(02-25-2016 10:36 PM)TribeInTheBurg Wrote: I want to reiterate that I am not anti-lacrosse, but just playing Devil's advocate here. I don't understand where the national recognition comes from outside of the lacrosse world. While some NCAA tournament games might get broadcast, there's no mention of them in any of the SportsCenter type shows or by any major sporting news outlet. How is it significantly different than men's soccer/tennis/golf/(anything not basketball or football)?
This is a really good question, and I think Zablenoise did a nice job addressing it.
Lacrosse is still definitely a niche sport. But it is William and Mary's niche. Lacrosse has huge cache among the strong public high schools and the private schools that for the most part produce the students that are our target market. Much more so than tennis, golf, gymnastics, or baseball. Reveley himself said it to me and (our former head lacrosse coach) Al Albert in NYC at the alumni auction last year - "if anyone should have mens lacrosse, it is William and Mary, and I'd love to know what the leadership was thinking in cancelling the program in 1984."
Offering a strong mens lacrosse program gives kids from the schools we target one more reason to come to W&M or to feel that W&M is "their kind of place." This is exactly why Richmond chose to offer lacrosse. Because it was losing kids it wanted to attract to the Ivies, to the Patriot League, to Georgetown - and it wanted to give those kids one more reason to feel comfortable at Richmond. Soccer and baseball were not doing anything on that front. We have an Ivy-caliber name, Ivy-caliber academics, and better weather at a lower price. If we can do one more thing to make those type of students feel comfortable on campus, and give them one more reason to feel good about where they are applying, that this is a fun place in addition to having Harvard-quality academics, it is worth the investment.
More importantly, lacrosse is booming in high-quality high schools in California, Texas, Florida, Colorado, Minnesota, and Indiana. These are markets where traditionally the students from the elite high schools (the ones which have strong lacrosse teams) have gone to the state school, or to an elite private school (USC, Notre Dame, SMU, etc). Now many of their best lacrosse players are choosing to go to a NESCAC or Patriot League school, and their classmates are certainly more familiar with Colgate, Tufts, etc as a result. Why shouldn't we get that same benefit?
Having a strong lacrosse program, and recruiting kids from these areas (which we would do) puts us on the radar as a cool place to go. Not just a great academic school, but a place their friends go to play a great sport. That gets W&M on their radar. You think baseball can say the same thing? Or golf? Or gymnastics?
Go up to Virginia next Friday night with Syracuse coming to town. You'll see hundreds if not thousands of students at Klockner. Many of these students were fans of lacrosse in high school. They go despite the fact UVA stinks this year, and has since 2011. They go because its fun, fast paced, exciting, and the kids play with passion. Now we won't be UVA, but Richmond and High Point are getting great turn out after just 3 years.
Also, ESPNU and ESPN3 carry about 100 games each spring. The sport's base is growing. It has great television appeal when properly broadcast - much more so than college soccer. That is also far more exposure than tennis, golf, swimming or gymnastics will ever receive.
As for basketball / football. We can invest millions more into basketball but because of our conference, because of our lack of rivals among the top 25, because of our academic requirements, we would NEVER be a consistent top 25 team. And the kids we would attract by becoming a "mid major power" - most of them are basketball junkies or players who would not be able to qualify to get into school here. ODU was for years a great basketball program - it never consistently cracked the top 25, and it did not significantly increase their admissions yield or the quality of their applicants.
Duke broke through in basketball and it helped their admissions because it had a pre-existing foundation for greatness (conference, television networks, rivalries) to which it added a great coach. Duke also sold its soul by admitting kids in basketball who we could never take. We have a great coach but none of the other building blocks. So, we would get nowhere NEAR the same return on investment. As good as Harvard got in basketball a few years ago, people were still far more excited on campus about their hockey and lacrosse success. And however good we get, we are limited by our rivals. Duke will never play us home and home in mens basketball. Neither would UVA. Instead we get Delaware and Drexel. Year one in mens lacrosse Richmond hosted UVA in their first game. We would get home and homes with the best programs in the country. And now, this is true with soccer as well - we will never be a top-25 perennial power in soccer. There's just too much competition, and we have too many built-in disadvantages.
The same is true for football. I love our football team. Just like I love our basketball team. But FCS football doesn't draw kids to come to school. Kids from our target market like lacrosse. Its extremely popular on these high school campuses with the type of students we seek. If we invested the money we'd spend on lacrosse in football, we might get a little better. We might beat Richmond. Would that attract any students? We aren't Penn State - average joe high school kids in Virginia don't watch W&M on Comcast SportsNet and get fired up by the Grffin and say "Man I want that game day experience!" Our television football broadcasts are generally watched by alums, football fans and our potential recruits, sure - but how many other high school students who can get into W&M watch them?
But get us on a regional stage in the elite 8 of the NCAA lacrosse tournament, where we would play on TV and in person in front of thousands of families that have kids qualified to go to W&M? Now that is a good investment. And perhaps most importantly of all, if we stack our out-of-conference schedule with the big boys and our academic peers (2 of the following: Maryland, Duke, UNC, Virginia and Hopkins, along with at least 2 patriot league programs and 2 ivy league programs) it gets us mentioned, on TV and through word-of-mouth, in the same paragraph as the schools that currently capture many of our highest-qualified applicants. It can only help our academic reputation. And it will NEVER raise questions about our admissions standards.