Why No UConn Lacrosse ? (Merged: or wrestling)

[Scoe]

It was a joke...I think.

No it’s a thought maybe far fatched but not out of the realm of possibility should we go to the big 12.

 

[Scoe]

And Danbury high is a major pipeline to a major top 5 program at Nc state.

Yep if UConn ever had a wrestling program back up running New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland as well would be huge pipeline states. The major pipeline New England schools would be Danbury of course, Xavier, Mt Anthony’s (VT) and Timberlane (NH).

 

[Scoe]

A couple reasons, title IX plays a major role as well.

1 - wrestling is nowhere near as important a sport in the northeast as it is in the rust belt (kind of important) or the plains states (exceptionally important). We have nowhere near the talent pool to draw from that we would need to be successful.

2 - there aren't enough schools in the general vicinity willing to field a D-1 program (we would have to participate at this level) to form a conference. Our schedule would be entirely non-conference matches, likely all requiring a good amount of travel.

When Central was a D-2 school their wrestling program was pretty solid (relative to other northeast D-2 schools) and they had quite a following on a section of NY state northwest of Albany (part of the rust belt) where they recruited pretty heavily from. The move to D-1 made it difficult to maintain the program, which sadly made it an easy choice to be a title IX cut.

How is Penn State so dominant in wrestling do we consider western PA the Midwest or does Cael Sanderson recruit in the Midwest.

 

[UConnJim]

Just returned from New Hampshire last week. Went to grandson’s lacrosse tournament. Must have been 1000 kids there. It was 14/under. Much more participation than the other twin’s baseball.

My son played both youth lacrosse and youth baseball until he couldn't play both at the same time. It seemed there are way more baseball tournaments than lacrosse tournaments. In my experience, there are few very large baseball tournaments in New Hampshire, but there are very large tournaments in the northeast. Heck in Cooperstown, NY, they have probably 2500 12 year olds playing baseball each week for 15 weeks at Cooperstown Dreams Park and Cooperstown All Star Village. And, baseball has highly developed youth baseball tournaments run by Little League and Cal Ripken that lacrosse doesn't have. (Remember when Trumbull won the LL World Series?). In my experience in New England, it seems some towns are baseball towns and some towns are lacrosse towns. In Connecticut, a lacrosse hot bed, there are 98 boys HS teams, but there are 178 boys baseball teams.

All that said, I think UConn should have a men's lacrosse team, but I understand the financial reasons why they don"t.

 

[CL82]

Why no UConn wrestling team?
Don't know. That's an issue for the A.D. to grapple with.

 

[Fishy]

From the Lacrosse thread, I think we would just need a second person to write a $20M check.

 

[ColchVEGAS]

The UConn club wrestling team is very good and has been very successful over the past few years.

 

[dbmill]

From 2018 - All it takes is a sugar daddy/mommy to write the check:

The subject of this thread has been discussed before on the Boneyard. I recall 10-20 years ago being at a reception where members of the UConn athletic department were present when this subject came up from someone in the audience. The athletic director at the time (don't remember who it was, and the reception might have been at a women's basketball final four) had the same response that David Benedict had in the above post, that if UConn got a huge donation (somewhere in the 10 to 20 million dollar range specifically for men's lacrosse), they would be happy to add men's lacrosse to UConn athletics. Well, some things never change, as this question keeps coming up, and the answer from the UConn athletic department is the same.

 

[UCTitleTown]

CT produces tremendous lacrosse talent and sends players to strong programs around the country. We could build a strong program quickly. I'm not into lacrosse, but support all UConn sports.

 

[uconnfan68]

The number 1 boys and girls recruits are both in CT. It’s really a joke that we don’t have a team for them.

They wouldn’t go to UConn anyway.

 

[Huskyforlife]

They wouldn’t go to UConn anyway.

Not with that attitude.

 

[navery12]

The number 1 boys and girls recruits are both in CT. It’s really a joke that we don’t have a team for them.

We have a women's lacrosse team, and they're consistently ranked and very good

 

[Huskyforlife]

We have a women's lacrosse team, and they're consistently ranked and very good

Yeah nobody bothered to mention that until a few posts ago. I’m not surprised and think it’s more evidence we should have a men’s team.

 

[navery12]

Yeah nobody bothered to mention that until a few posts ago. I’m not surprised and think it’s more evidence we should have a men’s team.

I think the money issue is pretty easy to resolve, and might get fixed on its own with some of the rumors. Not sure how to fix the scholarship issue though, since you'd have to add another 13 scholarships/sport on the women's side

 

[huskymedic]

Yeah nobody bothered to mention that until a few posts ago. I’m not surprised and think it’s more evidence we should have a men’s team.

It was noted in post #11 above:

-> “It comes down to this,” Brameier said, “money and managing Title IX numbers.”

Truth. That’s why lacrosse is a club sport for men at UConn and the women are Division I.

“If you add a men’s sport, you have to have something to offset that,” Benedict said. “A lot of these men’s lacrosse teams have 40 athletes (average D-I roster: 44). That’s a big number. What would be the complementary sport to add for women? Or do you reduce a men’s sport? You’re not canceling soccer or baseball at our place.”<-

 

[John]

You forgot to add for any kid whose parent drives a Range Rover and Tesla. I live in Fairfield County and the top Lacrosse athletes also star in soccer and football in the fall. Those same kids can’t scratch the surface in D1 for soccer and football, yet get recruited by Virginia and Duke for lacrosse. That says it all.

College soccer is dominated by internationals, US kids have an uphill climb.

 

[Huskyforlife]

It was noted in post #11 above:

-> “It comes down to this,” Brameier said, “money and managing Title IX numbers.”

Truth. That’s why lacrosse is a club sport for men at UConn and the women are Division I.

“If you add a men’s sport, you have to have something to offset that,” Benedict said. “A lot of these men’s lacrosse teams have 40 athletes (average D-I roster: 44). That’s a big number. What would be the complementary sport to add for women? Or do you reduce a men’s sport? You’re not canceling soccer or baseball at our place.”<-

This makes me wonder what they were thinking at the time not adding both since they’d offset.

 

[Magic32]

This makes me wonder what they were thinking at the time not adding both since they’d offset.

They would never have offset because of football. It's not having equal number of sports, it's having equal number of scholarship possibilities and that is hard with football so we have more women's sports than we have men's to offset football.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

I think the money issue is pretty easy to resolve, and might get fixed on its own with some of the rumors. Not sure how to fix the scholarship issue though, since you'd have to add another 13 scholarships/sport on the women's side

I think the total participation number would be more difficult than the scholarship number. We do have capacity in existing women's sports to add scholarships. If we were to add men's lacrosse we'd have a roster of forty players in a matter of seconds. Matching that with non-scholarhip women's athletes would likely require a decent increase in recruiting dollars as we would need to add a good number (at least 25, and always maintain that number) of non scholarship participants in track & field, rowing and wherever else there is room for larger rosters.

 

[Zissou]

But the B12 doesn’t sponsor lacrosse.

 

[husky429]

It was noted in post #11 above:

-> “It comes down to this,” Brameier said, “money and managing Title IX numbers.”

Truth. That’s why lacrosse is a club sport for men at UConn and the women are Division I.

“If you add a men’s sport, you have to have something to offset that,” Benedict said. “A lot of these men’s lacrosse teams have 40 athletes (average D-I roster: 44). That’s a big number. What would be the complementary sport to add for women? Or do you reduce a men’s sport? You’re not canceling soccer or baseball at our place.”<-

I believe lacrosse is 13 scholarships just like basketball, so they wouldn't need to off-set 44 scholarships--only the 13. UConn has already dropped men's swimming, XC and tennis schollies (right?), so I'm not sure where else it would come from. Definitely not coming from basketball, football, baseball, soccer or hockey. Track?

 

[Sick Puppy]

No justification for lacrosse in the UConn mission statement. In fact, no mention of supporting the Connecticut scholastic population. Seems to me it needs a good rewrite. Besides basketball, how are we doing on the “…national and international recognition?”

Mission and Purposes of the
University of Connecticut​

(Adopted by the Board of Trustees on April 11, 2006 and amended on June 20, 2006)
The University of Connecticut is dedicated to excellence demonstrated through national and international recognition. As Connecticut’s public research university, through freedom of academic inquiry and expression, we create and disseminate knowledge by means of scholarly and creative achievements, graduate and professional education, and outreach. Through our focus on teaching and learning, the University helps every student grow intellectually and become a contributing member of the state, national, and world communities. Through research, teaching, service, and outreach, we embrace diversity and cultivate leadership, integrity, and engaged citizenship in our students, faculty, staff, and alumni. As our state’s flagship public university, and as a land and sea grant institution, we promote the health and well-being of Connecticut’s citizens through enhancing the social, economic, cultural, and natural environments of the state and beyond.

 

[husky429]

Besides basketball, how are we doing on the “…national and international recognition?”

This is the mission statement of the university. Athletics is only a small part of that. UConn's budget is 1.7 billion. We're much more than athletics--and should be.

Other than basketball? I can tell you we're doing pretty well considering our overall rankings, endowment, etc. My wife moved here specifically to attend a PhD program at UConn because of a faculty member on staff. She turned down offers from NYU, Duke, BU and UF to come here.

We're not throwing around the same kind of weight as Michigan, but UConn is a legitimately great school with a reputation that is improving.

The mission could use an update, but not for the reasons you're thinking.

 

[bfs3]

As someone who wrestled and coached wrestling I think it’s a real shame it’s not an option for so many schools. You don’t need large numbers for rosters or much investment beyond the mat. I’ve met a lot of people who found their tribe wrestling or found something they were good at that helped improve their confidence at an important age. The stories about kids with handicaps being successful are too long to list. This is something I know bothers anyone who ever competed in the sport.

I know title 9 is the main culprit but multiple schools who offer wrestling offer it as a multi gender option with girls on several varsity teams including some from CT that have gone on to be successful nationally. The CT wrestling forum used to be just as active as this board. Maybe someone can help explain why wrestling would still be cut due to title 9 even with girls participating.

 

[bfs3]

And Danbury high is a major pipeline to a major top 5 program at Nc state.

CT has a strong wrestling community despite the state size and lack of support. It was even bigger 10-15 years ago. Very few CT wrestlers go div 1 which just shows how popular it is many other states. Ohio, Penn, New Jersey are all incredibly competitive with about 15-20 other states ahead of New England that have major high school programs. It’s a sport that’s seemed to thrive despite all the closures of programs. The people who love it are very devoted to keeping it alive

 

[Scoe]

As someone who wrestled and coached wrestling I think it’s a real shame it’s not an option for so many schools. You don’t need large numbers for rosters or much investment beyond the mat. I’ve met a lot of people who found their tribe wrestling or found something they were good at that helped improve their confidence at an important age. The stories about kids with handicaps being successful are too long to list. This is something I know bothers anyone who ever competed in the sport.

I know title 9 is the main culprit but multiple schools who offer wrestling offer it as a multi gender option with girls on several varsity teams including some from CT that have gone on to be successful nationally. The CT wrestling forum used to be just as active as this board. Maybe someone can help explain why wrestling would still be cut due to title 9 even with girls participating.

It very much is an under appreciated sport. I have never under stood why football players who never participated in a winter sport wouldn’t wrestle especially lineman as the 215-275 weight class tended to have less skilled wrestlers thus the success for lineman was pretty high. No amount of winter weight training can duplicate a wrestling practice. I wrestled to get in shape for football not liking the sport at first then I ended up liking it better then football.

If UConn can get a mens lacrosse team no question we could get a wrestling team.

 

[Sick Puppy]

This is the mission statement of the university. Athletics is only a small part of that. UConn's budget is 1.7 billion. We're much more than athletics--and should be.

Other than basketball? I can tell you we're doing pretty well considering our overall rankings, endowment, etc. My wife moved here specifically to attend a PhD program at UConn because of a faculty member on staff. She turned down offers from NYU, Duke, BU and UF to come here.

We're not throwing around the same kind of weight as Michigan, but UConn is a legitimately great school with a reputation that is improving.

The mission could use an update, but not for the reasons you're thinking.

Congrats to your wife. Sounds like she's doing great.

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/top-public

WADR, UConn is tied at 26 in this particular annual ranking. We used to crack the top 20 occasionally. Take into account private colleges, doubtful we're in the top 50. Not so sure we are improving relative to the competition.

 

[JohnFSilver]

A move to big 12 would help this. For a state like CT, no reason to not have men’s lacrosse.

 

[XLCenterFan]

It’s especially ironic that they play big time college lax games at the Rent. The final 4 I believe?

 

[husky8273]

It’s especially ironic that they play big time college lax games at the Rent. The final 4 I believe?

twice, 2021 & 2022, but unlikely to return