Women's Lacrosse Preseason Poll

LeopardFan04 · Joined: 25 Feb 2007 Posts: 29

The women are picked last in the PL preseason poll. Any chance of a big improvement over last year's 0-6, 2-15 finish?

Lafalum · Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 843

Ali did not arrive unitl after the class was recruted but I still expect an improvement. They are practicing like a Div 1 team and some of those that didn't sign up for that have quit. This team will hustle and be hungry.
Better than last.

TheRock90 · Joined: 06 Aug 2007 Posts: 216 Location: Easton

Doesn't look like they are going to beat last years record. But does anybody really care?

The Maroon · Joined: 23 Feb 2007 Posts: 459 Location: Bethlehem, PA

I'm not going to start a revolution, but that this program was once the crown jewel of our department and that their demise seems emblematic of a bigger problem it is certainly disconcerting.

As Andy pointed out, allowing each school to decide where they are going to use scholarships is making for an ugly scene....Colgate drubbing us 20-3 qualifies as ugly.

Which raises the question...Why is Colgate taking it to us in virtually every sport? It's always baffled me. If there's a school I really think we should be able to hold our own against it would be 'Gate, but year after year, sport after sport, they manage to take it to us. Yes we win a couple here and there, but our overall record against them is pathetic.

This is by no means a dig at 'Gate...Beautiful school, great school...But we have a pretty nice school too! Shouldn't we be able to go after kids and have a decent chance of landing them? To me it makes more sense to lose kids to Lehigh--kids looking there are generally looking for something different (IE bigger). Is 'Gate more racially diverse than us? Is the fact that they are a University putting them over?

Are they saving that much money by not fielding a baseball team? Wait...they have a hockey team. There goes that.

Oh well....Softball, Baseball and Men's Lax are all showing some degrees of success.
_________________
I bleed Maroon

Lafalum · Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 843

Several reasons... Colgate has much more money to spend on programs than us primarily because their business model is more well thought out,
Several obsevations...
1. We spend nearly double of what Colgate spends on need based aid. Colgate seems to attract the upper middle class kids more than we do. One official of the college several years ago explained to me that our strategy was to attract the better students from the second tier high schools. At 50,000 per year that means a better aid package. There are no Marquis or Trustee type scholarships at Colgate. The result is their discount (aid/students x tuition room and board) is 20 pct less than us.
2. Colgate is more administratively efficient. I don't know if you read the discussion in the other thread but Colgate spends about 1/2 of what we do on administration.
3. Colgate is larger. Colgate has about 2700 undergrads and a modest number of graduate students. That difference (400 times 50,000) covers a lot of fixed expenditures. ( which is already smaller than ours)
4. We have 50% of our students in the engineering and sciences which is expensive.
5. We have a terrible PR footprint in the market. I do a lot of interviewing in High Schools. In in the suburban high schools the college advisors don't think of us in the same breath as Colgate and even Bucknell.
I think we have a terrific school but we no longer appeal to a market that looks for the most part a larger school with a recognizable name. We have become lazy and stuck. We do not turn over our BOT often enough for those who have contact with college age kids to understand what appeals to them. We seem to get stuck and blame exogenous factors or old symbols (like fraternities or athletics) for a failure to advance.
Our current plan depends on a LARGE endowment. Not going to happen in the next 10 years or maybe ever, given our giving alumni base of about 10,000! We need some new leadership on this BOT who understand where we have to go instead of shifting blame to old symbols!!

Getting back to athletics. We do well where there is extraordinary outside support to get us to a level that lets us compete. Those sports that raise money well are football,baseball, soccer,fieldhockey. Each of those sports had winning records and in the last two years have at least been in the hunt for title. The exception is softball who last year did well but doesn't raise a whole lot of outside funds.

Andy · Joined: 23 Feb 2007 Posts: 859

The Maroon · Joined: 23 Feb 2007 Posts: 459 Location: Bethlehem, PA

This team is unfathomably bad. The statistics are painful and they would be worse if teams didn't let up in the second half. I'd love to lay all of the problems at the feet of Kathy Frick but this program has been free-falling ever since Jill Redfern left. When it's just a matter of coaching you sometimes win games you shouldn't and lose games you should win. When you are getting blitzed every game it doesn't matter who is on the sideline.

Is there wiggle room in aid money? What I mean is when a program is in such a dire situation can Bruce or anybody allow a coach a bit more money for aid packages? I confess to a horrible naivete as to how it all works.

All I know is I do subscribe to Bruce's stated philosophy that everybody who plays for Lafayette should be a title contendor at least once in their career. We're failing these young women miserably in that regard.
_________________
I bleed Maroon

2008pards · Joined: 13 Aug 2008 Posts: 166

4 games to go before a new season starts. Hopefully a great recruiting class or two and they're back in the PL Championship hunt. Not next year though.

TheTruth · Joined: 26 Feb 2007 Posts: 485