The University of Virginia is tireless in its efforts to praise all things Thomas Jefferson, and with good reason. For all that dedication, however, the Cavaliers ironically find their most success in a sport that currently ignores a big chunk of land Jefferson helped acquire from a diminutive Frenchman a couple centuries ago. Soccer is the sport most recognizably played by so many people in so many places, but some might argue lacrosse is played everywhere as well -- everywhere east of Illinois and north of Georgia, that is.
The manner in which lacrosse is so thoroughly dominated by such a small section of the country is remarkable. Of the 16 teams that participated on the men's side of the NCAA tournament last season, the most western school was Ohio State. All of the other schools hailed from East Coast hotbeds in Maryland, Rhode Island, North Carolina, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania or Washington, D.C. The women's side was slightly more diverse with teams like Northwestern, Vanderbilt and Notre Dame stretching the boundaries all the way out to Illinois. Even so, 13 of the 16 women's teams were from that same set of eastern schools, with the addition of Virginia to the grouping.
The current composition of both the men's and women's lacrosse teams at Virginia reinforces the notion that most of the lacrosse talent in this country comes from the same place. Of the 37 members on the men's team, only one is from west of Ohio; on the women's side, nobody.
The realization that lacrosse is a regionally dominated sport is anything but novel. What matters for the future of college lacrosse is in what direction the sport is currently headed and if a school like Virginia, with all the recent success and necessary resources to find and sign players from anywhere, would be better off if the sport had a greater reach.
It's definitely hard for a Virginia fan to complain about a sporting atmosphere that has yielded a national championship for each program in the past two seasons, but there is always room for improvement, and both men's head coach Dom Starsia and women's head coach Julie Myers view the sport's possible spread as potentially advantageous and damaging at the same time.
"I think it probably would be somewhat of an advantage to us if it was more of a national sport," Starsia said. "Because we are one of the top programs in the country, our reputation is broader, probably, than some other schools."
However, Starsia is quick to point out a subtle effect that could arise if lacrosse were to become more popular throughout the nation.
"The same number of Division I programs play the game now that played the game 20 years ago," Starsia said. "If the game was a little more national, it would leave more candidates open to the other programs. For a smaller collegiate program, if there were more candidates out there that were capable of playing at this level, then they would be able to improve the quality of their programs."
For a school consistently on top, the possibility of many other less renowned programs building up talent is threatening. This is a reality the women's program is already starting to confront.
"With a lot of great schools starting programs in the last few years, [the recruits] have been able to go and, say, play at Carolina," Myers said. "It's a new program, and they think that their path to the playing field would be shorter. We've had to battle that to some extent, although I think to have a tradition rich in winning and doing well and having kids return year after year and do well in the classroom certainly helps us, but some kids want something more certain. They don't want to maybe play by their third year."
If lacrosse does spread, the top high school prospects in the country will have a new choice to make: Whether they want to play for an established powerhouse school where they will have to earn their playing time, or if they would prefer to make their mark on an upstart program.
If this season's recruiting classes are any indication, a lot of the top players are picking option number one.
As for the ones that choose the alternative, "The kids who want immediate playing time, they're not going to do well in our system," Myers said. "The kids that want to push themselves and see how they can do it -- those are the kids we want."
Next season the defending national champion Cavaliers will be adding four recruits that a lot of other teams wanted. Headlining the class is Claire Bordley, who Myers calls "one of the best players to come out of high school in years." These four players are expected to make an immediate impact on a squad that featured four All-Americans last season, only one of which is graduated.
The men are bringing in a group of nine recruits who will try to make up for the departures of All-Americans Brett Hughes and Tillman Johnson.
"The combination that we've had success with in the past is having some terrific skilled attack players to match with some very athletic guys in the middle of the field," assistant coach Marc Van Arsdale said. "I think this class certainly brings some of that."
Whatever the atmosphere, Virginia lacrosse is more than equipped to bring in the best, but for now, college lacrosse is still a pretty small world, something that Starsia and Van Arsdale learned pretty early in their time together at Virginia.
Early on in Starsia's tenure at Virginia, he proclaimed to Van Arsdale on a recruiting visit, "I know about this kid that nobody else knows about and he's going to be great."
"Doug Knight," Van Arsdale responded to the shocked Starsia.
"I think Marc and I were the only two Division I coaches who knew about Doug," Starsia said.
In such a centralized sport, a coach can never count on being the only one to have a beat on a prospect. Lucky for Virginia, that year both coaches were on the same staff and both happened to be right. That scrappy left-hander just happened to finish his career as the most prolific scorer in Virginia history.
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