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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Fairfax County, Virginia

    Men's LAX defeats #14 Harvard 14 to 5

    Recognizing that it is near-impossible to think about any Duke-related athletes other than the Final Four today, a quick report follows: 14 - 5 victory in Cambridge last night (you may recall that Harvard upset Duke last season, so this is not always a "gimme").

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington, D.C.
    Men's lax has been growing exponentially; has outdrawn basketball for its final four every year for I don't know how long.

    That growth is about to explode with the move made by Princeton's fabled coach to University of Denver. The sprt is in the process of taking up big-time roots out West. When it does, I think that the prominence of the Ivies in the sport, my prominence I mean that the Ivies every season have 3 or even 4 teams in the Dance and can compete and win the title, will be at an end.

    I do not believe that the Ivies will be prepared to commit to a national schedule, which is where the sport is headed. Once there is a national TV audience, LAX could well become a plus revenue sport at many schools, Duke included. On that day, and the days thereafter, shall we resolve to HONOR the Duke III and those who played and stood with them throughout.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Raleigh, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by greybeard View Post
    Men's lax has been growing exponentially; has outdrawn basketball for its final four every year for I don't know how long.
    Wait, you're saying attendance has been higher at the Lacrosse final four than the basketball final four? Thats pretty surprising, especially with games being held in football stadiums for basketball. Where are the Lacrosse finals held?

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    NC
    Quote Originally Posted by Acymetric View Post
    Wait, you're saying attendance has been higher at the Lacrosse final four than the basketball final four? Thats pretty surprising, especially with games being held in football stadiums for basketball. Where are the Lacrosse finals held?
    I don't think the Lacrosse Final Four regularly outdraws the basketball Final Four, but I believe it has happened and wouldn't be surprised if it has happened a few times. They hold the Final Four of both events in football stadiums.

    Lacrosse has three big attendance boosts for their Final Four. First, the field of teams that make the Final Four is generally less diverse (i.e., your favorite great lacrosse team is more likely to make the Final Four than your favorite great bball team). Also, the event is almost exclusively held in an Atlantic coast venue, and almost all of the really great teams are from or are near the Atlantic coast. So the travel distance for the fanbases is rather short. And finally, I believe that they hold the Division I, II, and III championships at the same location, which would boost the attendance counts by roughly triple.

    Lacrosse has a very rabid fanbase, but it is still fairly concentrated to the East Coast (and predominantly in the Northeast/Atlantic states at that). And the Lacrosse Final Four does a good job of catering to this concentrated, rabid fanbase by holding all of their tournaments within (relatively) driving distance.
    Last edited by CDu; 04-03-2010 at 11:25 AM.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington, D.C.
    Quote Originally Posted by Acymetric View Post
    Wait, you're saying attendance has been higher at the Lacrosse final four than the basketball final four? Thats pretty surprising, especially with games being held in football stadiums for basketball. Where are the Lacrosse finals held?
    Foxboro last year, Ravens' Stadium the year before, Ravens' Stadium this year; the last two they were packed. I was there two years ago; that would be when a Dukie cheap- shoted Max Siebald in the first few minutes (4 minute penalty), and without Siebald, who now publically says what was apparent to everyone in the stadium then, which is that he couldn't tell Tuesday from a garbage can after that hit, and Cornell lost a sweeker by one on a beautiful last second goal by Duke's all time goal scorer.

    Yeap, they draw 50 plus thousand and that is without the media frenzy and freebees to every coach in the nation to count for the head count. This is 50,000 plus lax fans. Fastest growing sport in America, already taken over by the apparel companies, and soon to become big time on ESPN's roster.

    Unlike basketball, games are rarely decided by the referees, offensive guys get called for infractions, and lots and lots of guys get to play instead of sit, which in my mind is a terrific plus.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington, D.C.
    Quote Originally Posted by CDu View Post
    I don't think the Lacrosse Final Four regularly outdraws the basketball Final Four, but I believe it has happened and wouldn't be surprised if it has happened a few times. They hold the Final Four of both events in football stadiums.

    Lacrosse has three big attendance boosts for their Final Four. First, the field of teams that make the Final Four is generally less diverse (i.e., your favorite great lacrosse team is more likely to make the Final Four than your favorite great bball team). Also, the event is almost exclusively held in an Atlantic coast venue, and almost all of the really great teams are from or are near the Atlantic coast. So the travel distance for the fanbases is rather short. And finally, I believe that they hold the Division I, II, and III championships at the same location, which would boost the attendance counts by roughly triple.

    Lacrosse has a very rabid fanbase, but it is still fairly concentrated to the East Coast (and predominantly in the Northeast/Atlantic states at that). And the Lacrosse Final Four does a good job of catering to this concentrated, rabid fanbase by holding all of their tournaments within (relatively) driving distance.
    Which is why Bill Tierney's move to University of Denver was named by "Insidelacrosse.com", THE primier on-line rag for the Sport, as hands down the biggest event in the sport last year, notwithstanding that the Syracuse/Cornell final was the stuff that movies are made of. (In case some of you might not know, Tierney won 6 national titles at Princeton in the last decade and is considered the Dean (wink) of the coaching fraternity and fully capable of making Denver a player on the national scene within a couple of years).

    Plans are underway to have such Eastern powerhouses as Duke, Va, and Hopkins travel West to play. Once scholos in the Pac Ten step up to NCAA level--my cousin Mickey Miles Felton, a founder of the league out West and a legondary coach in Arizona and surrounding states, is only now starting to draw a salary after 30 years of coaching at University of Arizona--they will blow the roof off the game. The groundwork has already laid by pioneers like my cousin and with Tierney's arrival, ESPN and Under Armour's seeing dollar signs, the sport should be national in explosive fashion in the next few years.

    Since I can't imagine the Ivies sending teams to play out West (hey, to my knowledge they still only play most all sports on weekends), bye bye the Ivies, which in my mind is a good thing.

    Cornell's goalie, who won all-tournament honors, is a California kid. His old man, in a response to a post of mine on insidelacrosse.com in which I was lobbying for Mickie-Miles' selection to the Hall for lax, wrote that Mickey-Miles had inspired his son to think big about lax as a 10 year old. The fan base is all over the country; the game is ready to pop.

  7. #7
    I agree that the sport is about to "pop." I played in high school here in Durham 15 years ago. We generally played private academies and had to travel to play. Now most high schools have it and there are opportunities for younger kids now (my 7 year old just started). We absolutely love the sport and our behind it growing exponentially.

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