Brandon on lacrosse at Michigan
Dave Brandon interviewed this morning on adding men's and women's lacrosse:
http://insidelacrosse.com/news/2010/12/06/plans-division-i-lacrosse-michigan-still-being-assessed
December 6th, 2010 at 4:57 PM ^
Hopefully they add it in the net year or two
December 6th, 2010 at 5:21 PM ^
Pun intended?
December 6th, 2010 at 5:22 PM ^
I see what you did there. Clever.
December 6th, 2010 at 4:59 PM ^
To pay for it.
<br>
<br>Football team better keep winning.
December 6th, 2010 at 5:03 PM ^
The cost analysis that I've seen would be an expenditure of less than a million dollars total for both programs in early years, and long-term, men's lacrosse would probably be at least a break-even sport at Michigan, much like hockey is.
Plus, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if the Big Ten Network was willing to subsidize some of this all via their money-printing machine.
December 6th, 2010 at 5:28 PM ^
I agree that the cost of the teams would probably be relatively low, but I would be incredibly surprised if lacrosse ended up being break-even at any point. That's not to say I don't want to see lacrosse added. I played div.1 lacrosse elsewhere before coming to Michigan for grad school, and I probably would've come to Michigan for undergrad if they had a program when I was deciding on schools. I love the sport and would even donate to the lax program at Michigan. That said, I don't believe many of the lacrosse programs in the country are in the black. Hockey gets unbelievable attendance and I would be shocked (but pleased) if the lacrosse team got a similar amount of support.
December 6th, 2010 at 5:36 PM ^
... just like hockey this would be a non-revenue sport, but it dosent matter if they're in the black. Michigan hockey is only 1 of 3 teams who actually make money at the division 1 level, all 60 something of the other teams lose a couple hundred thousand a year. but when you have a 94 million dollar budget with an 18 million dolar surplus, I don't think they would really care about losing 200 thousand dollars for the lax team.
December 6th, 2010 at 9:59 PM ^
Money is always a factor. We aren't guaranteed to run surplusses forever, given that the AD has to pay out-of-state tuition for all athletes - even in-state ones. Think about how much the AD's tuition bill has gone up just in the past five years. And then there's that matter of paying off the remaining $170M on the stadium renovation.
December 7th, 2010 at 11:44 AM ^
Is that so? That the AD pays OOS tuition for resident athletes?
December 7th, 2010 at 11:59 AM ^
That's not accurate. In-state athletes get in-state tuition.
December 6th, 2010 at 5:54 PM ^
The numbers I have my hands on lead me to believe that it could get pretty close, especially if lacrosse continues to grow in the US like it has been lately. I'll have much more in my next big lax diary.
December 6th, 2010 at 6:55 PM ^
Michigan's athletic department is one of very few in the country that makes any money. I don't have official stats, just remember that from class here.
<br>
<br>That being said, I believe a D1 lacrosse team in more of a Title 9 issue than financial issue.
December 6th, 2010 at 5:00 PM ^
I guarantee its just a matter of time barring some form of financial meltdown in the athletic department.
December 6th, 2010 at 5:50 PM ^
May I ask why you would think that? I think that compared to most, our athletic department is in pretty good shape. We have been well in the black for the past decade, and that has been with a mediocre basketball team (#2 revenue sport) that has had poor attendance and pre-premium seating in the Big House. I'd venture to say that our athletic department should be financially sound for the foreseeable future.
December 6th, 2010 at 5:53 PM ^
I think he meant to communicate: "unless the athletic department has a financial meltdown, adding lacrosse is only a matter of time."
December 6th, 2010 at 5:00 PM ^
That's not a particularly revealing interview, but he's had enough recent comments, and I've heard enough from my sources lately, that I think lacrosse will be a varsity sport at Michigan very soon.
December 6th, 2010 at 5:04 PM ^
By the way, now that football should be slow-moving for a while, I should have a pretty hefty lacrosse update (including quite a bit more analysis on a potential varsity move) sometime soon. Look for it late this week or maybe early next week.
December 6th, 2010 at 5:18 PM ^
to MGoBlog as the source of Brandon's unoffical comments? Awesome. Also, just having a Michigan AD come out and say "we're very interested in adding lax" is a totally new situation!
EDIT: this was meant as a response to the OP.
December 6th, 2010 at 5:14 PM ^
When might this be formally announced? The rumors have been flying around for awhile now, and Brandon is obviously not hiding his interest. I'm assuming that the 2012 season is out of the question, but if they are looking at the spring of 2013 as the first season, they need to announce and hire a coach pretty soon or miss out on whatever junior recruits are left. Most of the top ones have already committed.
December 6th, 2010 at 5:26 PM ^
What's the recruiting base like in Michigan for lacrosse? My extremely limited knowledge tells me it's mainly an east coast sport, so I'm just wondering if we'd have a local base to draw from.
December 6th, 2010 at 5:33 PM ^
Lacrosse has grown exponentially in the midwest, including Michigan. I coached in the area, and I think that Michigan could do well with the midwest as a recruiting base.
Additionally, many of the best players in the northeast are comfortable going to school away from home - UNC and Duke recruit a large part of their class from Long Island and nearby areas. I think Michigan could recruit from the midwest and pluck a few players from other areas (Maryland, Long Island) each year without too much problem.
December 6th, 2010 at 6:08 PM ^
Well, UNC and Duke have a lot of lacrosse cachet to help pull players out of Long Island. As an institution Michigan is their peer, but as a lacrosse program Michigan won't be able to compete for the best of the best for a long, long time. In order to build the program Michigan has to establish a presence in Maryland and Long Island, but to start off with they'll need to compete against the Towsons and Stony Brooks for recruits. UVA, Syracuse, UNC, Duke....they can just wave their hand at the best recruits and snap them up. Lacrosse is popular mainly in the kind of schools where kids know the difference between academics at Michigan and Ohio State and aren't just repeating cliches when they say they want academics, so if Michigan can overcome the distance factor, the Michigan name should be a big help.
December 6th, 2010 at 7:04 PM ^
One thing to keep in mind is that we have a fantastic football program and most of the east coast schools do not (duke, princeton, hopkins, syracuse, Cornell, etc.). When Johns Hopkins came here to scrimmage in the fall of 2007, they chose to come here during a home football weekend. They had traveled to notre dame and OSU in prior years, always going to football games. The Hopkins kids don't have that college experience. So that is something we have to offer that they do not.
Connor McGee is transferring from Michigan to Virginia (I think he's at Virginia now), so there are players who have been choosing to go to Michigan and pay to play rather than some D1 schools. Connor is from Maryland and was one the #1 ranked team in country in 2009 (Gilman).
I do not think it will be long before we are competitive (similar to Ohio State), but it will take us a while before we crack the top 10 and can make a playoff run like ND did this year.
December 6th, 2010 at 5:43 PM ^
who goes to Michigan. Michigan will be able to bring in quality LAX players from the east coast. Michigan(the state) has a solid recruiting base with some powerhouse like East Grand Rapids, Brother Rice, etc. Michigan will be just fine in recruiting and it will get better with D1 status.
December 6th, 2010 at 5:48 PM ^
Thanks for the update, it's good to know Michigan will have a solid pool to draw from.
December 6th, 2010 at 5:47 PM ^
... 6 incoming freshman recruits played high school on the east coast last year, but alot of guys are coming from instate. I thought I remembered reading something last year about a few players coming in who chose UM over DI programs, I tried to find info but I couldn't
December 6th, 2010 at 7:10 PM ^
3 of the 13 new additions were from in state this year. This may be the article you are referring to.
http://mgobluelacrosse.com/2010/09/20/maize-and-blue-welcome-13-new-players/
December 6th, 2010 at 6:09 PM ^
You'd be surprised at how big lacrosse has grown in Michigan. It has exploded in Ann Arbor and the Detroit suburbs, and I've seen a number of local places starting up 6-7 year old groups. Expect it to continue to grow, especially if Michigan moves to varsity.
December 7th, 2010 at 11:29 AM ^
Grand Rapids has solid LAX as well, EGR, the FH schools, Catholic Central, and the bigger schools like Rockford, EK, WO and Lowell are a few years from having very strong programs.
That said, Ohio and Chicagoland are also big areas for LAX in the Midwest. With only ND and OSU as real competition for those recruits locally, we should be able to pluck talent from those areas on a yearly basis. With how quickly LAX is growing, and with the national brand that UM has, recruiting should be no problem.
December 7th, 2010 at 11:47 AM ^
Yep, I know they had a 4th grade level league in Ann Arbor two years ago.
December 6th, 2010 at 5:46 PM ^
Getting valuable interview time from DBrandon on an important subject but not the one that everyone, especially the media, would like to hear about.
December 6th, 2010 at 5:57 PM ^
He's said he'll talk about the football coaching situation when the season is over - as he's said all along. The update is "no update," so I'm not sure what you want.
December 6th, 2010 at 9:50 PM ^
I would assume that Michigan would enter NCAA D1 as an Independent or in the ECAC with Ohio States. Penn State plays in the Colonial conference and that is all of the B10 schools with a D1 program.
My question is, would the addition of Michigan and one other school, Northwestern makes most sense, be enough to create the B10 Conference in Lax. The ACC only has 4 members in its Lax conference, but the huge difference would be the prestige that the ACC would have over the B10.
I would also think that Michigan State would also want to look into the addition of a D1 program, just to follow suit, thus a potential 5 team conference.
Thoughts?
December 6th, 2010 at 10:41 PM ^
Big Ten regulations require at least 6 teams to field a conference. There would have to be 4 new lacrosse teams (including Michigan) to form a B10 conference.
That's one of the reasons I would have wanted Syracuse or Notre Dame back when expansion talk was going on.
December 7th, 2010 at 2:04 PM ^
Even if Big Ten regulations didn't require it, there would be no point at all in starting Big Ten lax without six. Six is the minimum for an automatic NCAA bid and there's no way OSU and PSU would leave their current conferences with autobids for a conference without one.
December 7th, 2010 at 2:33 PM ^
That's a very good point. It's not like the ACC schools are relying on the auto-bid to make the NCAA tournament. Big Ten schools probably would be.
December 6th, 2010 at 10:56 PM ^
December 6th, 2010 at 11:24 PM ^
Oooo, we could bring the Cottle Face on board! And unlike the other two, he's currently unemployed - that is to say, what he's doing right now is probably temporary as hell, having just been fired at Maryland. His teams always seemed to underachieve, but the caveat there is "for Maryland." At Michigan he might be able to fast-track the success a little bit.
December 7th, 2010 at 10:21 AM ^
I doubt very much JP would just "step aside" no matter who else is available. He's put too much of his life into building this program, and he's very qualified to lead it as it moves up to D1. Michigan would not be better served hiring some outside non-Michigan man (sound familiar?) just because they have a history elsewhere. He also seems pretty well connected in the D1 lacrosse world. I'd guess most of the coaches out there assume this is his job for the taking, and are probably already starting to make plans for scheduling and conference affiliation with him.
I have no idea what Brandon is thinking (does anyone?), but I'm very confident in assuming JP wants this job no matter what.
If what you're saying that this is a done deal is true, then I'm ecstatic. However I get the sense, both from Brandon's interview and from JP, that there are still a few things that have to get hammered out before it's officially green-lighted.
December 7th, 2010 at 10:42 AM ^
I agree with you on most counts over the post you're responding to.
December 7th, 2010 at 12:51 PM ^
I think JP would do a fantastic job and is certainly qualified enough that I hope he does get the job. Having said that if a big name were to come here, he would be recognized immediately by recruits and the national lacrosse community.
If a big name were to come aboard, keeping JP as an assistant would be a great move. He already knows the current kids and recruits, has relationships with the alumni (who will be paying for a part of this) the athletic department and university.
I get the feeling donor money is the last bit holding this up. It's quite a bit of money we are being asked to raise. If you assumed 10 alumni per year, and every alumni were to donate from the past 30 years were to donate (overly optimistic for sure) it would still be a VERY large donation per person. I think they are counting on some large single or corporate donors.
December 7th, 2010 at 2:08 PM ^
No way JP would take an assistant job at Michigan. Can't see it. The guy has been the head coach there for like 15 years. It's his program. He's a proud guy. I bet he would turn that down if it happened. I can't imagine Brandon would do that to him, especially since (internally) it seems like they are leaning on him so heavily to help plan for the varsity program. He built the club program into national relevance. He brought in the donors they are leaning on to get this done. And he's been working at the university, in other capacities before he was the coach, for years. I imagine he's pretty networked at that place. Plus, as you say, he's qualified. Look what Steve Burns is doing with the men's soccer team. He was the club coach previously.
Of course, who knows what Brandon is thinking when it comes to coach hire decisions. All speculation.
December 7th, 2010 at 2:35 PM ^
That's a good point (and one of the reasons I think the person who originally proposed that D-1 coaches were being interviewed). The program wouldn't even be close to making the leap without JP. Not just from a program success standpoint, because he's also a huge part of the push for varsity itself, fundraising, etc.
December 7th, 2010 at 4:24 PM ^
Who knows what the future holds. I don't think anyone predicted that Bill Tierney and his 6 titles would leave Princeton for Denver. Did anyone predict that Tambroni would take the PSU job after 3 final fours at Cornell?
There are a few high profile coaches out there that might be looking to make a move. Is Mike Pressler happy at Bryant after winning a World Title and the way he was run out of Duke? What if Jum Berkman at Salibury wants to make the jump to D1 after winning 8 D3 titles at Salisbury?
Like I said, the word I'm hearing is that they will do a national search, but JP is the man for the job as long as they don't get a major player to show interest.