Graduate Students

[Gregg Pathiakis]

Another thing people should think about is the fact that the MDIA is meant to be an undergrad league and caters itself to undergrad students. They try to be as fair as possible for those grad students with eligibility left, but only to the point that the volunteers on the board can easily monitor it. It's hard enough to monitor undergrad students (trust me, I did it last year and will be doing it again this year). Adding a more thorough check of graduate students just makes our lives that much more difficult.

[Ken Lovic]

One concern with the grad students- many of us get budgets from SGA's on campus and I know each year we submit our budget we have to show a history of attracting Grad Students to our program so that the Grad SGA passes our bill as well. We have to pass both undergrad and grad SGA's to get approved. Its been more than one occasion that money gets taken out cause the Grads don't like that we play in a undergrad friendly league.

[strykr11]

In NCAA D1, you have 5 years from when you start your first undergrad degree to play 4 years of sports. One of the only exceptions to this rule are medical redshirts. So if you graduate in 4 years or less, and have not used 4 years of eligibility, you can play until you have used the eligibility or the 5 years is up. The most recent example of this I can think of was Tim McGinnis, who played undergrad at Gettysburg and a grad year at Maryland.

I don't know the D2 or D3 rules about all this though.

MDIA rules from what I understand are that you have 4 years of eligibility to use at any time. However, if you are in graduate school, you must be at the same school of your undergraduate degree to be eligible.

You can find all this out at the least by doing a search... seems like there's about 500 threads on this subject alone.

For D1 I believe it is from the time you first register as a full time student. D3 has no running clock length of time, it is based on number of semesters registered- 10. I cannot remember D2 Rules and I am too jaded with this whole sordid Age Discrimination Affair at this point to bother finding the file which contains them....Bottom Line is that a number of authoritarian coaches want to boss around young players, and more mature and educated grad students aren't going to stand for that kind of treatment so these coaches and their allies devise dubious reasons why they cannot play Club Lacrosse...Umm...we cannot figure out how many semesters they have been registered..yeah like this is the age of computers ...it is not like you have this info kept in some kind of file cabinet in a dusty back room in the basement of the administration building and someone has to dig through cobwebs and move old desks and piles of discarded books to get to the file to look it up...It is just like click click info there...ok then there is the excuse that we(MDIA) are all volunteers and don't have the manpower. Umm yeah that is a good reason to discriminate. Just charge a little higher fees and hire someone..Boy that solution took genius and as was pointed out in a post above that is hardly a valid excuse as it is just as difficult to know all the undegrad institutions a kid has attended. In fact it is a lot harder at the undergrad level. Most grad students were serious students as undergrads and weren't bouncing around from JC to JC to College to College. Probably ALL the schools they attended are actually listed on their transcripts. It really is ridiculous for this to be a reason as one could register at one school get bad grades drop out and then register as an undergrad at another go a while and get bad grades and then go to another and never tell any of the schools of their prior educational history. This is NOT a likely scenario with most grad students....So Really People this is AGE DISCRIMINATION ............ And Boyle I am using the phrase "age discrimination" in a loose sense to mean that most undergrads interested in playing lacrosse are just over HS age and most grad students are in their early to mid 20's. Just letting you know that I am not trying to re start the thread that had more hits than any other in the history of the USLIA Boards...

Oh Yeah... and my understanding is that thanks to Mike A and his not wanting increased competition from CAL and Stanford in particular but also USC, UCLA, Arizona and Arizona State, WCLL is not 4 years with no time limit.

[CATLAX MAN]

Benson,

Can you post that "Beat The Dead Horse" trophy once more? Looks like we need it again.

[Gregg Pathiakis]

Bottom Line is that a number of authoritarian coaches want to boss around young players, and more mature and educated grad students aren't going to stand for that kind of treatment so these coaches and their allies devise dubious reasons why they cannot play Club Lacrosse...

I might be wrong, but I would bet the vast majority of coaches in the MDIA would actually like to be able to use all graduate students. But they're not the ones who already put in the countless volunteer hours checking the eligibility of undergrads... a huge task in itself. Remember, we don't have direct access to student records like you seem to assume in your post.

[strykr11]

Bottom Line is that a number of authoritarian coaches want to boss around young players, and more mature and educated grad students aren't going to stand for that kind of treatment so these coaches and their allies devise dubious reasons why they cannot play Club Lacrosse...

I might be wrong, but I would bet the vast majority of coaches in the MDIA would actually like to be able to use all graduate students. But they're not the ones who already put in the countless volunteer hours checking the eligibility of undergrads... a huge task in itself. Remember, we don't have direct access to student records like you seem to assume in your post.

Again this is almost a laughable excuse. The records have to be checked every year. 1/4th of the players or more are new every year. It is no more difficult to check the records of a graduate student than those of an undergraduate. Probably all the schools a graduate student has attended are listed on their transcripts, so it is a lot easier to know with certainty as if it is really that important in Club Lacrosse anyway.... In any event the burden falls on the team of making sure any player is eligible not the MDIA. If the MDIA needs more than volunteer help to do this then simply hire someone and raise the fees a little. I seriously doubt that all those "volunteers" are doing this for zero remuneration whatsoever. You might not call it a salary and call it per diem or whatever but really....Give me a break, that is like saying the people who work for non profis do not get paid. I am not an idiot...umm, I received A+'s in Auditing and Advanced Accounting so I understand Non Profit/Fund Accounting and I know what takes place in Non Profits.

If you are checking every single players records then you need to STOP. That is an idiotic waste of time and energy. That would be like conducting an audit and checking every single financial transaction. You need to understand that in general, markets work; especially in this day and age of much improved information transfer. If some ringer appeared on a team who had already played at several colleges in the past, other players are going to recognize this. Guess what his picture is posted on the internet and very quickly everywhere he has played is identified. You could even have a portion of the website just for this. Believe me those who have an interest in not having ineligible players on opposing teams will make sure the possibly ineligible players are identified. In addition if this control device existed then few players are going to attempt to play when ineligible. Then MDIA only has to investigate the records of those suspected of being ineligible. Huge Savings if you are currently investigating everyones academic records. Umm I just gave you advice you could have paid a high priced management consultant a hefty sum for...so read it again...

You also need to recognize that it is not that big a deal even if an ineligible player got through the cracks. It could only happen with one who was not well known, not with a real star....And what happened to CSU this year was really a joke. Talk about eliminating the competiton for the benefit of others... oh yeah that was a fair outcome...Come on....

And of course if as you say a MAJORITY of coaches want grad students to play then why aren't they? This checking of records by exhausted volunteers is just a ridiculous justification. This would be like George Washington having said: " Hey, I know that a majority of eligible voters would like a different President but I was General in charge of the Revolutionary Army so now I am going to be President for Life since elections every 4 years would make my life more difficult. " Yeah same thing really....

The real reason that grad students are essentially not allowed to play club lacrosse is because those who formed the MDIA decided to discriminate against them. In fact you admitted this in your post above:

Another thing people should think about is the fact that the MDIA is meant to be an undergrad league and caters itself to undergrad students. They try to be as fair as possible for those grad students with eligibility left, but only to the point that the volunteers on the board can easily monitor it. It's hard enough to monitor undergrad students (trust me, I did it last year and will be doing it again this year). Adding a more thorough check of graduate students just makes our lives that much more difficult.

[LaxRef]

.And what happened to CSU this year was really a joke. Talk about eliminating the competiton for the benefit of others... oh yeah that was a fair outcome...Come on....

Huh? I'll be the first to admit that I didn't follow this super-closely, but if you have guys who aren't taking enough credits to be on the team, then they're not eligible to play and the team should forfeit any games they played in.

MDIA is "virtual varsity," right? What do you think happens to an NCAA team that plays a player that doesn't have enough credits or is academically ineligible?

[strykr11]

And what happened to CSU this year was really a joke. Talk

about eliminating the competiton for the benefit of others... oh yeah that was a fair outcome...Come on....

Huh? I'll be the first to admit that I didn't follow this super-closely, but if you have guys who aren't taking enough credits to be on the team, then they're not eligible to play and the team should forfeit any games they played in.

MDIA is "virtual varsity," right? What do you think happens to an NCAA team that plays a player that doesn't have enough credits or is academically ineligible?

It is all documented in Flip's Journal. It was like a school of pirhanas going after the hapless golden lab who unknowingly jumped into the Amazon for a swim....

Oh Sorry ...I just looked..Let me rephrase that. It ALL was documented in Flip's Journal but my goodness I suppose some of those nasty hackers crashed his journal and eliminated all those controversial entries...

The ones that dealt with the response of the MDIA Board.

"Do I think the punishment outweighs the crime here? Oh yeah, this was an innocent mistake if ever there was one. I believe there were other solutions, but once the MDIA leaders started screaming "FOUL" from the rooftops the handwriting was on the wall. "


"A NOT-SO-FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO BLAINE - WE SELF REPORTED A PROBLEM - I guess no one will ever do that again -

Well, you see, these two thin red lines had apparently appeared on the roster sheet made by the hand of a registrar that very morning. He (Pres.) gave me only the opening details that were known at the time. I was somewhat stunned, but my immediate thoughts were to get more of the story first, and to self report next. I told him to call the Eligibility guy for the national organization. As it turns out we should have gone through the Conference Officials first, but I was not really aware of or recalled that as THE process to use in the heat of that moment. We were getting very close in time to THE tournament, so my instinct was to hopefully get this all figured out as soon as possible with a little "help from above". Our national organization would somehow help us to figure this out, thought I.

Little did I know that the wheels of misfortune had just then begun to turn, and I had no idea yet of how fast we were going to get from zero to 60, and then, almost before you could say "Dead Man's Curve" we had pretty much landed in the ugly ditch.

NEXT QUESTION

Q- What was the first response and or action taken by the MDIA National Governing Body?

I'll tell me next time."


One more entry that has nothing to do with the MDIA Affair and then jumps to October of 2006....

http://csulacrosse.com/2005/journal/2005-05-30b.htm





And...No, MDIA is not Virtual Varsity but Club. A few teams receive some University support such as access to the athletic study center and use of Varsity weight training rooms namely Michigan@Ann Arbor and BYU and they claim to be virtual varsity whatever that means, but they do not have athletes on scholarship either open as in D1 or hidden as in D3. ....since of course athletic scholarships are forbidden in D3.

[LaxRef]

And...No, MDIA is not Virtual Varsity but Club. A few teams receive some University support such as access to the athletic study center and use of Varsity weight training rooms namely Michigan@Ann Arbor and BYU and they claim to be virtual varsity whatever that means, but they do not have athletes on scholarship either open as in D1 or hidden as in D3. ....since of course athletic scholarships are forbidden in D3.

Um, my impression is that "virtual varsity" means "we play by NCAA rules and have eligibility requirements," which is certainly a different standard than "club." It doesn't have anything to do with scholarships. I was a Varsity athlete in high school and didn't get a scholarship there, and, as you point out, there are no scholarships in DIII even though that's Varsity.

Anyway, you haven't convinced me that the penalty imposed for using inelgibile players was innapropriate given the rules in place. In fact, it sounds a lot like a player who got called for a slash trying to explain to the officials why it wasn't a slash.

[strykr11]

And...No, MDIA is not Virtual Varsity but Club. A few teams receive some University support such as access to the athletic study center and use of Varsity weight training rooms namely Michigan@Ann Arbor and BYU and they claim to be virtual varsity whatever that means, but they do not have athletes on scholarship either open as in D1 or hidden as in D3. ....since of course athletic scholarships are forbidden in D3.

Um, my impression is that "virtual varsity" means "we play by NCAA rules and have eligibility requirements," which is certainly a different standard than "club." It doesn't have anything to do with scholarships. I was a Varsity athlete in high school and didn't get a scholarship there, and, as you point out, there are no scholarships in DIII even though that's Varsity.

Anyway, you haven't convinced me that the penalty imposed for using inelgibile players was innapropriate given the rules in place. In fact, it sounds a lot like a player who got called for a slash trying to explain to the officials why it wasn't a slash.

LaxRef...."Virtual Varsity" with regards to the MDIA means exactly as I stated. All MDIA teams are Lax Clubs at their Universities. They are not Varsity...A very small handful refer to themselves as "Virtual Varsity." Explore Michigan Lacrosse's website and learn from John Paul himself what "Virtual Varsity" means in the MDIA.

[LaxRef]

Yeah, you're . . . not right. From the USLacrosse Website:

This Council represents the interests of the Men's Division of the US Lacrosse Intercollegiate Associates. Comprised of 170 college teams in nine conferences from coast to coast, the US Lacrosse MDIA provides a "virtual varsity" structure for college non-varsity lacrosse - with conference championships, post-season awards, national polls, and NCAA regulations governing eligibility and rules of play - culminating in the annual US Lacrosse Intercollegiate Associates National Championship.

[strykr11]

Yeah, you're . . . not right. From the USLacrosse Website:

This Council represents the interests of the Men's Division of the US Lacrosse Intercollegiate Associates. Comprised of 170 college teams in nine conferences from coast to coast, the US Lacrosse MDIA provides a "virtual varsity" structure for college non-varsity lacrosse - with conference championships, post-season awards, national polls, and NCAA regulations governing eligibility and rules of play - culminating in the annual US Lacrosse Intercollegiate Associates National Championship.

Uh...No....THE USLMDIA provides a Virtual Varsity Structure....Yeah so what... there are only a handful of Varsity Club Teams in the MDIA at present.

Uhh ...maybe this will help you understand what Virtual Varsity means and why there are only a handful of Varsity Club teams in the MDIA.

http://www.mgoblue.com/document_display ... nt_id=8343
http://www.umich.edu/~menslax/information.htm

This is not the situation at very many MDIA Schools at all:

"The move to varsity club status has given our student athletes many of the benefits afforded varsity athletes at Michigan. A team athletic department academic counselor is available to help with academic concerns, scheduling and other questions. The athletic department Student Athlete Development Program provides career training, job placement, leadership training and community service opportunities previously available only to varsity athletes. Athletic training and weight training support, along with nutritional and leadership/team building support is also utilized. In addition, the team is included in the athletic department's Nike contract (the largest college contract of its kind in the nation). "

Of course you could also read the post by John Paul in a thread in which you posted several times less than two weeks ago:

Virtual varsity is all about organization. Not talent. I've seen some pretty pathetic varsity teams, but they are all fairly organized since their coaches are held accountable by their administration and their peers. There are kids at the IA level who could play anywhere, and I mean anywhere (witness Fiat and Mehrer who started at Utah and are now at Townson, Austin who came from Army and played at BYU, Combs who played Towson and is now at Lindenwood, Silverman who was invited to walk on at Maryland this year, etc.). Talent is not a question in the IA. It's there. Organization and level of coaching are the limiting factors.

The virtual varsity thing is probably misused at our level more often than not. For many IA teams, it's a target they are slowly working toward but haven't reached. For many it's not really a goal. I can only point to a handful of IA teams that have truly reached a level of organization and commitment that is indistinguishable from varsity lacrosse. Even some of our top teams, while extremely talented, are still run in large part by students with part-time coaches, and without the required commitment level (mandatory practices, lifting, film, outside obligations, recruiting, etc.) that is typical of a varsity team at any level. That's not a criticism. It's simply reality at our level.

The place where "virtual varsity" is most appropriately used is at our national level. As an organization of club teams, we have adopted NCAA rules of play to the letter and eligibility requirements that closely mirror the NCAA (and in some case are actually more restrictive). We have a system to ensure that games happen when scheduled (not a given at any other club level). We have a great post-season tournament to declare a national champion (now at two levels), and we have a national poll and post-season awards that are very similar to what the varsity world is doing.

[CATLAX MAN]

You know how you feed a stray cat once and it keeps showing up at your door to see if you give him more food? Responding to Stryker has similar results. This has been hashed, re-hashed, and regurgitated over & over again many times in the past. Move on.

[LaxRef]

You know how you feed a stray cat once and it keeps showing up at your door to see if you give him more food? Responding to Stryker has similar results. This has been hashed, re-hashed, and regurgitated over & over again many times in the past. Move on.

Oh, I get it: a troll.

It's too bad there's no killfile on web-based forums like there is on USENET.

[Dan Wishengrad]

Others had self-reported before CSU last year -- Simon Fraser did in 2002 with the same result. SFU had players who were all eligible to compete in varsity sports at that school, where 9 credits is considered full-time. They just didn't meet the tougher standard imposed by the MDIA.

The fact is at varsity schools they have paid Compliance Officers on ahtletic dept. staff to monitor players' academics, and are not likely to have the problems we have had in the MDIA. But we live and learn I guess...