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Jacksonville and Gainesville, Florida – Well, Florida, you wanted college lacrosse. And now you have it! Recently released schedules have come out from both Florida and Jacksonville leaving both programs for little room to breath in the opening season of their programs. Both programs (UF – womens, JU men and women) are starting with uphill battles against established programs. While either program could have settled for a full schedule of lesser known opponents who were all “newer”, each has decided to dive in with the big dogs and start swimming. In the long run, this will help both school’s programs succeed. In the short-term, it will be a series of lessons on how to play top-level Division I lacrosse.
“If you don’t play the big dogs, you can’t recruit the big dogs,” commented JU men’s lacrosse coach, and former Team USA assistant Matt Kerwick, whose team plays North Carolina, Yale, Rutgers and Hofstra in their rookie season. “We open with a team that is a perennial powerhouse because we aim to be there. It won’t be overnight, but it will be a lot sooner than if we did not face the giants early. And our guys are pretty pumped up about it. We want to become a top-notch lacrosse program.”
More than 50 young men will vie for a coveted spot on JU's opening day roster in 2010. The talented group will be tested, but as time goes by Coach Kerwick and his staff will shape the young Fins into a lacrosse power.
JU’s men’s program has had their schedule posted for about a month now. CLICK HERE!
Tick-Tock! The clock is ticking down to the first Division I game ever played by a Florida program. Facing top programs in year one is a part of every Florida lacrosse team in 2010.
Have these programs bitten off more than they can chew for year #1? Well, that all depends on what your expectations are for the first year of lacrosse at the Division I level and what level of recruit you are looking to bring in for the future. Director of lacrosse and head women’s coach at JU, Mindy McCord, shares the aggressive belief as her men’s counterpart.
“We want to be challenged and play a schedule that reflects where we want to be in a couple of years. We have a very athletic group coming in and playing programs that are established and compete at the highest level is going to help us get there. We play our conference opponents and a number of programs who are coming to Florida for their spring break’s. It is a tremendous asset being located at the beach in Florida. Lots of teams want to come here to play. In the future, with teams will be able to come to Florida and play two quality Division I opponents in Florida and Jacksonville. That builds both of our programs very nicely.” McCord said prior to her team’s welcoming ceremony at Jacksonville University.
33 student-athletes arrived at JU with hopes of competing for the Dolphins lacrosse program in Year #1, including 23 freshman. The young Fins come from seven states.
Florida’s Women’s Schedule
2/20 Jacksonville
2/23 LaSalle
2/28 North Carolina
3/4 St. Bonaventure
3/9 Georgetown
3/13 Johns Hopkins
3/20 New Hampshire
3/24 Cornell
3/27 Ohio State
3/30 Oregon
4/3 Penn State
4/9 LeMoyne
4/11 Colgate
4/18 Vanderbilt
5/2 Northwestern
5/6-8 American Lacrosse Conference Tournament (Ohio)
Eight games are at home in the new UF lacrosse facility in Gainesville. Seven away trips plus the conference tournament for UF in their first campaign.
Jacksonville’s Women’s Schedule
2/6 UMBC
2/13 Oregon
2/20 Florida
2/27 Detroit (at Presbyterian)
3/2 Boston College
3/6 St. Bonaventure
3/10 Vermont
3/12 Temple
3/16 Long Island University
3/27 Howard
4/10 Davidson
4/11 Longwood (at Davidson)
4/15 Liberty (TBA)
4/17 Louisville
4/18 Cincinnati
4/24 Presbyterian
5/1-3 National Lacrosse Conference Tournament (Virginia)
Nine home games for JU and one game in Gainesville. JU will only have to leave the state of Florida three times in their first season plus the conference tournament.
Players for all the programs are looking forward to playing tough schedules in year #1. The impact these games could have on local lacrosse is huge. It’s like having a professional lacrosse team stationed on the First Coast! Tons of games to see and lots of role models to follow. And the level of competition will really open the eyes for area girls and boys to how the game looks like when it is played at the major college level!
I am prepared for all the bumps in the road! I can’t wait to see all these great teams come to the area. It can’t help but grow the game.
But what I love most are the stories of the college coaches interacting with the local high school and youth programs. Mandy O’Leary and her husband Kevin have been helping lacrosse groups in Gainesville to learn more about the game. Mindy McCord and Matt Kerwick have been out working in the community over the past 12 months. The difference that northeast and northcentral Florida will feel as a result of these coaches, and now THEIR TEAMS, will be incredible…but wait for five years to pass and then revisit the topic. These programs will become staples of southern lacrosse and as southern collegiate lacrosse grows beyond the point of no return, the high school game, where the first major growth was experienced, will become greater; The youth levels will explode, and the population as a whole will ignite!
Can you imagine when there are almost as many college programs in the south as in the midatlantic? That day is coming sooner than later.
And the DI season, and schedule, are still six months away! Hurry!
St. Augustine Beach, Florida -
The time has never been more right to start a collegiate lacrosse program in the South. It does not cost a dime of actual cash to start a program relative to the capital that will flow back into your school. If you are a business person, come along with me. If you are a bureaucrat/been in an institution your entire life – STOP HERE!
Creating a lacrosse program requires business savvy and vision, but not a lot of ‘up front cash’. Cash that is in short supply due to the recession. But as you will see, while large gifts to colleges and universities are down, one of the best hedges against the tight squeeze of our current lean fiscal time, is creating cost-effective, revenue positive programing that attracts students and draws attention to your institution while creating a more fun campus environment. Ever been to a lacrosse game? There is a reason why the sport is the fastest growing overall!
Get More Out of Your Soccer and/or Football Facilities: Lacrosse Leverages What you ALREADY HAVE on campus:
Colleges already spent a couple million bucks on soccer and/or football facilities. Lacrosse insures that you get the most investment back for your facility dollar. Your infrastructure for lacrosse is the same as soccer, and the sports share facilities quite well because they are opposing seasons (Fall and Spring). If at present, a college is utilizing a facility for just one of the two seasons for a varsity-traditional seasoned sport, they are actually wasting resources for half of the year.
Facilities Schedule:
Fall – Men’s and Women’s Soccer = Practice and Play at standard times at facility
– Men’s and Women’s Lacrosse = Practice at early or late times at facility, or when soccer teams are not practicing/on the road.
Spring – Men’s and Women’s Lacrosse = Practice and Play at standard times at facility
– Men’s and Women’s Soccer = Practice at early or late times at facility, or when soccer teams are not practicing/on the road.
It does not get much simpler than that. Plus, keep in mind that instead of only roughly 40 athletes utilizing the facility in a given year, the College has more than doubled the use of the facility and therefore spread the cost of the facility between more students. It is now actually worth you while to invest in a turf field that can be used at all hours of the day by varsity and intra-mural students to boot. If you choose to go in that direction. Best is, you probably could find a donar interested in putting it in and with construction and labor costs as they are in the recession, you get more bang for your buck!
This is not to say that a college’s current facility won’t do just fine.
Let’s say I want to start a program at private school ‘X’ in Florida. ‘X’ University has a soccer program and several other programs, but no lacrosse programs. They have a soccer stadium with grass and a practice area. They have lights on both the game and the practice area. There is an existing area for showers and there are locker rooms for other sports.
You will need to purchase some equipment. A few goals, balls, and netting, all of which is easily spent when you consider the income that arrives with the initial wave of recruits. There is some equipment that will need to be purchased, but nothing that would prevent a program from getting started, especially on the women’s side.
The infrastructure is already there. A college may need to add locker rooms over time. The school will also need to find two offices for the coaches of the programs, or rent portable space, which is going for cheaper and cheaper rates during the recession. That cost is easily absorbed by the 70 new students who will attend your institution to participate in lacrosse. You may want to invest in a sport-turf field, one that does not require maintenance and keeps it perfect shape for 10-years for both lacrosse and soccer AND your intramural programs.
Scholarships? Sure. You can Have Them, or Not:
So what are colleges really spending the money on? Scholarships perhaps? Provide a few scholarships for lacrosse?
Most programs are not fully-funded in terms of scholarships. They mix their academic, athletic and financial aid and utilize what money they have for sports scholarships to sweeten the pot for prospective recruits. Some schools have little or no scholarships. D3 programs do not worry about the costs of athletic scholarships because they do not have any. Rollins College (D2, Central Florida) built a program to fruition without any scholarships all the while competing against schools that had scholarships. Rollins was also without an on-campus practice facility or stadium to play or practice in. AND Rollins costs nearly as much as Princeton to attend and has stringent admissions policies. Yet Rollins College had a very strong D2 women’s program last year.
Colleges need to thing. If it can work at Rollins, with no scholarships, barely a facility, and a tremendous cost of education, it can work anywhere in the south. Rollins must thank their lucky stars for their lax coaches who have been school admissions staff and head coaches. You have to be to have the success that they have had in such adverse conditions. But they have done it.
Fact is, Rollins will hit their enrollment figures this year by just enough. Like most private schools, they are squeaking by. Thanks to the lacrosse program’s 56 (fifty-six!) student-athletes and growing. Those 56 students make up about 5% of the school’s enrollment. Think of the school cutbacks if they had not started lacrosse programs!
Private Schools Need Students: Lacrosse Teams Bring Them:
Mention ‘cut backs’ and you get the attention of the ‘institutional’ employees who normally walk the campus insulated from the rest of the world’s economic issues. In today’s economy, employees hear the word “Cutbacks” and everyone gets the message. Especially if they are not generating revenue.
But why, after seeing this case study at Rollins, would any school in the south budge at adding lacrosse. They should be lining up in droves to get their lax program off the ground before the next school does! CUTBACKS!!!
Adding men’s and women’s lacrosse is like adding a football program without the expense. Football teams tend to bring in about 60-100 student-athletes over a 4-year span, but they also require tremendous amounts of cash for equipment, staffing and facilities. Plus, many lacrosse manufacturers are looking for high profile programs starting up to help brand their name to kids in the south region. They may deal with you and provide discounts to lower college start-up expenses.
Private vs. Public – Why Lacrosse Helps Students to Choose:
Many of the new lacrosse students will be out of region, expanding the popularity base of the school. Perhaps school ‘X’ will enhance and utilize already existing inroads. More students will come to school ‘X’ simply because they end up hearing about the school from their friends who are being recruited for lacrosse. Prevailing attitudes in the south view private education as ‘expensive’ when compared to large public universities. School ‘X’ is actually about 25-50% less expensive than comparable private colleges in the northeast, making it a better value for northern kids to choose School ‘X’.
And attitudes begin to change when southern students are given more reasons to choose ‘X’ over, well, ‘Y’ and ‘Z’ for lack of better terms. Private colleges appeal to all demographics, but the upper-middle class dem makes the world go ’round. These are students most likely from families that were privately educated and understand the process. They are not blinded or influenced by “tomahawk chops” and “Go Gators!” cheer and TV commercials. These parents could care less about who Tim Tebow is. They would push their kids to make educational decisions based on the quality of relationships their children have with their professors, not the quality of relationships they have at the pre-game tailgate party.
This is the place that every private college wants to be. Adding students and attracting new students vs. cutting back on programs because the tuition-driven dollars just are not there. Remember the Rollins example. Every college these days is waiting until Fall enrollments to see if they have reached their numbers for the year’s budget. The ones with lacrosse programs can breath a little easier these days.
Jacksonville University is another good case to look at. A school that is dependent upon tuition dollars, like 95% of other private colleges, to fund their operating budget. In just one recruiting cycle, the school has brought in 24 women and 40 men who would like to start the lacrosse program. These numbers will eventually be full rosters of 30 women and 45 men, similar to DI programs in the northeast. But in tough economic times, JU will reach their budgetary enrollment figures and then some. 64 new students compose about 10% of the school’s freshman class for the 2009-10 year.
Add to that the camp and lacrosse activity’s revenues that have come to campus, and JU has really created a hedge against the recession. More than 100 incoming freshman who have been touched in some way through the lacrosse programs recent start-up, the publicity, and the ‘parade of friends’ that often builds campus enrollment numbers (“I am going to this school because my friends are going…”). JU has practice fields, game fields, and other on-campus facilities, but they had to build locker rooms. They are in the process of putting in a turf field and adding lights to a second field as well. They can. They have the students to justify the growth!
How Do We Get Started?
Just add water (or lacrosse) and you have your programs. Well, it is not really that simple. But call some people. Call the folks at JU. Call Rollins. Talk to them about how they started their programs. It has been done before and it will be done again.
You can call me – I am happy to consult your project. Hiring a coach/recruiter who has experience in creating something out of nothing is a huge help. You have to understand economics and be willing to run with a goal oriented model to start a program. Find someone who is not ‘right out of college’. It is very difficult to find someone like that who will not need their hand held, or be ‘trained’ in how to do it. Far too often, new programs hire kids right out of school to coach their kids in school. This is not the YMCA. This is the NCAA. The paper work alone will boggle the mind of the recent college graduates.
Take a look at what the other southern programs have done to get started. Note that none of them (0) have pulled the plug on their programs. Some have greater advantages and disadvantages based on geography, facilities, or school academic reputation, but all have programs.
Here is a list of private schools in the southeast who do (30 private colleges and universities with programs. BOLD – Programs with 2-years or less of experience):
DI: Davidson, Jacksonville, Mercer, Presbyterian, Vanderbilt
DII: Belmont-Abbey, Converse, Erskine, Lees-McRae, Lenoir-Rhyne, Limestone, Pfeiffer, Queens, Rollins, Savannah College of Art and Design, St. Andrews, Tennessee Wesleyan, Mars Hill (M), Saint Leo (M), Wingate (M), Catawba (M), Florida Southern (M)
DIII: Agnes Scott, Berry, Birmingham-Southern, Guilford, Greensboro, LaGrange, Methodist, Sewanee, Shorter
New Programs Added over the past 12 Months (there are SEVEN schools):
Click on each school to read more about their founding lax programs and why
Jacksonville University
Lenoir-Rhyne
Mercer College
LaGrange College
Agnes Scott College
Berry College
Shorter College
If you are a University president or athletic director reading this article and you would like to start a program, please contact my company, MCC Sports. We will be happy to consult with your school and help get you on the right track towards building a successful program. While most schools create panels and committees, they often lack the real world experience to make the plan happen. We have been through program building many times and can eliminate steps while improving quality. Email me at Paul.McCord@mccsportsinc.com for more information!
And Mindy McCord is the new Coach!
Check out the releases
http://judolphins.cstv.com/sports/juaa/spec-rel/042408aaf.html
http://judolphins.cstv.com/sports/juaa/spec-rel/042408aag.html
Photo Gallery! http://judolphins.cstv.com/sports/juaa/spec-rel/042408aai.html#
and of course, the official JU Lax site: http://julacrosse.com
