Michigan didn’t start a brand-new men’s program, but transitioned its supremely talented club squad to varsity.
With Michigan’s addition, the Big Ten now has three teams, which is not enough for the conference to officially add the sport, but enough to land men’s lacrosse on its television channel: on April 14, the Big Ten Network is expected to air the Michigan-Ohio State game. Will Michigan State, which has a well-developed club program, be spurred to action?
But as with most college sports, money talks. Lacrosse is not a revenue-generating sport, which doesn’t exactly compel athletic directors to support it. Besides financing the men’s team, new women’s teams are often added to comply with Title IX.
This isn’t unusual in college sports — most recently, Penn State moved its men’s and women’s club ice hockey programs to Division I, thanks to a single $88 million check. Lacrosse, however, has traditionally seen new Division I men’s programs build from the ground up, as at Marquette and High Point, which start play in 2013.
Michigan may be an anomaly now, but there are many more successful lacrosse clubs out there, especially at Football Bowl Subdivision universities like Arizona State, Brigham Young, Oregon and Texas.
“A lot of these big schools out west have the opportunity to build lacrosse tradition,” said Brian Myers, University of Texas’s club coach. “Hopefully, Michigan is just the first domino.”
These colleges are looking at Michigan and wondering, just how do we do this ourselves?
For starters, it would help to have a dedicated club coach with deep community roots, like Michigan’s John Paul, and someone like Dave Brandon, the university’s receptive athletic director.
“Money doesn’t solve everything, but it’s an integral piece, especially at these big schools,” said Paul, who helped raise $5 million to make the varsity move.
For more: http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/where-michigan-goes-in-lacrosse-will-others-follow/
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