportunities" for each sex, the balanced compliance number each school is trying to reach.

Such a simple solution for compliance. Declare half the football team females. heck, why not all mens sports? Who is really going to touch this issue? is the lgbtq community going to support it? Or, for that matter, The, " your sex is what you think your sex is" crowd going to support it? Being completely serious.

First off it's about 10-15 slots. And they're non-scholarship non-roster practice players, which doesn't affect the 85-scholarship hole that D-1A football schools are in. The biggest problem to overcome is the number of scholarships and not how many total athletes each school has. If they need to build up their athletic opportunity numbers, it's easier to bump up the roster size of field hockey, soccer and rowing (the serious rowing teams have rosters of over 50). Plus, since they're non-roster practice players only, no group cares because the schools that do this are trying to get their women's team to practice against the toughest competition possible. I'm sure that if a woman at a school wanted only to play in practice against the team with no opportunity to make the team since they already have walk-ons on the roster ahead of her (the number allowed on the roster by the NCAA exceeds the number of allowed scholarships for both basketball teams), she wouldn't be turned away, since it would be another athletic opportunity available for a woman.

again, most schools (at least with major football numbers) are simply not "in compliance" if they had to have proportional numbers, for participation and scholarships. but... they... don't... need... to.... be. i realize everyone keeps talking about it, but they're not proportional. so if that was a "need", all those schools would be in court right now and closing their football programs. or baseball. or something. there are 3 tests. one is useless to attempt --- surveys, needs and wants of the underrepresented body. the other takes too much effort to get to --- proportional.
another one --- showing that you're increasing opportunities for the underrepresented -- satisfies the law. hard stop. so why bother with proportional? you don't have to hit 2 out of 3.
to give a common example for us, howie -- uva -- sponsors a bunch of women's sports. here's a link on scholarship limits you're talking about:
http://www.scholarshipstats.com/ncaalimits.html
so if you add up the respective schollys, what they're looking at is:
173.6 men (55%)
143 women (45%)
that's completely flipped from the 45/55 ratio at the school. so how are sullivan, ryan, littlepage and carla not in court every day? because they added women's rowing in 1995. and women's golf in 2004. and turned squash (both men and women) into a varsity sport under the athletic department umbrella in 2017.
if they had to be in proportion, they'd be in violation. they are not, and could add men's sports if they wanted to. the biggest problem to overcome is not the number of scholarships --- teams with big football don't even bother with that. because they don't need to. just provide expanded opportunities over time.
the biggest "problem", if it is one, is that many athletic directors have no interest in interfering with football and basketball boondoggles... and imo, working more.

[Makeit8Lax]

There is a school out there that is the most obvious school to add a team. Everything a new team would want is already in place. Location within a hotbed. Desirable school. Ability to recruit and get good players on Day 1. Built-in top-notch conference schedule. Locally competitive non-conference scheduling ability. Ability to get a top coach immediately. All they need is an athletic dept that says "go" and a coaching staff.

I never hear a valid reason as to why this school will not field a team. All of its peer group/conference schools field a team.

There would be good players breaking down the door to get a place on this team.

Some history of lacrosse at Columbia, along with a group looking to make it happen: www.makeit8.com

[QuakerSouth]

So what exactly, does the AD and admin give you as an excuse for 1) why Columbia does not currently field a Varsity team? And 2) what do they tell you as to why they are NOT going to sponsor a team?

[Makeit8Lax]

So what exactly, does the AD and admin give you as an excuse for 1) why Columbia does not currently field a Varsity team? And 2) what do they tell you as to why they are NOT going to sponsor a team?

Three reasons have been given in the past:
1) Title IX. The athletic director in the ‘90s and early ‘00s denied repeated requests for a team saying the mere act of adding a team would be grounds for a lawsuit without multiple women’s teams added at the same time.
2) Facilities. Until recently Columbia did not have enough practice fields/coaches offices for the varsity teams it has. The common excuse given was it was hard to find space in NYC. Having lived in Philadelphia and seen Penn’s facilities I find that equally misguided to point 1. The current AD has done a good job expanding facilities.so now at least current varsity teams have sufficient space. Further expansion might allow for some new teams.
3) Funding. Columbia’s athletic endowment remains the smallest in the Ivy League by a mile, even with recent contributions from Kraft, Campbell and others. The hole from the bad old days of the ‘80s and ‘90s that Columbia was in relative to its Ivy peers really was that deep.

My group has within the past year established an endowed fund to benefit the current club team. We plan to add to it and thereby directly address objection 3, paving the way for clearance of objections 1 and 2.

[FannOLax]

Hmmmm, okay, I guess the location of the Ivy League Tournament these past few years was more about New York and Manhattan than about Columbia lacrosse. Attendance these past two years was good (or at least better than when it was hosted by regular-season champ), but not great. How about men's lax at Wake Forest? Virginia Tech? James Madison U?

[Makeit8Lax]

Hmmmm, okay, I guess the location of the Ivy League Tournament these past few years was more about New York and Manhattan than about Columbia lacrosse. Attendance these past two years was good (or at least better than when it was hosted by regular-season champ), but not great. How about men's lax at Wake Forest? Virginia Tech? James Madison U?

The Ivy tournament drew significant attention to lacrosse at Columbia even without that being its original intent. The current AD fully backed hosting the tournament and has shown more openness to a team than either of his predecessors.