Thoughts on the 2007 LSA season

[Karl Lynch]

Do you think that blindly adding more teams to the LSA is prudent?

Who said we would be adding the teams blindly? There is nothing dirty about our house that needs cleaning.

I see no reason not to look for teams in Div. B to get back our AQ.

[agentogden]

i liked the championship venue, programs, tickets, website and t-shrits the best.

AO

[Sonny]

Forgot about St. Ed's, Ok State, and UTA.

I see no reason not to look for teams in Div. B to get back our AQ.

I gave you plenty of reasons. Besides, you are making my point Karl- Esp. if you are only adding new teams to your conference to get an AQ.

[Karl Lynch]

Besides, you are making my point Karl- Esp. if you are only adding new teams to your conference to get an AQ.

Who said the "only reason" we were adding the teams was to get an AQ? It is "a" reason, not "the only" reason. I guess playing the devil's advocate allows you to reach "blindly" beyond what is actually said again.

The crux of the problems from this season are more related to individual team problems; rather, than conference problems.

Why should any conference stop thinking about future expansion? Thinking about the future isn't that hard that we can't "clean house" with the teams we have and also plan for expansion.

[Campbell]

i liked the championship venue, programs, tickets, website and t-shrits the best.

AO

I agree, I didn't have the opportuity to make the finals, and only got out to one game this season, but the venue for the LSA tournament and the webpage were really nicely done.

[Brent Burns]

The crux of the problems from this season are more related to individual team problems; rather, than conference problems.

Karl is correct that the individual teams within the LSA needs to be more responsible in taking care of their problems. They just need to clean their house and become more consistent in the years to come.

[JW]

Those teams that still exist in B need to be recruiting teams to join the conference. I am more than willing to help, but they should want as many teams in their division as possible to avoid such tragedies as those that occured this year.

Devil's advocate....

After all that has happened over the last few years (TCU in and out, Sam Houston State/UTSA/Centennary/Nichols State/Houston folding, Rice in and out) - Do you think that blindly adding more teams to the LSA is prudent?

Seems to me that you guys need to clean house FIRST, before considering future expansion.

I think that Southwestern is not going to be going around and begging teams to rejoin. it is going to take effort on the teams mentioned to decide what they want. Don't forget St. Gregorys and Loyola-New Orleans. The B-Division can be what it once was - competitive in and out of conference - but it is going to take the B-Division teams stepping up and taking responisbility for themselves.

[laxforlife]

I think it makes total sense why Division A is sucessfull and Division B is falling apart. Bigger schools have more people and money, which equals good coaching, good facilities, fundraising is bigger, and there is enough people to make it serious because if one starts to slack, they will lose there starting position. Division B teams are small, dont get much help money wise, and end up leaving lots of room to slack because good players know they will play even if they do not show up to practice. This is no shock by far, there is a lot of responsibilities on college students, where half of them can barely keep their head above the water grade wise. There is no outside pressures on the player to commit, its just the team, making it easy for programs to flake out. Yes, I know there are programs around the country that make it work, I am just stating the obvious.

I think LSA B will either have a good year or bad just like this last one because of the situation of club lacrosse with small schools. So there is nothing that Karl do but do what he is doing now. If things get better, then they will. I wont be surprised if the LSA B does extreme well next year but I also wont be surprised if Southwestern, SEU, and Austin College are the only teams. My questions to Karl would be "What happens if only three teams come back?" I understand that we should not worry about that but rather try to get other teams involved, but lets just pretend it happened (any thoughts).

Once again, gotta love the lowest division in College, Club Lacrosse Division B, Lone Star Alliance (just a hint of sarcasm)

[murphlaxtx]

I think it makes total sense why Division A is sucessfull and Division B is falling apart. Bigger schools have more people and money, which equals good coaching, good facilities, fundraising is bigger, and there is enough people to make it serious because if one starts to slack, they will lose there starting position. Division B teams are small, dont get much help money wise, and end up leaving lots of room to slack because good players know they will play even if they do not show up to practice. This is no shock by far, there is a lot of responsibilities on college students, where half of them can barely keep their head above the water grade wise. There is no outside pressures on the player to commit, its just the team, making it easy for programs to flake out. Yes, I know there are programs around the country that make it work, I am just stating the obvious.

I think LSA B will either have a good year or bad just like this last one because of the situation of club lacrosse with small schools. So there is nothing that Karl do but do what he is doing now. If things get better, then they will. I wont be surprised if the LSA B does extreme well next year but I also wont be surprised if Southwestern, SEU, and Austin College are the only teams. My questions to Karl would be "What happens if only three teams come back?" I understand that we should not worry about that but rather try to get other teams involved, but lets just pretend it happened (any thoughts).

Once again, gotta love the lowest division in College, Club Lacrosse Division B, Lone Star Alliance (just a hint of sarcasm)

I am sorry but I do not buy the smaller school argument. You are making the mistake of assuming that a school suffers and fails because of school size. Unfortunately, that is a cop out that some organizations use to soften the blow of failure. Sure, they struggle to get some recruits, but many teams do. Oklahoma State folded this year....they are not a small school. Rice stuggled greatly to field a team this year. They are both A teams. Baylor is a good sized school....we only had an 18 man roster (because of past disorganization ---which they started to correct in 2006 and throught the year this year). We didn't have our leading scorer and team MVP for the final 3 games but we didn't fold up shop. We faught through to the very end. We also do not get much support financially or otherwise from our school, but that is changing because they see we are serious. That took ONE year to accomplish. The key is to be patient and vigilant at the same time (if that makes any sense to you). If these people want to be successful, they will be. Once you get a small group of players showing that they are absolutely serious, it will catch on. With patience and a great deal of work to get the word out there.....the team will grow. However, it doesn't happen overnight. So, the difference between the two is the dedication of the infrastructure of a program. Look at TCU, they are making every effort right now to change their direction. Southwestern, Texas State and many others have done it in the past. So, it can be done.

[Karl Lynch]

A three team division is fine. A five team division is fine. A six team division would be great, but only if each team completed its schedule and its paperwork.

[JW]

Small school vs Big School is not a great argument because you look at Southwestern, probably the smallest school in the B (except for Austin College Maybe) and they are well organized and compete on a national level.

UTA which was bigger than some of the A schools fell apart over the last 2-3 years because of the leadership that came up and a few bad recruits that infected our team with apathy and other bad habits.

Still a work in progress.

[SFALaxStud10]

I would like to apologize for SFA not being a part of the LSA B Divison this year, and I take full responsibility as president this year I am already recuriting freshman and trying to get the others back on board for a hopefully successful year in 2007-2008, if anyone has any advice for how to raise some money for our team, I have a few things in mind but I want to prove to these freshamn we r commited. As for last year, joining frats, and grade issues ultimately ended our season and the lack of attendence to practice, so I appericate any advice and good luck to you all this summer.
Josh Crouch
SFA Lacrosse

[Newton]

In general, having someone who does not play on the team that can handle admin or coaching duties is HUGE. Finding someone in the administration that can do these things is a bonus.

More specifically, SFA needs to reach out to their alumni first. There is a lot of money and a lot of support to help that team establish itself again. Josh, please contact jason@texaslacrosse.com and let him and the other alumni know what you need from them. They are willing to help.

Back to generalities: It seems like some teams are missing out on the impact of alumni. Alumni want to see their schools continue to be successful or be more successful than when they were undergrads. Alumni usually have jobs and at least a few discretionary dollars. They are the best resource because they already have a vested interest in your program.

[Sonny]

if anyone has any advice for how to raise some money for our team

[SFALaxStud10]

Thanks Newton I will do that, and I appericate the support of the alumni, and thanks Sonny Ill look into that. Does anyone know if there will be any new teams joning the LSA B this year?, SFA is going to be back, and Im sorry to everyone about last year, it just wasnt looking pretty for the team. This year we have got some Plano kids coming in and they are super excited about playing.