As a former NFL, college and high school football coach and a college lacrosse coach and consultant, I can tell you that building a program from scratch has been done before! It’s not an uncertain, wandering road that is unknown. In fact, there is a yellow brick road that can be followed. As you may have read, the best team in the country right now did not exist 10 years ago. Navy, which was a club team for several years, developed into a solid DI program in just a year.
It also may shock you when I say that what is a new program today will not be new in three years. There will however be more than 12 brand new programs, or ‘newer’ programs at the DI level than Jacksonville University in that same time span. Georgia State is one. South Carolina, if they ever get off the ground, is another. But more and more programs at all levels will be added in the south faster than you can make grits with cheese! As the Tampa Tribune recently reported in its article about lacrosse in Florida “Lacrosse may be the QUEEN of Florida sports if football is the king.”
And they don’t even have much in the way of organized girl’s lacrosse in Tampa. One varsity team and a handful of club programs that are growing each year, but in no measure the level of lacrosse in central, north, southeast, or even southwest Florida. So, just imagine the growth over the last two years with Rollins (2008), Florida and Jacksonville (2010) adding over the past 16 months.
So the programs that are ‘building’ now, will be on top of the southern lacrosse world in five years because they are the first schools to market.
So, what’s the plan at JU?
- Coach hired end of April
- Class of 2008 Recruits and Transfers Enrolled (10)
- Class of 2009 Recruiting in Progress (12 recruited spots open)
- Class of 2010 Recruiting begins September 1st
- Raise $2 million for a lacrosse facility
- Order equipment
- Hire Coaching staff (Full-time assistant, graduate assistant, part-time assistant)
