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docrugby1

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ALL B1G teams are ranked in the top 20. I watched UVA v JHU last week in a midweek game that used to be an SRO weekend game in Baltimore. I was disappointed to see this game so poorly attended because it was a high scoring shootout. There are far more D1 caliber players now than 20 years ago. Lacrosse is the fastest growing sport in the USA and I hope NU has the foresight to recognize this. NU has a great women's program and maybe a successful men's program could be established. Notre Dame and Duke with similar academic standards and costs are currently #2 and #3 in the polls. UVA remains #1 because of their offense but they have defensive problems that could be problematic in the NCAAs.
NU should be able to work around Title 9 and find an additional 12.6 women's scholarships to allow adding men's lacrosse. The infrastructure is already in place unlike hockey.

I will keep beating this old horse
 
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Not that you're wrong, but it makes me feel a decent bit better about this that our club lacrosse team has become really active on social media and has those sick Chicago themed jerseys.
 
docrugby1 said:
ALL B1G teams are ranked in the top 20. I watched UVA v JHU last week in a midweek game that used to be an SRO weekend game in Baltimore. I was disappointed to see this game so poorly attended because it was a high scoring shootout. There are far more D1 caliber players now than 20 years ago. Lacrosse is the fastest growing sport in the USA and I hope NU has the foresight to recognize this. NU has a great women's program and maybe a successful men's program could be established. Notre Dame and Duke with similar academic standards and costs are currently #2 and #3 in the polls. UVA remains #1 because of their offense but they have defensive problems that could be problematic in the NCAAs.
NU should be able to work around Title 9 and find an additional 12.6 women's scholarships to allow adding men's lacrosse. The infrastructure is already in place unlike hockey.

I will keep beating this old horse
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I agree. I’d drop men’s swimming and diving and replace with lax. This is the way.
 
Women’s gymnastics is hugely popular and would be a good opportunity. Also, women’s water polo (less popular).
 
WildcatWillie said:
Yes, but isn't much of the gender equity issue brought about by football's large number of scholies? Or are those excluded from the computation? (I dunno.)
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I believe that's the case, 85 scholies for football really skews the balance.
 
It is interesting to see what other women’s sports are sponsored among our B1G competitors.

OSU:
Rowing
Synchronized swimming
Pistol and Rifle (separate teams)
Gymnastics

Illinois:
Gymnastics

Michigan
Gymnastics
Rowing
Water polo

MSU
Gymnastics

IU
Water polo
Rowing

Maryland
Gymnastics

Penn State
Gymnastics

Minnesota
Gymnastics
Rowing

Many schools have both men’s and Women’s ice hockey. It seems that many schools have track and field for men and women, but that cross country is often women only, like NU. Fencing is also frequently offers for women only.

Men’s lacrosse would make sense.

NU should innovate in offering Pickleball.
 
Fitzphile said:
Not for MIT. They play D-III football, no scholarships. Only 4 of their 29 Men's/Women's sports are D-I, the rest D-III.

Comparing the situation at NU to MIT is nutso.
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MIT fields more men's and women's sports than NU. If it's just about scholarships, another 25 scholarships isn't going to break the bank for NU. If it's just about the cost of fielding a team, it's strange that MIT without all those Big Ten bucks doesn't seem to have this problem.
 
NUCat320 said:
It is interesting to see what other women’s sports are sponsored among our B1G competitors.

OSU:
Rowing
Synchronized swimming
Pistol and Rifle (separate teams)
Gymnastics

Illinois:
Gymnastics

Michigan
Gymnastics
Rowing
Water polo

MSU
Gymnastics

IU
Water polo
Rowing

Maryland
Gymnastics

Penn State
Gymnastics

Minnesota
Gymnastics
Rowing

Many schools have both men’s and Women’s ice hockey. It seems that many schools have track and field for men and women, but that cross country is often women only, like NU. Fencing is also frequently offers for women only.

Men’s lacrosse would make sense.

NU should innovate in offering Pickleball.
Click to expand...
I suggested adding women's bowling and pistol/rifle . Use Great Lakes and utilize military coaches while a local bowling pro could coach that team. There would be minimal infrastructure costs for the additional women's teams and men's lacrosse already has facilities in place. C'mon NU
 
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FeralFelidae said:
MIT fields more men's and women's sports than NU. If it's just about scholarships, another 25 scholarships isn't going to break the bank for NU. If it's just about the cost of fielding a team, it's strange that MIT without all those Big Ten bucks doesn't seem to have this problem.
Click to expand...

Awful take. 25 scholarships is a significant amount of money. NU doesn’t even fully fund our men’s soccer team. Pretty sure baseball is also not fully funded.

 
CoralSpringsCat said:
Awful take. 25 scholarships is a significant amount of money. NU doesn’t even fully fund our men’s soccer team. Pretty sure baseball is also not fully funded.

View embedded media
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What's NU's cut of the Big Ten bucks?

If you want to compare against D1 peers, then Stanford, which does not bring in Big Ten bucks, fields 36 varsity teams, vs. 19 for NU. NU makes all these Big Ten bucks and it SHOULD go to scholarship opportunities. NU can afford not to be a miser. If NU wants to field a men's lacrosse team, they don't have to do it at the expense of swimming and diving.
 
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FeralFelidae said:
What's NU's cut of the Big Ten bucks?

If you want to compare against D1 peers, then Stanford, which does not bring in Big Ten bucks, fields 36 varsity teams, vs. 19 for NU. NU makes all these Big Ten bucks and it SHOULD go to scholarship opportunities. NU can afford not to be a miser. If NU wants to field a men's lacrosse team, they don't have to do it at the expense of swimming and diving.
Click to expand...

Didn’t Stanford cut a bunch of sports a couple years back due to severe financial issues?
 
FeralFelidae said:
Nope. They talked about it but didn't.
Click to expand...

Good for them. The reality is that this isn’t a debate. Anyone with any sort of basic understanding of NU athletics would understand that Northwestern is not adding additional men’s teams. They somewhat recently dropped men’s fencing and don’t even fully fund the men’s soccer program. It’s just not happening.
 
CoralSpringsCat said:
Good for them. The reality is that this isn’t a debate. Anyone with any sort of basic understanding of NU athletics would understand that Northwestern is not adding additional men’s teams. They somewhat recently dropped men’s fencing and don’t even fully fund the men’s soccer program. It’s just not happening.
Click to expand...
Sometimes things change.
 
Men’s swimming is also not fully funded (fewer scholarships than allowed),

But here’s the thing, the coach didn’t feel like it was a big deal because NU has such generous financial aid that it’s like getting a scholarship. This was especially true when athletic and financial aid could not be combined. Essentially it was a question of what arm of the university pays - the athletic department or the college side.

The IVY league plays this game. Financial aid is so generous it’s equivalent to athletic scholarships.

The Duke lacrosse coach Danowski recently said at a prospect meeting that since athletic scholarships are so tight, men’s lacrosse is almost the equivalent of a club sport. Most of his players either get zero or very small athletic scholarships.
 
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CoralSpringsCat said:
Good for them. The reality is that this isn’t a debate. Anyone with any sort of basic understanding of NU athletics would understand that Northwestern is not adding additional men’s teams. They somewhat recently dropped men’s fencing and don’t even fully fund the men’s soccer program. It’s just not happening.
Click to expand...
The men’s fencing program was dissolved in 1994. (I looked it up. I’m an oldie and I didn’t think there was a mens program when I was in school. I was right.) At that point, nobody would consider that Ryan Field would ever require a new press box. Or anything but a whole bunch of portable toilets in the south end zone. Or that NU would host women’s lacrosse. Or play in College World Series. Or send swimmers to the Olympics.

Besides Pickleball, Men’s Lacrosse makes a ton of sense. It’s a good cultural fit for NU, and legalized recreational weed in Illinois will give NU an immediate edge over top 20 programs like Duke, Yale, Notre Dame, Ohio State, and North Carolina.
 
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NUCat320 said:
The men’s fencing program was dissolved in 1994. (I looked it up. I’m an oldie and I didn’t think there was a mens program when I was in school. I was right.) At that point, nobody would consider that Ryan Field would ever require a new press box. Or anything but a whole bunch of portable toilets in the south end zone. Or that NU would host women’s lacrosse. Or play in College World Series. Or send swimmers to the Olympics.

Besides Pickleball, Men’s Lacrosse makes a ton of sense. It’s a good cultural fit for NU, and legalized recreational weed in Illinois will give NU an immediate edge over top 20 programs like Duke, Yale, Notre Dame, Ohio State, and North Carolina.
Click to expand...

Men’s fencing still exists; just at the club level. It was a shame they were defunded. Talk about minimal cost. It’s really disappointing that NU does not fully fund all the available scholarships for all our non-revenue sports.

dailynorthwestern.com

Men’s club fencing wins fifth national championship

The men’s club fencing team will finally be able to fill the big empty space on Patten Gym’s wall. After winning the national club championships, the team will be able to hang a fifth banner. The current arrangement of the four banners has left a large space empty since the team won its last...
dailynorthwestern.com dailynorthwestern.com
 
CoralSpringsCat said:
I agree. I’d drop men’s swimming and diving and replace with lax. This is the way.
Click to expand...
You took too many hits to the head , my friend. Back off men's swimming. It is fully funded outside the university and has been for decades. We made sure of it to protect it from dunderheads like you. Baseball has never been...
 
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Pulmocat said:
You took too many hits to the head , my friend. Back off men's swimming. It is fully funded outside the university and has been for decades. We made sure of it to protect it from dunderheads like you. Baseball has never been...
Click to expand...

Yes, that’s the problem. How can swimming be fully funded while baseball & soccer are not? Also, I’m not advocating we dump men’s swimming in our athletic program’s current state. I was only responding to @docrugby1 idea of adding men’s lacrosse. The easiest way to do that would be to drop another men’s sport.
 
docrugby1 said:
ALL B1G teams are ranked in the top 20. I watched UVA v JHU last week in a midweek game that used to be an SRO weekend game in Baltimore. I was disappointed to see this game so poorly attended because it was a high scoring shootout. There are far more D1 caliber players now than 20 years ago. Lacrosse is the fastest growing sport in the USA and I hope NU has the foresight to recognize this. NU has a great women's program and maybe a successful men's program could be established. Notre Dame and Duke with similar academic standards and costs are currently #2 and #3 in the polls. UVA remains #1 because of their offense but they have defensive problems that could be problematic in the NCAAs.
NU should be able to work around Title 9 and find an additional 12.6 women's scholarships to allow adding men's lacrosse. The infrastructure is already in place unlike hockey.

I will keep beating this old horse
Click to expand...

It is really is missed opportunity for NU. Not that I think it’s ever going to happen, but I’m confident we would quickly be competitive in mens lacrosse. Perhaps not top 5-10 but we’d definitely attract strong players.

Consider this weeks top 20 - includes all 6 BIG teams that compete, 4 ivies, 4 acc teams with good academics, 3 other top 50 schools & Army. Hard to imagine a better profile to fit with.

Then add in exceptional facilities already in place, and every home/conference game on the BIG network or streaming. I don’t think we’d even need to fully fund the scholarships to attract good a players given financial aid, although clearly the more the better we’d be.

if we were starting from scratch hard to see that we wouldn’t have men’s lacrosse, but given the status quo it’s very unlikely absent someone writing a huge check.
 
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High Hopes Cat said:
It is really is missed opportunity for NU. Not that I think it’s ever going to happen, but I’m confident we would quickly be competitive in mens lacrosse. Perhaps not top 5-10 but we’d definitely attract strong players.

Consider this weeks top 20 - includes all 6 BIG teams that compete, 4 ivies, 4 acc teams with good academics, 3 other top 50 schools & Army. Hard to imagine a better profile to fit with.

Then add in exceptional facilities already in place, and every home/conference game on the BIG network or streaming. I don’t think we’d even need to fully fund the scholarships to attract good a players given financial aid, although clearly the more the better we’d be.

if we were starting from scratch hard to see that we wouldn’t have men’s lacrosse, but given the status quo it’s very unlikely absent someone writing a huge check.
Click to expand...

Agree on all points. Throw in the fact that we have an elite women’s program, it’s really a shame we don’t have a men’s program to match.
 
I've said this before, adding men's lax makes a lot of sense as it's a popular sport at high performing high schools across the country.

We already have the facilities, etc.

Could add women's crew to offset, which would help the men's program (which would remain club).


CoralSpringsCat said:
Awful take. 25 scholarships is a significant amount of money. NU doesn’t even fully fund our men’s soccer team. Pretty sure baseball is also not fully funded.

View embedded media
Click to expand...

The athletic dept has the $.

Actually it would mean fully paid tuition as opposed to the heavily subsidized tuition the typical student gets.
 
Katatonic said:
I've said this before, adding men's lax makes a lot of sense as it's a popular sport at high performing high schools across the country.

We already have the facilities, etc.

Could add women's crew to offset, which would help the men's program (which would remain club).




The athletic dept has the $.

Actually it would mean fully paid tuition as opposed to the heavily subsidized tuition the typical student gets.
Click to expand...

Sure, they might have it; the question is will they spend it. We don’t even fully find our men’s soccer program. How can we not fully allocated money for all the available scholarships for our varsity sports? Makes no sense to me.
 
I am not sure how funding of scholarships and financial aid are handled by the NCAA. The Ivies have generous aid programs that have allowed them to be competitive in many sports that have NCAA mandated scholarship limits, such as lacrosse. Lacrosse has 12.6 scholarships to be divided among 30-40 players, leaving a significant family obligation. I am not sure you can mix financial aid with athletic scholarships under NCAA rules. My son was offered 25% rides to Duke and UVA, and did not qualify for aid from Princeton. My son decided to attend home state UVA rather than drain his college fund and had the equivalent of a healthy NIL deal.
 
docrugby1 said:
My son decided to attend home state UVA rather than drain his college fund and had the equivalent of a healthy NIL deal.
Click to expand...
The fact that UVA is always in the conversation with UC Berkeley as the most prestigious public university makes that an easier choice. Also, like Penn (Benjamin Franklin), it can claim a Founding Father (Thomas Jefferson) as its founder. That's pretty good company. Most states don't have a flagship with the prestige of UVA to fall back on.
 
docrugby1 said:
I am not sure how funding of scholarships and financial aid are handled by the NCAA. The Ivies have generous aid programs that have allowed them to be competitive in many sports that have NCAA mandated scholarship limits, such as lacrosse. Lacrosse has 12.6 scholarships to be divided among 30-40 players, leaving a significant family obligation. I am not sure you can mix financial aid with athletic scholarships under NCAA rules. My son was offered 25% rides to Duke and UVA, and did not qualify for aid from Princeton. My son decided to attend home state UVA rather than drain his college fund and had the equivalent of a healthy NIL deal.
Click to expand...

You’re missing the point…NU has the ability to offer 9.9 scholarships for men’s soccer, but only offer 5. That’s unacceptable in my book. We should be fully funding the allowable amount of scholarships as allowed by the NCAA.
 
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CoralSpringsCat said:
You’re missing the point…NU has the ability to offer 9.9 scholarships for men’s soccer, but only offer 5. That’s unacceptable in my book. We should be fully funding the allowable amount of scholarships as allowed by the NCAA.
Click to expand...
I am not missing the point. If NU can offer more financial aid than is available through athletic scholarships then maybe lacrosse becomes a viable option(The Ivy Model). I do not believe the NCAA allows combining financial aid with an athletic scholarship so a coach could look for players from public schools for possible financial aid and wealthy prep schools for more affluent families. that could handle NU tuition. The number of high level lacrosse players is increasing dramatically as the sport spreads geographically and socioeconomically.
It seems short sighted for NU to ignore a game that is exploding in popularity. Lacrosse requires unbelievable hand-eye coordination and combines high scoring with physical contact , qualities that appeal to most sports fans. The infrastructure is already in place so it comes down to creative manipulation of the NCAA financial matrix. Scott Hiller coached my son in the MLL so you have a coach on campus,familiar with NU and its financial structure.

I agree that NU should offer the NCAA limit in the few sports that they currently offer. Maybe NU follows the Ivy Model for soccer and swimming already. JHU uses a variation of the Ivy system and competes in the B1G with selective use of financial aid and NCAA limited scholarships.
 
Last edited:
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CoralSpringsCat said:
You’re missing the point…NU has the ability to offer 9.9 scholarships for men’s soccer, but only offer 5. That’s unacceptable in my book. We should be fully funding the allowable amount of scholarships as allowed by the NCAA.
Click to expand...
Why do they do this? Seems dumb.
 
Fitzphile said:
Why do they do this? Seems dumb.
Click to expand...

No idea. Seems dumb to me as well. It’s been going on for years. Perhaps some sort of Title IX thing? I’m pretty sure they don’t maximize all the possible scholarships available in baseball as well. I could be wrong on that. Not sure about the other men’s sports. I believe all the possible women’s scholarships are utilized…again, could be for Title IX purposes.
 
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