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Post by jjjacks17 on May 23, 2014 9:31:54 GMT -5
Now that this field is going to be built wouldn't this be a good time for Bona's to look into starting up a D1 men's lax program?
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Post by Pinnum on May 23, 2014 10:06:13 GMT -5
Now that this field is going to be built wouldn't this be a good time for Bona's to look into starting up a D1 men's lax program? You're asking if this would be a good time for Bonas to increase athletic expenditures without a significant increase in athletic revenues? Assuming they even have the latitude to add another men's program, with regard to Title IX compliance, in my opinion it would not be a wise move for the University to add another program and further dilute the support to the current programs. Most programs already struggle to compete at an Atlantic 10 level due to a lack of funding. Though SBU may be a tuition driven institution, it can't expect tuition dollars from rostered athletes not on scholarship to offset the expenses of operating a program and cover the actual costs the University incurs for the student. There are a ton of schools adding Lax and the competition for a small pool of skilled athletes is only going to get more fierce. I do not see any way adding a program can be a good move.
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Post by Bona84 on May 23, 2014 10:18:16 GMT -5
jjjcks17 merely asked if it would be a good time to look into it. Clearly, financial and Title IX considerations would be part of the "looking into" process.
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Post by Pinnum on May 23, 2014 10:34:01 GMT -5
I am sorry, my reaction was too strong.
SBU Womens Lax went 0-14 this season (the closest game was a loss to a .500 Division-II Rollins). There are currently three A10 teams that sponsor MLax (Richmond, UMass, St Joseph's) and they all are associate members of different conferences (Atlantic Sun, CAA, NEC). Two of those conferences (ASun and NEC) are the two lowest rated Lax conferences in the country.
This is the breakdown of the Lax spending for these peers and what SBU spends on the women (which would be a good proxy for future spending on MLax).
Team / WLax / MLax UMass / $765,793 / $771,545 Richmond / $777,503 / N/A (Dropped MSoccer to fund new addition of MLax) Saint Joseph's / $514, 309 / $715,519 St. Bonaventure / $336,159 / N/A
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Post by firstdev on May 23, 2014 10:48:21 GMT -5
Yes, I too would prefer a natural grass field at McGraw-Jennings for our soccer, lacrosse, rugby and IM sports. Regrettably the climate in the Southern Tier in the fall and spring is highly unpredictable. While our fall weather is often glorious in Sept. and early October it often turns very damp later on making the fields unplayable. Having played IM football on those fields I know that there were times when field conditions were deplorable. Spring conditions are even worse. Generally the spring is very wet, except under drought conditions, these fields are marshy until late in the spring. Playing baseball on the artificial turf has helped dramatically, and in reality the team would be constantly looking for alternative sites without the new field. I really believe that our lacrosse and soccer programs have suffered because of the unplayable home field conditions. We have played very few home games in spring lacrosse because of these unfavorable field conditions. In the event that the Allegany River rises to flood stage (which is not an uncommon occurrence)and covers the athletic fields, artificial turf will be far easily to make playable than grass. Yet another advantage. Again many thanks to the Marra family.
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Post by firstdev on May 23, 2014 10:51:42 GMT -5
That's "easier", sorry for the typo.
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Post by jjjacks17 on May 24, 2014 0:47:59 GMT -5
Seeing as the tennis teams weren't even able to field a full team in many of their matches this past season and the tennis center is a total dump which has almost no chance of ever being upgraded while we will have a brand new lax field, I would rather see men's lacrosse (a growing sport) than tennis (a sport which at the collegiate level has never been all that relevant). Seeing how much national attention on ESPN the men's lax championships is getting (rivaling baseball) I think it would be a good move where there is lots of room for growth. Obviously its a difficult task but the University of Richmond just dumped soccer in favor of men's lax so it can be done while still meeting the requirements of title IX. Now that we will have the facility in place we are one step closer if we want to make that transition.
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Post by Pinnum on May 27, 2014 7:06:45 GMT -5
Seeing as the tennis teams weren't even able to field a full team in many of their matches this past season and the tennis center is a total dump which has almost no chance of ever being upgraded while we will have a brand new lax field, I would rather see men's lacrosse (a growing sport) than tennis (a sport which at the collegiate level has never been all that relevant). Seeing how much national attention on ESPN the men's lax championships is getting (rivaling baseball) I think it would be a good move where there is lots of room for growth. Obviously its a difficult task but the University of Richmond just dumped soccer in favor of men's lax so it can be done while still meeting the requirements of title IX. Now that we will have the facility in place we are one step closer if we want to make that transition. You make an interesting point. However... The SBU student body is 52% women and the current athletic offerings provide women with 48 % of the total athletic opportunities. This is out of compliance with the proportionality prong (though within an acceptable margin of error). As a result, in order to provide the 25-30 roster spots that most MLax programs have, SBU would need to eliminate an equal number of spots from the current men's offerings, or add new women's programs (which will increase expenses). Since MTennis is proposed as being cut, that would allow the MTennis budget ($150k) to be reallocated to MLax while allowing the roster to include 10 athletes. Since this is not an adequate level of funding, or number of athletes, other measures would need to be taken to get to the budget level necessary to remain net neutral. Additionally, this wouldn't eliminate the expenses of the Tennis facility since the women's program would still be need to be operated. Eliminating MGolf would free up another $134k for the budget as well as an additional eight roster spots but even the $300k wouldn't allow MLax to be competitive. Additionally, the NCAA requires Division-I programs offer a minimum of seven men's sports and seven women's sports or six men's sports and eight women's sports. As a result, in order to add MLax, a complete overhaul of the athletic department would need to take place or a large infusion of cash would need to be offered (as was the case when New Balance offered money to Boston University and they launched a MLax program). Tennis, Golf, and XC keep SBU in Division-I for a lot less money than it would require to stay in Division-I without them. Add in an alumni or potential student that has even a little interest in those programs and they are well worth the expense. In regards to the TV exposure of Lax, it only helps if you're in the field of 16 which, for SBU, is a long shot at best.
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Post by kcSBU03 on May 27, 2014 7:55:10 GMT -5
I agree that its not simple to just add lax as pinnum has stated. If it were possible, I would like to see it happen. NYS is a hot bed for lax. Look at the successful programs: Syracuse, Cornell, Albany. It would take some time but there is talent in the area to build a program. I doubt it will happen due to the title ix and scholarship reasons but it would be ideal.
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Post by Pinnum on May 27, 2014 8:21:29 GMT -5
I agree that its not simple to just add lax as pinnum has stated. If it were possible, I would like to see it happen. NYS is a hot bed for lax. Look at the successful programs: Syracuse, Cornell, Albany. It would take some time but there is talent in the area to build a program. I doubt it will happen due to the title ix and scholarship reasons but it would be ideal. SBU would need to allocate a minimum of $1M a year in resources to MLax in order to even hope to be able to compete with the programs you listed. Albany was regularly having losing seasons before they landed the Thompson's and Syracuse spends more on MLax (almost $3M) than SBU spends on MBasketball. SBU is not the first to market with MLax and the market is getting saturated, especially in NY. As the sport grows, it expands to other regions which will further diversify the geography of the top talent and would have the effect of diluting the talent pool in NY. SBU would continually be playing catch-up and have to compete with a lot of other teams for the limited in state talent or put a lot of money into recruiting out of state. This is not a wise addition, if the goal is to be competitive and compete for championships. If the goal is to expand athletic offerings for sports that are popular in areas where SBU recruits students then it is a good fit but it will cost a LOT of resources to be diverted away from the already underfunded programs.
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Post by 123Rob on May 27, 2014 12:51:12 GMT -5
Pinnum-Is the proportionality based on roster spots or scholarships given or scholarships allowed? Based on SBU's current sports and rosters I count 121 rostered men and 58.5 scholarships allowed v. 113 women on rosters and 79 scholarships allowed. You may know how many of those on rosters are actually getting any athletic scholarships--I have no idea.
Why the disparity of roster sizes given more women's scholarships are available. Why only 6 on the W Tennis team if it is a head count sport with 8 scholarships allowed. We cannot find 8 women willing to come to SBU to play tennis? Why only 16 on the WLax roster?
I ask because I would love to see Men's Lax added. You make good points about how it would be difficult to compete but it will only be harder down the road. Men's lax seems too natural a fit for Bona's to not have a team. 12.6 scholarships spread over 36 to 48 players. 36 to 48 NEW students paying .67 to .75 tuition each should bring in the dollars fund the team.
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Post by Pinnum on May 27, 2014 13:49:07 GMT -5
Pinnum-Is the proportionality based on roster spots or scholarships given or scholarships allowed? Based on SBU's current sports and rosters I count 121 rostered men and 58.5 scholarships allowed v. 113 women on rosters and 79 scholarships allowed. You may know how many of those on rosters are actually getting any athletic scholarships--I have no idea. Why the disparity of roster sizes given more women's scholarships are available. Why only 6 on the W Tennis team if it is a head count sport with 8 scholarships allowed. We cannot find 8 women willing to come to SBU to play tennis? Why only 16 on the WLax roster? I ask because I would love to see Men's Lax added. You make good points about how it would be difficult to compete but it will only be harder down the road. Men's lax seems too natural a fit for Bona's to not have a team. 12.6 scholarships spread over 36 to 48 players. 36 to 48 NEW students paying .67 to .75 tuition each should bring in the dollars fund the team. Title IX is very complex. There are financial considerations given to ensure that adequate resources are given equally. Typically, the biggest issues that gets schools in trouble is the number of opportunities provided. As a result the number of roster spots utilized is the biggest determination. Here is the data I have (Note it is always one year old): 129 male athletes and 122 female athletes; University enrollment is 876 male and 951female. Allowable scholarships is irrelevant. I do not believe any sports, outside of the two basketball teams is 'fully funded.' Just under $1.46M in athletic aid was offered to women and just over that amount was issued to men to compete for SBU teams. With the direct billed cost of attendance being about $40k, this means that each gender is allocated about 36.5 scholarships. So with MSoccer is allowed 9.9 scholarships, MBasketball 13 scholarships, and Baseball 11.7 scholarships, you can see that these three sports alone would take all of the men's scholarship budget. However, they still have to field XC, Tennis, Swimming, and golf, programs and attempt to be competitive with A10 schools. As a result, I don't think, any program other than basketball is provided with the full allotment of scholarships. Instead, every program is offered some scholarship money to attract athletes. There are a few issues with your calculations. (1) institutional aid can not be stacked. So if an athlete is give .25 of a scholarship in the form of an athletic scholarship, they can't also qualify for other university scholarships without them being counted. Any "counter" (an athlete on scholarship) has all of their scholarships counted against the limit. As a result, you are not likely to spread the scholarships as liberally as you listed. It is much more likely that they are concentrated into a smaller group of athletes. If you were to spread the scholarships as liberally, you would actually result with many students on need based aid getting higher bills than they would have otherwise had. In a lot of these instances, you will end up with kids having better aid packaged from D3 schools like Medaille, Hilbert, Houghton, or Geneseo than they would have on scholarship at SBU. (2) Your calculation does not account for the actual costs a university must cover for a student. It is true if the whole roster of 40 athletes is on 50% aid and the direct bill cost of attendance is $40k that the revenue generated, minus the athletic aid waiver, would provide the school with $800k that can be used for things like funding the MLax program. But there is no benefit to the school if they are taking away classroom seats from other students that don't require the additional program expense or the wealth of other expenses and inconveniences the program would add. This is the tuition driven model that is used to justify the addition of sports at D3 schools. When implemented by D3 schools it can improve cash flow and help in attracting students but it is only beneficial if the investment into the program is minimal. If you analyze these models you will see that they are in local conferences, often have part time coaches, and the retention rate of athletes to a roster is low. In my experience the spending per athlete ranges from $500-2,000 for these programs. This is drastically different than the Division-I model. To answer your question about scholarships and women, it has been my experience that schools struggle to locate talented women and to retain women. A lot of women enjoy club and intramural sports but don't want to commit to the life that is required to be a Division-I student-athlete. It is often a complaint from coaches that there are too many scholarships and either too few women to fill them or too few that that deserve them which leads to a lot of complaints from athletes as the ability level doesn't always line up with the award amount. It is much harder to attract women to compete at the college level than it is men which is problematic because more women attend college than men and Title IX's easiest method of ensuring compliance is proportionality. As a result, a lot of coaches are asked to not cut athletes from their program, even if they don't have the athletic ability necessary. This is a major annoyance of coaches as they feel like these athletes bring down the level of play in practice and are actually a hindrance to the program. I do not know the SBU scholarship allocation, but it is possible that the programs that struggle to fill their rosters are sports that are saturated (too many college opportunities for the number of athletes that want to compete) or they could be limited scholarship (or non-scholarship) programs.
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Post by 123Rob on May 27, 2014 14:28:24 GMT -5
Thanks for the insight. I knew I was oversimplifying but am surprised by where.
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Post by Pinnum on May 27, 2014 14:30:17 GMT -5
My pleasure, 123Rob.
FYI: There were 80 college MLax programs in the State of New York last year and there were 328 high school programs. 4-1 ratio: New York is saturated!
(There are 35 college football teams and 572 high school football teams in New York for a 16-1 ratio. I don't advocate the addition of football but a non-scholarship Pioneer League team to compete against Dayton, Davidson, and Duquesne makes more sense than MLax)
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Post by jjjacks17 on May 27, 2014 16:32:47 GMT -5
My pleasure, 123Rob. FYI: There were 80 college MLax programs in the State of New York last year and there were 328 high school programs. 4-1 ratio: New York is saturated! (There are 35 college football teams and 572 high school football teams in New York for a 16-1 ratio. I don't advocate the addition of football but a non-scholarship Pioneer League team to compete against Dayton, Davidson, and Duquesne makes more sense than MLax) I disagree with this notion. The expense of football and resulting injuries especially concussions means that parents and children will look for safer alternatives. Football at the high school level is going to decline while lacrosse just continues to grow in popularity. Are you telling me that it will be more expensive to recruit lax players across the US and Canada than it is to recruit tennis players from Europe and South America?
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