MLAX 10-year anniversary

[SFspidur]

JOC is doing a three-part series looking back at the launch of the varsity MLAX program. Part one covers Jim Miller talking about the decision to add lax while dropping soccer and T&F. Part two will be Chemotti, and part three will be one of the early star players, Brendan Hynes.

When Spiders launched men's lacrosse program decade ago, two sports got axe

After UR decided it would add men’s lacrosse, “the question quickly became how.” The devil was in the details: cutting two programs.

richmond.com

 

[SFspidur]

Part 2:

Men's lacrosse fit UR, Coach Dan Chemotti provided instant propulsion

“When you make hires, you’re never 100% sure how they’re going to work out. But now that we’re able to look back at it, the hiring of Dan was an

richmond.com

 

[spider fan]

Men's lacrosse has been a great sport for Richmond. The sad part was the angst when it started with men's soccer and track and field being cut. Why there could not have been some way to add it while keeping the two cut sports is not comprehensible? The reason given at the time about having to add one or more women's sports making sports too much of Richmond's profile does not hold water. The casualty of having a loyal spider like Bobby Ukrop being so fed up is beyond ridiculous, meaning the school could have prevented it. Bobby is one of the finest people I have ever met.

 

[Wood Hall]

Can't read the stories because they are paywalled.

Lacrosse isn't my cup of tea, but it has been a good addition. We should have kept soccer and added volleyball or softball as the offset to lacrosse.

We have so much money. I realize some of the endowment is dedicated funds, but it seems as if they are more interested in maintaining an impressive total number than investing some of it in our university. I mean seriously, we'd be OK with a $2.5 billion in the fund instead of $3.3 billion.

 

[SFspidur]

It wasn't about the money, it was the philosophy. Many of us have of course poked holes in Ayers' claim that adding more athletes would have undesirably raised our athlete percentage above that of our peers (*cough* Davidson *cough*).

“The president wanted to keep, and the academic community maybe (also), wanted to not add 100 new athletes. That was a bigger issue than the dollars,” Miller said. “You can always come up with more dollars. But for a relatively small school, adding 100 new athletes to the mix of the campus, there were some positives but also some negatives.”

 

[spider fan]

Athlete percentage too high - kind of choke that one away as AD at VMI..........Bring back mandatory Physical Education ...............don't want the "student 'body'" getting too out of shape.............Not only that - coolest sweat shirt I ever owned had Richmond Physical Education above the school seal..................

 

[urfan1]

You all know seeing my sport T&F cut broke my heart, but this is the part that "frosts" me to no end. I find it almost insulting as "mush".

UR’s undergraduate enrollment was 2,950 then, and isn’t much more now. In 2012, at least 80 admissions spots in each class of approximately 770 were reserved for student-athletes. UR wanted to keep it that way.


The school determined it would limit athletics spending and the number of admissions slots reserved for student-athletes. UR’s strategic plan called for utilization of “existing resources.” So it didn’t add men’s lacrosse in conjunction with a women’s sport, or sports.

I have never heard anyone seriously advocate admitting non-qualifiers, or kids that could not succeed in the classroom. I read this as saying we want kids that can ONLY succeed in the classroom. We don't want kids that have managed to succeed in the class AND on the playing field. We want nerds, not well rounded students. It assumes athletes cannot be smart.

 

[SFspidur]

Final piece in the series focused on Brendan Hynes and other early recruiting. Chemotti focused a lot on recruiting natural athletes, trusting they could develop the lax skills.

“It definitely was an interesting vibe at first,” said Hynes. “We came from all over the place, but the main thing is we all had kind of a chip on our shoulder. We were all late getting recruited. We had a lot of schools look over us, and we really took that to heart. We kind of bonded over that.

“I think that definitely helped because we didn’t have the skill that a lot of the teams we played against had. But we used that chip on our shoulder to try and outhustle and outwork our opponents. That was the main thing that kept us together.”

U. of Richmond's lacrosse success dates back a decade

“I think a lot of us were kind of looking around, asking each other what we got ourselves into.”

richmond.com

 

[Wood Hall]

It wasn't about the money, it was the philosophy. Many of us have of course poked holes in Ayers' claim that adding more athletes would have undesirably raised our athlete percentage above that of our peers (*cough* Davidson *cough*).

How the hell would adding lacrosse, and softball or volleyball as an offset, add 100 more athletes? What a bunch of happy horsesh%t.

 

[SFspidur]

How the hell would adding lacrosse, and softball or volleyball as an offset, add 100 more athletes? What a bunch of happy horsesh%t.

There are 46 guys on the lax roster.

 

[urfan1]

I understand there was talk of adding women's crew. We had a successful club team at the time with D-1 quality facilities, so little start up cost. But apparently the athletes can't be good students argument won out.

 

[Anachnid]

Fan, I’m 100% behind you with that “ athletes can’t be good students argument” is a display of sheer ignorance. If the school had any gumption to pursue facts they would track the careers of the student body as a whole and be able to factually know the number of successful careers of former athletes. A further step would be to cross that with annual donations. A caveat to the latter is I know the alums (doctors, lawyers, successful owned large and small companies, corporate accountants and officers) of my terminated two sports do not donate money by numbers or dollars, and the school has missed out .
Crew is expensive. The NCAA does not sponsor mens crew only womens. Shells hi tech and expensive. Boat houses ? Look at the Ivys or track them along the Schuylkill River.
Volleyball might be less expensive.

 

[SFspidur]

The problem with volleyball is rosters are usually only like 12–14, so it doesn’t come close to offsetting lax on its own. Rowing can be 40+, so a much better numbers match.

 

[urfan1]

Anachid, I agree crew can be expensive, I understood the point was the club crew team already had D1 or near D1 assets and facilities.

 

[Ferrum Spider]

I understand there was talk of adding women's crew. We had a successful club team at the time with D-1 quality facilities, so little start up cost. But apparently the athletes can't be good students argument won out.

Don't the athletes graduate at a higher rate than the regular student body?

 

[SpiderTrap]

The article about the two sports getting axed is terrible. They blantantly admit two main points I think we all knew were true. They didn't want to spend money on more sports, and they didn't want athletes dumbing down the student population at UR.

Direct quotes from the article.

According to Jim Miller AD at UR at the time "In 2012 at least 80 admission spots in class of approximately 770 were reserved for athletes. UR wanted to keep it that way". Miller goes on to say "The president wanted to keep, and the ACADEMIC community maybe also wanted to NOT add 100 new athletes. That was a bigger issue than dollars. Adding 100 new athletes to the mix of the campus, there were some positives and negatives "

I read that as basically admitting - we feel like the student-athletes were too dumb for our school in the first place and adding more would be bad for our reputation. But what the article fails to mention is that the sports they cut - soccer - had a higher team GPA than the average GPA all of students as UR and from my memory was one of, if not the highest GPA sport at UR. Not to mention - both soccer and track operated with very few scholarships to begin with and therefore - majority of the athletes on those teams were pretty close, if not better than the regular student admission standard.

Then they admit soccer was big internationally, but not at Richmond. But they fail to mention that soccer is pretty big in the city of Richmond, with the Richmond Kickers and numerous youth soccer programs/clubs in the area.

I have nothing against Lacrosse - it needed to be added because it fits our school profile, without a doubt. Grabbing rich private schools from the Northeast, who will graduate and likely end up in the Finance/Investment Banking field is what UR is all about. And they donate back to the school pretty well too. But fact is - we had the money and resources to keep and add the necessary women's sports. Heck - go ahead and build another dorm and add 200 more students if you need more "smart kids" on campus. Class sizes would probably only increase by 1-2 students across the board.

But this is just one of the many decisions that showed - UR is not serious about athletics. We pretend to be serious. We do enough to make it look like we care and are trying, and it just shows - we just want to compete and be middle of the pack - nothing more. We don't want dumb athletes taking over the campus.

 

[Wood Hall]

There are 46 guys on the lax roster.

And less than 20 on a softball/volleyball roster. I didn't do well in Mrs. Hesch's finite math class, but 46 + 20 is less than the 100 new athletes Miller claimed would be added if soccer and track were cut and lacrosse and an offset sport were added.

And proportionality is just one way to meet Title IX compliance. Adding VB or softball would have worked, especially since VB and/or softball probably have more full scholarships than lacrosse.

OSU had 18 players on its most recent VB roster. That's fairly typical.

As Trapper said, UR is not seriously committed to a top-flight athletic program, which is sad. There is no reason we can't be as committed to athletics on the FCS/mid-major level as Michigan is on the P5 level. We certainly have the money and facilities.

 

[SpiderTrap]

And here is the other kicker - cause I used to know someone high up in the VCU Athletics administration and would always ask about football when I got the chance. I would bring up the Title IX argument and how they would need to add the necessary women's sports and he agreed. But he also told me something interesting as well. You don't have to do it right away. You just have to show your making progress. So you can spread out that spending over a few years and he seemed to make the point that you have a couple years to get in full compliance as long as you show progress towards compliance each year. So maybe one year you begin adding the facilities needed (i.e. softball field and locker rooms) - then next year you 1 sport. And do the same next 2 years and you have spread out the compliance over 4-5 years (if adding 2 sports).

 

[urfan1]

3 prong test

itle IX Compliance – Part I: The Three-Prong Test

• Substantial Proportionality or.
• History & Continuing Practice of Program Expansion or.
• Full & Effective Accommodation of Athletic Interests.

Title IX Compliance – Part I: The Three-Prong Test

The NFHS is the national leader and advocate for high school athletics as well as fine and performing arts programs. Within our 51 member state associations, we serve 19,500 high schools and more than 12 million young people.

www.nfhs.org

 

[SFspidur]

And less than 20 on a softball/volleyball roster. I didn't do well in Mrs. Hesch's finite math class, but 46 + 20 is less than the 100 new athletes Miller claimed would be added if soccer and track were cut and lacrosse and an offset sport were added.

And proportionality is just one way to meet Title IX compliance. Adding VB or softball would have worked, especially since VB and/or softball probably have more full scholarships than lacrosse.

OSU had 18 players on its most recent VB roster. That's fairly typical.

As Trapper said, UR is not seriously committed to a top-flight athletic program, which is sad. There is no reason we can't be as committed to athletics on the FCS/mid-major level as Michigan is on the P5 level. We certainly have the money and facilities.

The offset sport(s) would have been instead of current soccer and track, not in addition.

Despite moves over the past 25 years since my sport was cut for Title IX (and even further back), UR still hasn't reached proportionality by either numbers or scholarships as far as I know.

It may not have needed to happen all at once, but especially given previous Title IX threats I think the university would have been reluctant to make things worse, and so would have wanted to at least match participants and scholarships in its offsets. I don't see any way the university would have added only volleyball or softball as a lax offset. It would have had to have been both or something like rowing.

Something in the range of 100 new athletes is not an unreasonable estimate. I don't necessarily see that as a problem though, so the point is kind of moot.

FWIW, women's volleyball and softball have max 12 scholarships each, men's lax is 12.6. Women's rowing is 20.

Completely agree that money is not the issue. It's leadership, vision, and desire. The athletic admin simply doesn't have it, and have to believe the overall university admin hasn't had it either. Remains to be seen if Hallock will bring a new approach, but he's gotten enough time under his belt that it's time to start seeing what his priorities are going to be.

We've been treading water for 10–15 years as other programs in our conference have improved. Remember back when we first joined the A-10 and we were winning the Commissioner's Cup when that was still being awarded? A-10 championships are much rarer these days, not to speak of national relevance.

Take swimming, for example. We were absolutely dominating the A-10 when we first joined, and making some impact on the national level by at least regularly qualifying swimmers for NCAAs. But then it's as if the program was too good in the admin's eyes, and resources were pulled back. UR kept winning A-10s at first, but by smaller margins. Then other schools began investing more in their programs while we did nothing, and they caught up with us. It's a miracle that we're still among the top teams in the A-10, considering the lack of resources and our cost of attendance, but most years we're not raising the trophy anymore.

 

[Wood Hall]

"(M)oney is not the issue. It's leadership, vision, and desire. The athletic admin simply doesn't have it, and have to believe the overall university admin hasn't had it either. Remains to be seen if Hallock will bring a new approach, but he's gotten enough time under his belt that it's time to start seeing what his priorities are going to be."

Exactamundo.

As I said before, no president since Heilman has understood the true value of intercollegiate athletics, especially to a small, private university playing at the mid-major level. Yes, the BOT calls the shots, but an effective and persuasive president can meld the BOT to do as he wishes.

Gonzaga gets it. They have also heavily invested in their baseball, soccer and women's basketball programs, which are regulars in NCAA postseason play.

Our resources dwarf Gonzaga's.

 

[SpiderTrap]

Not to pounce on MLAX, but its been 10 years and while they have been successful in their own conference and making the NCAA tourney, after that- it seems like we as soon we get to the tourney and play the real LAX competition - we lose. I remember one of the reasons given at one of those open discussions on campus when this decision was made was that at the time - there were only about 80 MLAX programs in the country at D1. Therefore - it would be easier to compete for a national title with that small number and our resources. Well - I don't think we are any closer to advancing far in LAX tourney than before. I wonder what LAX insiders on this board think about that and maybe what is holding the program back - 10 years in - from taking that next step to being a team that makes it and advances in the NCAA tourney?

 

[spider fan]

That's harsh...we play one of the toughest schedules in men's lax year in and year out - this year playing Maryland, Virginia, and Georgetown. The Georgetown game was to the wire and last minute goals sealed the win for Georgetown. Last year in NCAA tournament we lost to Penn in a game we came close to winning. May sound like "excuses" but in 10 years' time we have a very competitive program. Finally beat Virginia last year in regular season which was a good milestone. We all want to advance in the NCAA tournament but give Chemotti and team credit for being in the tournament as often as we have in the first 10 years of the program. Advancement in the tournament will come.......has to be some patience with a new program....recruitment is the key and a win or two in the NCAA tourney will push that higher. We have consistently been in the 15 to 25 range of top programs and will incrementally push that rating higher.

 

[Ferrum Spider]

@SFspidur for Athletic Director.

 

[SpiderTrap]

That's harsh...we play one of the toughest schedules in men's lax year in and year out - this year playing Maryland, Virginia, and Georgetown. The Georgetown game was to the wire and last minute goals sealed the win for Georgetown. Last year in NCAA tournament we lost to Penn in a game we came close to winning. May sound like "excuses" but in 10 years' time we have a very competitive program. Finally beat Virginia last year in regular season which was a good milestone. We all want to advance in the NCAA tournament but give Chemotti and team credit for being in the tournament as often as we have in the first 10 years of the program. Advancement in the tournament will come.......has to be some patience with a new program....recruitment is the key and a win or two in the NCAA tourney will push that higher. We have consistently been in the 15 to 25 range of top programs and will incrementally push that rating higher.

I am not trying to be harsh - just curious if MLAX fans, alumni, etc feel that the school is not doing something or enough to push them over the "hump" that we can't get over. Maybe 10 years is too short a time, but when, your starting out with only about 70 programs to begin with - I would think the scale up is quicker than say a basketball program - where you competing with over 300. So being in the 15-20 range is like being in the 90-100 range in men's basketball - something we usually are in most years - but it never really gets us anywhere. Are facilties not enough, recruiting, admissions, etc not enough to compete with those top 10 teams on a consistent basis?

 

[KE Spider]

But this is just one of the many decisions that showed - UR is not serious about athletics. We pretend to be serious. We do enough to make it look like we care and are trying, and it just shows - we just want to compete and be middle of the pack - nothing more. We don't want dumb athletes taking over the campus.

Nails it!!!

Faulty assumption, that you can't be smart and athletic. Davidson handles this so much more intelligently than UR. Stanford too. UVA too. Etc., etc., etc.

UR is small minded when it comes to sports. No vision in this regard.

 

[SpiderTrap]

I guess an interesting question that maybe someone can care to look up. Since we entered the A10 - has our academic ranking and reputation increased or decreased or gotten better?

 

[GKiller]

I read that as basically admitting - we feel like the student-athletes were too dumb for our school in the first place and adding more would be bad for our reputation. But what the article fails to mention is that the sports they cut - soccer - had a higher team GPA than the average GPA all of students as UR and from my memory was one of, if not the highest GPA sport at UR. Not to mention - both soccer and track operated with very few scholarships to begin with and therefore - majority of the athletes on those teams were pretty close, if not better than the regular student admission standard.

The article doesn't say bc it might not be true. I've mentioned this b4 but I was at an event where I heard Ayers say the exact opposite, that soccer did not outperform the overall student body. But really they should look at career success and giving back to school for sports alums vs non sports alums anyway. Among other things. Regarding Ayers I'll take him for his word on the GPA thing but I don't dismiss he could have been full of crap too bc he was truly an embarrassment at the meeting imo.

This was around time of cuts & there were a couple soccer alums who questioned him on the soccer getting cut. Nothing unreasonable just direct and persistent but respectful. Ayers whined & acted like a petulant child and literally said don't ask me those questions anymore. I guess he expected softballs like most of our admin and coaches.

Just completely flustered was my impression. Then later I introduced myself individually bc my company had recently done some business with U of R and he said it was because of him. It didn't even go up to presidential level but if u say so. Just struck me as a little odd.

I had never met Ayers b4 that, and prior I had heard pretty good things, and I just remember coming away from that thinking wtf was I missing he's out of his league.

I do agree this is not a $$ thing but a vision thing. Honestly I've also always felt the campus could handle a little more enrollment if u r that worried about the slots, which u shouldn't be worried about anyway.

 

[spider fan]

I am not trying to be harsh - just curious if MLAX fans, alumni, etc feel that the school is not doing something or enough to push them over the "hump" that we can't get over. Maybe 10 years is too short a time, but when, your starting out with only about 70 programs to begin with - I would think the scale up is quicker than say a basketball program - where you competing with over 300. So being in the 15-20 range is like being in the 90-100 range in men's basketball - something we usually are in most years - but it never really gets us anywhere. Are facilties not enough, recruiting, admissions, etc not enough to compete with those top 10 teams on a consistent basis?

Understand. Think we need to give it some time. Was previously a big UVA men's lacrosse fan because I really like the sport after my son played it on high school level and of course Spiders did not then have a team. Am a big fan of Dom Starsia for many reasons including his coaching ability and lacrosse insights. Glad he is now part of our inhouse broadcasting men's lacrosse team. On the list of national champs
https://www.ncaa.com/history/lacrosse-men/d1

the "blue bloods" of college lacrosse win the title most of the time. Denver and Loyola are the most recent "newbies" to the list. The teams that are consistenly at the top generally have a long history of lacrosse success. At Virginia the recruits have often come from some of the schools who had former players who did well at Virginia. Think it is tougher to "crack" the top 10 even though the pool is smaller than your analogy suggests. It is very impressive we have done as well as we have and think Chemotti is a terrific coach. One thing we have not had enough of is the physically big gifted lacrosse player. Have seen it particularly with Duke and Virginia that their margin of victory has come by outmuscling us. To use the basketball analogy of you can't teach height it would be you can't teach having a large frame.. Yes it would be great to be consistently in the top 10 and hope we get there. The A-10 is a stronger conference than the Southern was for us and we continue to schedule top programs as feasible. Don't think we are lacking anything other than NCAA tournament wins.

 

[Wood Hall]

I guess an interesting question that maybe someone can care to look up. Since we entered the A10 - has our academic ranking and reputation increased or decreased or gotten better?

Our academic rankings have never been better.

 

[32counter]

Understand. Think we need to give it some time. Was previously a big UVA men's lacrosse fan because I really like the sport after my son played it on high school level and of course Spiders did not then have a team. Am a big fan of Dom Starsia for many reasons including his coaching ability and lacrosse insights. Glad he is now part of our inhouse broadcasting men's lacrosse team. On the list of national champs
https://www.ncaa.com/history/lacrosse-men/d1

the "blue bloods" of college lacrosse win the title most of the time. Denver and Loyola are the most recent "newbies" to the list. The teams that are consistenly at the top generally have a long history of lacrosse success. At Virginia the recruits have often come from some of the schools who had former players who did well at Virginia. Think it is tougher to "crack" the top 10 even thought the pool is smaller than your analogy suggests. It is very impressive we have done as well as we have and think Chemotti is a terrific coach. One thing we have not had enough of is the physically big gifted lacrosse player. Have seen it particularly with Duke and Virginia that their margin of victory has come by outmuscling us. To use the basketball analogy of you can't teach height it would be you can't teach having a large frame.. Yes it would be great to be consistently in the top 10 and hope we get there. The A-10 is a stronger conference than the Southern was for us and we continue to schedule top programs as feasible. Don't think we are lacking anything other than NCAA tournament wins.

All the A10 LAX teams lost to the bluebloods this season.No wins.Until that changes the A10 LAX will be viewed as a very competitive mid-major conference which will prevent it from having even the remote possibility of multiple bids while continuing to relegate its AQ to the play-in bubble.

 

[spider fan]

All the A10 LAX teams lost to the bluebloods this season.No wins.Until that changes the A10 LAX will be viewed as a very competitive mid-major conference which will prevent it from having even the remote possibility of multiple bids while continuing to relegate it to the play-in bubble.

Agree that is precisely where we stand in the men's lacrosse world.

 

[SpiderTrap]

Agree that is precisely where we stand in the men's lacrosse world.

That is where we stand - and is there any chance we get out of that, or is that the presumed - best we can do? And I am not thinking we become a perennial powerhouse. But maybe similar to football. We are generally good in most years, fighting for a playoff spot. Some years we will adavance, others we will not. And there might be a year - where maybe the stars align, maybe we get the right transfers, and right experience - and we make a deep run to the final four or something.

Or is it simply - make it to the NCAA and thats as good as we can do?

 

[spider fan]

Should be able to have some NCAA wins and improve our standing in the lacrosse world. That is cyrptic but anything else is speculation. Where we are now is good progress in a relatively short time. As mentoned before the blue blood lacrosse programs have a pedigree that has taken time to develop.

 

[SFspidur]

One of the hurdles to getting into that upper echelon is even getting invited to NCAAs in the first place. There are only 18 spots, and half are auto bids, so you're fighting for one of only 10 spots (A-10 auto and 9 at-large).

And it doesn't help that one of the elite conferences (the ACC, which currently has top three spots in the RPI) doesn't even have an auto, so they're soaking up a bunch of the at-large slots.

And if you're fighting for an at-large, you need a monster SOS, which is very hard to do if you're not in one of the big dog conferences where you get excellent conference games...ACC, Big 10, BE, and Ivy. All of the at-larges will almost certainly come from those four conferences, as Utah at #15 RPI is the highest rated team from outside that group and they'll presumably be lower than that if they don't get the ASUN auto.

We do our best scheduling some of those really good teams OOC, but UVA, MD, and G'town were our only three opportunities for high-quality wins. Even the disappointing G'town game wouldn't have been enough to get in the at-large discussion if we'd won that one. Those big dog conferences get three or four of those opportunities just in conference play, plus whatever they add in OOC.

It's why I have really mixed feelings about A-10 lax. It's now harder to get the auto, but not any easier (as in nearly impossible) to get an at-large. Maybe if we'd taken two out of three against our OOC big dogs, but that's a tall order and even then I'm not sure.

But I also get that we didn't have other good options with the end of the SoCon...ASUN is a huge conference that's all over the place, CAA is a NE-centered conference other than terrible Hampton, and everything else is NE-focused as well.

The dream is an ACC affiliate invite that would give them six teams and an auto bid, but they don't need one, so they don't need us.

 

[32counter]

It’s pretty simple for those that played the sport.

Beat the bluebloods and other Top 20 teams and get recognized.Each A10 team struck out on all accounts in 2023.Until that changes there will be no change in the general perception that the A10 is a mid majorLAX conference.

UR may need to adapt its schedule slightly downward in degrees of difficulty..We lost to 3 Top 10 teams-2 very convincingly.
Try to schedule UVA and 2 other teams in the Top 15-25,if that’s even doable.


Joes
———

Hopkins 14-15
Penn 12-13 OT
Duke 9-12

UR
——-

Terps 4-15
Cavs 8-25
Hoyas 12-13


UMass
———-

Yale 9-18
Rutgers 5-11
BU 6-12

HPU
———

Duke 8-20
JAX 15-17
Hoyas 10-22
Tar Heels 9-16

Hobart
————

Cornell 8-17
Cuse 7-18


Bonnies
———-

Marquette 5-9

 

[spider fan]

If we could become an unstoppable juggernaut and beat at least two of the three top tier teams we have managed to schedule and win two or three games in the NCAA tournament each year we would move up in reputation. That is a very tall order. The years we beat either Duke, North Carolina, or Virginia the "buzz" around our program increased. We knocked off Duke the year after they were National Champs and did the same thing to Virginia last year.......those wins got us noticed but as pointed out by both 32counter and SF the setup in men's lacrosse favors the "big dogs"..................

 

[whampas]

If we could become an unstoppable juggernaut and beat at least two of the three top tier teams we have managed to schedule and win two or three games in the NCAA tournament each year we would move up in reputation. That is a very tall order. The years we beat either Duke, North Carolina, or Virginia the "buzz" around our program increased. We knocked off Duke the year after they were National Champs and did the same thing to Virginia last year.......those wins got us noticed but as pointed out by both 32counter and SF the setup in men's lacrosse favors the "big dogs"..................

Puppy needs to keep eating and grow into a big dog. Gotta find FO and Goalie excellence.

 

[SpiderTrap]

I guess the bigger question, which is a good reason why Lacrosse was added - have we seen a significant increase in donations to athletics through lacrosse? I know one of the orginal arguments (among many) of adding lacrosse is that they generally give more in terms of donations - mainly because the stereotypical lacrosse players comes from a private school background, ends up in some field of business or finance, makes a good salary and stays connected with their schools. I wonder after 10 years - how that donation trail has paid off? I assume it has - just wondering if anyone has information on how much they are giving?

 

[Section 204and5]

This doesn't fully answer your question, but look at the numbers by team for UR Giving Day. MLAX was the number one sport with $171K raised. Next highest was MBB at $168K.