Daily Archives: February 5, 2010

While it is great to see lacrosse expanding, in order for substantial growth to occur, the sport needs to expand to universities with football, major athletic budgets, and large fan bases.

The sport is expanding rapidly in the youth and high school levels, but is capped at the collegiate level because of the scholarship restrictions due to Title IX.

In this new world of “around-the-clock” news and political correctness, the American public has transformed into a society that dances around the major issues of the day. Every word is scrutinized and every decision magnified. In American society, issues such as immigration, affirmative action, and abortion have become the nation’s “elephants in the room” that people do not want to confront or comment on publically. Title IX is college lacrosse’s large trunk and tusk bearing animal.

Title IX was established in 1972 to level the playing field between men’s and women’s athletics. Clearly before the law was enacted, the balance of power was heavily tilted towards men’s sports and something needed to be done. The outcome of Title IX was incredibly positive for women’s athletics. The problem, as is the case with the majority of government legislation, was the unintended consequences that the law would bring years later.

It is clear that Title IX has advanced women’s lacrosse and helped the sport grow exponentially. Programs are popping up across the country at major universities like Florida, Louisville, and Oregon. Most notably Northwestern, which became a program only nine years ago, has won the NCAA title four consecutive years. Title IX has clearly been a major reason for the growth in the women’s game and a positive development for young girls across the country. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the men’s game.

Being labeled as the “fastest growing sport in America” is an incredibly positive development for the sport of lacrosse, but there is a serious dilemma facing the sport. Men’s lacrosse is growing like an over-squeezed toothpaste bottle….you can only squeeze it so long before you run out of room, the top bursts off, and things get messy. The sport is expanding rapidly in the youth and high school levels, but is capped at the collegiate level because of the scholarship restrictions due to Title IX. It is very difficult for a university with a major football program to add a men’s lacrosse program due to the high number of scholarships associated with football (football programs account for 85 scholarships). In most cases, for every scholarship you add for a new men’s lacrosse team, a university must add one on the women’s side (not necessarily in women’s lacrosse but to a women’s program in general). This is prohibiting universities like Michigan and BYU, which have very good club lacrosse teams, from transitioning to Division I. It is also why the only growth we are seeing in DI is at universities that do not have football; examples include the University of Jacksonville, Robert Morris, and St. Johns. While it is great to see lacrosse expanding, in order for substantial growth to occur, the sport needs to expand to universities with football, major athletic budgets, and large fan bases.

Title IX has definitely helped programs like Florida, but has it hurt the men’s game?

This all seems a little far-fetched because Title IX’s current situation is not likely to change anytime soon, but with Congress seemingly convinced that they are the “voice of reason” in all things sports related (see Oren Hatch with the BCS and Henry Waxman with Steroids), anything is possible.

Let’s be clear, I am not proposing any pullback in women’s athletics. Rather I am in favor of a modified version a widely held view that Title IX should be amended to exempt football. Completely discounting the 85 football scholarships from the dynamic between men’s and women’s sports is a little dangerous because it could damage some of the newly funded women’s sports (women’s lacrosse being one of them). However, treating each football scholarship as a half-scholarship might do the trick as it reduces the number to 42.5 scholarships counted against the total. This proposal would maintain the current women’s programs, yet open the door for the expansion of male sports.

Telling university athletic programs that they cannot expand their men’s programs, even when they have the means to do so, is an over restrictive and antiquated mandate. The purpose of Title IX was to level the playing field, increase participation in women’s sports, and advance women’s athletics. It has accomplished all three. Modifying the legislation found in Title IX will not hinder those advances.

Expanding men’s lacrosse to universities with larger athletic budgets would be a big step in the right direction as it would establish a presence in conferences like the Big 10, SEC, and Pac 10. This is important because conferences are the infrastructure on which all college sports are built. They provide instant stability and structure. This is currently a serious problem for men’s lacrosse because the sport only has two established conferences (the ACC and Ivy League) with the Big East becoming the third this year, a major positive development in itself.

With teams moving in and out of conferences seemingly every year, men’s lacrosse has been void of stability. The Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC), the Great Western Lacrosse League (GWLL), and the Patriot League have not had consistent conference membership in their entire existences. In addition, the ACC is a “mini-conference” because it only has four members and until this year, the Ivy League recently had to determine their conference championship with a coin toss because it did not have a tournament. As I have written about before, in order for lacrosse to become a part of the mainstream group of sports, it needs to look like a mainstream sport. The addition of the Big East and the introduction of the Ivy League Tournament are positive steps in the right direction, but unfortunately growth is limited without the addition of more lacrosse programs and conferences. Ohio State and Penn State are craving for a Michigan, Northwestern, or Michigan State to join the party and form a Big Ten (Michigan State had a program, but dissolved it prior to the 1997 season). The ACC would love to have Florida State’s club team transition to varsity status or for Boston College to reinstate their program after disbanding it in 1999 so their league champion could receive an automatic bid for the NCAA tournament. Developments like these would be instrumental in both the growth of men’s lacrosse and its advancement into the forefront of college athletics.

As we have all seen in the past year, anything tied up in government is a complicated situation involving politics, power plays, and negotiation, all of which take a considerable amount of time to work out. Any modifications to Title IX is no different. Fortunately, the tube of toothpaste that is men’s lacrosse isn’t quite to the point of bursting, but it is closer than one would think.

http://blogs.insidelacrosse.com/2010/02/02/lamade-the-elephant-in-the-room-is-title-ix-holding-back-division-i-men%e2%80%99s-lacrosse/