Next Big D1

[Farfromgeneva]

As I recall at one time Cornell was trying to endow it’s lacrosse program. Last I heard the finally got the coach’s position endowed but not the team. This was quite some time ago. Anyone have an update?

Assuming a return of 5% and a salary of 200 k it would take about 4-5 million. I had one AD tell me he would want 5 million to do it

Those numbers sound about right. We are looking to fully endow the team and not just a coaching position. Not sure if Cornell has yet succeeded in endowing the team.

I’m sure that you are politically savvy enough not to make this a cornerstone of your pitch, but the real solution is for Columbia to sunset the football program. The team has produced only 5 winning Ivy records since 1956. Would anyone truly miss this program? Does anyone at BU or UVM wish they still had their football teams? Eliminating football would instantly provide the facilities and funding for men’’s lacrosse with $$$ to spare.

I reject this as long as they continue to provide free beer at the games....

[Makeit8Lax]

Free beer at Columbia games? Now there’s a concept! My group was declined for a tailgate pass at last year’s homecoming!

[Farfromgeneva]

Did they eliminate that? That was the only reason to go up there a few years back. Even watching a mediocre Brown team destroy them in dec. then head to monkey bar and get some brown liquor to warm the bones after maybe the 3rd quarter.

[Makeit8Lax]

Did they eliminate that? That was the only reason to go up there a few years back. Even watching a mediocre Brown team destroy them in dec. then head to monkey bar and get some brown liquor to warm the bones after maybe the 3rd quarter.

Yes there is no more free beer and tailgate passes have been restricted due to “increased demand.” The team is better with Bagnoli coaching though by no means a power.

Help us to Make It 8 and we will make free beer a staple of Columbia lacrosse games!

[Farfromgeneva]

Well if the audience is all sober then the impetus to be competent must’ve risen a bit anyways.

[Makeit8Lax]

It has. Now it’s time to take a further step in that direction by getting lacrosse to Columbia.

[Farfromgeneva]

I’m for that! And would love to see it partner in some fashion with Harlem Lacrosse as well!0

[Makeit8Lax]

My alumni group is actively working with the current club team on getting them involved in NYC community lacrosse initiatives. This is something we would continue and expand with a varsity team.

[ggait]

Columbia's T9 numbers are better than most schools. Columbia's undergrads are 54% male (a bit higher than most schools) and 55.5% of its roster spots are male. But that's still fairly bad for adding a new mlax team.

Keeping an existing mlax team under T9 is pretty easy (which is the situation the other seven Ivies have). Adding a new one is muy mucho dificil. Totally different ballgame.

Columbia couldn't just add an mlax team alone, since that would make its numbers head in the bad direction for the under-represented gender. So they'd have to add 1, maybe 2, female teams to offset mlax. Hard to see what those new female teams would be.

Columbia already has a ton of gal teams -- whoops, wsoccer, wtrack, wswimming, wtennis, wgolf, wsquash, wfencing, wvball, wlax, field hockey, softball, wrowing. Even have a gals' archery team! The only Ivy sponsored womens sport that Columbia doesn't already have is womens ice hockey. That's a very expensive one to add (does Columbia even have a rink?); plus wice hockey is only 24 rosters compared to 45 rosters for mlax. If you had an ice rink and wanted to be expanding your athletic department, add wice and mice hockey would be much more logical and do-able than trying to add mlax.

So to create room for mlax, Columbia more likely has to cut two existing mens teams. That is painful, disruptive and nicks off the alumni of those existing mens programs (all of which are Ivy sponsored sports too). So if you are Columbia's AD, why exactly do you want to take all of that on?

Answer -- you don't unless somebody like Bob Kraft drops 10 sticks on you.

[wgdsr]

Columbia's T9 numbers are better than most schools. Columbia's undergrads are 54% male (a bit higher than most schools) and 55.5% of its roster spots are male. But that's still fairly bad for adding a new mlax team.

Keeping an existing mlax team under T9 is pretty easy (which is the situation the other seven Ivies have). Adding a new one is muy mucho dificil. Totally different ballgame.

Columbia couldn't just add an mlax team alone, since that would make its numbers head in the bad direction for the under-represented gender. So they'd have to add 1, maybe 2, female teams to offset mlax. Hard to see what those new female teams would be.

Columbia already has a ton of gal teams -- whoops, wsoccer, wtrack, wswimming, wtennis, wgolf, wsquash, wfencing, wvball, wlax, field hockey, softball, wrowing. Even have a gals' archery team! The only Ivy sponsored womens sport that Columbia doesn't already have is womens ice hockey. That's a very expensive one to add (does Columbia even have a rink?); plus wice hockey is only 24 rosters compared to 45 rosters for mlax. If you had an ice rink and wanted to be expanding your athletic department, add wice and mice hockey would be much more logical and do-able than trying to add mlax.

So to create room for mlax, Columbia more likely has to cut two existing mens teams. That is painful, disruptive and nicks off the alumni of those existing mens programs (all of which are Ivy sponsored sports too). So if you are Columbia's AD, why exactly do you want to take all of that on?

Answer -- you don't unless somebody like Bob Kraft drops 10 sticks on you.

as long as we're speaking in definitives, none of this is accurate save for current percentages at this time and the last 8 words of the last line.

[OCanada]

The demographics of an aging population enter into it as well as things like AI where certain certificates can lead to salaries of six figures with out a degree etc

[Makeit8Lax]

Columbia's T9 numbers are better than most schools. Columbia's undergrads are 54% male (a bit higher than most schools) and 55.5% of its roster spots are male. But that's still fairly bad for adding a new mlax team.

Keeping an existing mlax team under T9 is pretty easy (which is the situation the other seven Ivies have). Adding a new one is muy mucho dificil. Totally different ballgame.

Columbia couldn't just add an mlax team alone, since that would make its numbers head in the bad direction for the under-represented gender. So they'd have to add 1, maybe 2, female teams to offset mlax. Hard to see what those new female teams would be.

Columbia already has a ton of gal teams -- whoops, wsoccer, wtrack, wswimming, wtennis, wgolf, wsquash, wfencing, wvball, wlax, field hockey, softball, wrowing. Even have a gals' archery team! The only Ivy sponsored womens sport that Columbia doesn't already have is womens ice hockey. That's a very expensive one to add (does Columbia even have a rink?); plus wice hockey is only 24 rosters compared to 45 rosters for mlax. If you had an ice rink and wanted to be expanding your athletic department, add wice and mice hockey would be much more logical and do-able than trying to add mlax.

So to create room for mlax, Columbia more likely has to cut two existing mens teams. That is painful, disruptive and nicks off the alumni of those existing mens programs (all of which are Ivy sponsored sports too). So if you are Columbia's AD, why exactly do you want to take all of that on?

Answer -- you don't unless somebody like Bob Kraft drops 10 sticks on you.

Women’s ice hockey would not happen in NYC. Cost of building a rink would far exceed 10 sticks and many more sticks per year would then be needed to operate it. There are other options though—women’s rugby would be 20 spots without any men’s offset. Men’s rugby will stay club for all time to ensure that they can drink after games without violating NCAA rules. There are also well-established club teams in water polo and sailing that do not compete for field space with any teams at Baker. By rugby, one of water polo/sailing, plus a few extra women on another well-established team (rowing), T9 balance is achieved. And we can keep those 10 sticks!

[Dr. Tact]

plus wice hockey is only 24 rosters compared to 45 rosters for mlax.

Question from the uninformed Dr....Is the roster number the important part to gender equality (T9) or is it scholarships? Thanks in advance to anyone who can answer for me.

[ggait]

Both heads and schollies count for T9.

But the NCAA generally has the max schollie limits set up so that if the heads are OK, then the schollies usually work out as well.

Since you have to counter the 85 football schollies, the rest of the limits are titled towards the gals. Such as:

Mhoops in D1 is 13 schollies; whoops is 15.
Msoccer is 9.9; wsoccer is 12.
Mtennis is 4.5; wtennis is 8.
Mgolf is 4.5; wgolf is 6.
Mswimming is 9.9; wswimming is 14.
Mtrack is 12.6; wtrack is 18.
Mvball is 4.5; wvball is 12.
Mbvball is 0; wbvball is 6.
Mwpolo is 4.5; wwpolo is 8.
Mrowing is zero; wrowing is 20.
Mfhockey is 0; wfhockey is 12.
Mrugby is 0; wrugby is 12.

[ggait]

By rugby, one of water polo/sailing, plus a few extra women on another well-established team (rowing), T9 balance is achieved. And we can keep those 10 sticks!

That is exactly why you need the 10 large. Because you have to fund (i) mlax, plus (ii) wrugby, plus (iii) w water polo. Coaches, equipment, facilities, operating budgets for three new varsity teams need to be funded in order to add mlax. Plus, the Ivy League doesn't sponsor wrugby or w water polo as varsity sports. So Columbia would be searching for conferences for those two teams.

Not impossible. Just expensive. Utah got $15.6 million in donations to start D1 mlax. And they (unlike almost any other prospective school) didn't need to add any new gal sports.

[DMac]

Ah, just what the Dr. ordered, ggait.
He's your remedy.

[Makeit8Lax]

By rugby, one of water polo/sailing, plus a few extra women on another well-established team (rowing), T9 balance is achieved. And we can keep those 10 sticks!

That is exactly why you need the 10 large. Because you have to fund (i) mlax, plus (ii) wrugby, plus (iii) w water polo. Coaches, equipment, facilities, operating budgets for three new varsity teams need to be funded in order to add mlax. Plus, the Ivy League doesn't sponsor wrugby or w water polo as varsity sports. So Columbia would be searching for conferences for those two teams.

Not impossible. Just expensive. Utah got $15.6 million in donations to start D1 mlax. And they (unlike almost any other prospective school) didn't need to add any new gal sports.

Agreed. We are well aware of the Utah move and seek to do something similar. I doubt rugby/water polo not being sponsored Ivy sports would be a problem. Rugby could
well become a conference-sponsored sport if Columbia moved up. We already have a small endowment devoted to Mlax and plan to grow it bigger, making it more
attractive to larger donors who will get us to where we need to go.

[wgdsr]

By rugby, one of water polo/sailing, plus a few extra women on another well-established team (rowing), T9 balance is achieved. And we can keep those 10 sticks!

That is exactly why you need the 10 large. Because you have to fund (i) mlax, plus (ii) wrugby, plus (iii) w water polo. Coaches, equipment, facilities, operating budgets for three new varsity teams need to be funded in order to add mlax. Plus, the Ivy League doesn't sponsor wrugby or w water polo as varsity sports. So Columbia would be searching for conferences for those two teams.

Not impossible. Just expensive. Utah got $15.6 million in donations to start D1 mlax. And they (unlike almost any other prospective school) didn't need to add any new gal sports.

Agreed. We are well aware of the Utah move and seek to do something similar. I doubt rugby/water polo not being sponsored Ivy sports would be a problem. Rugby could
well become a conference-sponsored sport if Columbia moved up. We already have a small endowment devoted to Mlax and plan to grow it bigger, making it more
attractive to larger donors who will get us to where we need to go.

don't be fooled, makeit. ask your ad for real numbers if he insists that it must be partially funded. have a goal that you can set and be definitive.
don't take any obfuscation on the actual facts --- if they want to bring up title ix and other programs --- ask for a detailed description/comparison/actual violation example lawsuit, any rulings. ask them to detail where in the law you would be violating title ix. there will not be anything comparable in past rulings to an institution like columbia that has provided so many opportunities for women. adding mens lax would not be violating the law in any way, shape or form. another womens sport would not be necessary at all, you're proportional with the male population you have.

worse comes to worst, competitive cheer just got greenlighted by the ncaa, and their budget can be minimal. tell them to fund that one themselves. what you need is actually a big donor to make it known they're willing to withhold their future contributions without it. THAT is what scares them more than anything into action.

[ggait]

I doubt rugby/water polo not being sponsored Ivy sports would be a problem. Rugby could well become a conference-sponsored sport if Columbia moved up.

You're actually right about that.

Even though rugby and WP are not Ivy League sponsored sports, some other Ivies (Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth, Princeton) and other NE schools (Bucknell, Nova, Army, etc.) do have these as current female varsity sports.

So that could work for Columbia (with enough dough).

Good luck!

[ggait]

ask them to detail where in the law you would be violating title ix. there will not be anything comparable in past rulings to an institution like columbia that has provided so many opportunities for women. adding mens lax would not be violating the law in any way, shape or form. another womens sport would not be necessary at all, you're proportional with the male population you have.

I'm sure the folks at Columbia are quite familiar with the experience their friends at Brown have had on this (including going all the way up to SCOTUS). Per Brown's settlement agreement (still in effect fyi), Brown must:

"insure that the percentage of athletes who are women is no more than 3.5 percentage points lower than the percentage of women enrolled. If Brown eliminates or downgrades women's teams, or improves men's sports without doing the same for women, it would be required to keep its sports participation rate within 2.25 percent of enrollment."

If you add 45 mlax heads to Columbia's current portfolio of sports, the pro forma would be 57.5% male athletes (up from 55.5%) versus 53.9% male undergrads. That's a gap of 3.6%, and the Brown settlement (a pretty good on point precedent if you ask me) limits the gap to 2.25%.

https://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/24/spor ... -suit.html