Women UConn WLAX In NCAA Tournament

[navery12]

 

[huskymedic]

 

[gioff2323]

Fantastic for them!

It’s truly incredulous we don’t support MLax.

 

[CL82]

Fantastic for them!

It’s truly incredulous we don’t support MLax.

It would create a title IX issue for us.

 

[dbmill]

It would create a title IX issue for us.

That plus UConn Athletics does not have the money to properly fund a men's lacrosse team. UConn would need a big donor to step in and basically fund that new team, I recall being at a UConn lunch where this topic came up many years ago.

 

[gioff2323]

It would create a title IX issue for us.

That’s a math problem, and not a difficult one.

I understand funding challenges UConn faces, but when one thinks of sports that kids learn to play in ct at an early age, lax is near the top. We are a feeder state to top programs across the country.

 

[CL82]

That’s a math problem, and not a difficult one.

I understand funding challenges UConn faces, but when one thinks of sports that kids learn to play in ct at an early age, lax is near the top. We are a feeder state to top programs across the country.

It’s a little trickier than you think since we already have a woman’s lax team so they cannot just add it, but I agree generally. The problem, as you note above, is not figuring out the total number of added scholarships, it is paying for them. I think out of state tuition room and board totals something in excess of $55,000 per student. That’s about $1.4 million per year before any coaches are hired, any equipment is bought, and any travel is paid for. (Lax has 12.6 scholarships available to it despite the fact the roster is over forty kids.)

 

[primus74]

It's also a Title IX issue. It's very difficult to offer FBS football along with men's ice hockey and men's lacrosse. Women's lacrosse is a good sport to offset some of the FBS football scholarships. Off the top of my head, very few schools offer all 3 - I think it's pretty much Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State, and Michigan. Those are probably 4 of the top 10 athletic departments in the country. UConn just doesn't bring in the revenue that those schools do. And, Penn State added hockey with a massive donation from the owner of the Buffalo Bills and Sabres. UConn doesn't have donors like that.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

It does get a little complicated. Title IX measurements are scholarship dollars, institutional support and participation.

Adding the (I believe it is) 12 scholarships to women's sports to match the added lacrosse scholarships is possible (if funding can be found). The institutional support is also something that with reasonable effort can be matched across gender lines. As the men's lacrosse team would quickly have 35-40 players in total (with non scholarship and partial scholarship players) expanding participation in women's sports by ~35 non scholarship athletes would be a difficult task.

I've spoken to our three most recent AD's about this at different times over the past nearly two decades. Hathaway didn't want to be bothered. Warde wanted to do something but saw the hockey upgrade as a larger priority. Additionally, as we already had non scholarship men's ice hockey, the upgrade was less drastic as adding scholarship dollars (while in itself a bit of an issue) was the only obstacle.

Benedict loved the idea but found out early how big of a financial hole we needed to climb out of (if anything we are deeper today) and hasn't been able to consider it.this is absolutely a case where we would need major donations to not only fund the men's team (including coaches and recruiting, beyond scholarships) but also women's matching scholarships and recruiting dollars to find a sufficient number of non scholarship or partial scholarship female athletes to participate in various sports for a
Title IX compliance.

 

[Steve UConn72]

Fantastic for them!

It’s truly incredulous we don’t support MLax.

UConn dropped Men's Lacrosse when I was an undergrad (1968-72). I believe it was either 1971 or 1972, and I think it was because of Title IX.

 

[huskymedic]

 

[huskymedic]

 

[huskymedic]