Oregon To Add Women's Lacrosse As Intercollegiate Sport
EUGENE - The University of Oregon will add the sport of women's lacrosse to its list of Division I intercollegiate programs, with play to commence during the 2004-05 year, according to an announcement by the school's Director of Athletics Bill Moos.
The sport marks the university's first addition to its intercollegiate program since the Ducks added women's soccer to start the 1996-97 school year, increasing the number of sports offerred at the school to 18 (10 women's and eight men's).
"I am extremely pleased with the fine work that Renee Baumgartner and her group did in regards to the research involved in adding a new women's sport," Moos said. "We are excited to be fielding a women's lacrosse program and look forward to providing additional opportunities and positive experiences for more student-athletes at the University of Oregon."
The decision culminates a 21-month study headed by Senior Associate Athletics Director Renee Baumgartner and endorsed by the university administration as well as the Intercollegiate Athletic Committee. Baumgartner, who also serves as the athletic department's senior women's administrator, said that lacrosse emerged as the best fit for Oregon among the list of other potential women's sports considered, which included swimming and diving, gymnastics, water polo, crew and equestrian.
Among the prime factors of consideration that favored the addition of lacrosse included existing facilities, the geographical location of other sponsoring schools, the desire for immediate success, as well as the demonstrated growth of the sport at both the high school and collegiate levels.
"There were a variety of variables taken into consideration that we felt made lacrosse the best fit for the University of Oregon at this time," Baumgartner said. "Lacrosse is a sport that gives us an excellent opportunity to be a frontrunner on the West Coast and field a competitive team."
Oregon will initiate a national search for a head coach this spring with the hopes of having that person in place this summer, thus allowing a full year to put the program in place and recruit before the start of the Ducks' first season in 2004-05. It is estimated that a budget in excess of $270,000 will be in place that first season, while the annual budget is projected to exceed $530,000 by the end of the next four years. The school is expected to offer a full complement of the 12 scholarships allowed in lacrosse by the NCAA, with the average squad size approaching 26 women.
The Ducks will become the first Division I team in the Pacific Northwest to sponsor the sport on an intercollegiate basis as well as the third current Pacific-10 Conference institution offerring lacrosse. Stanford began playing the sport on the NCAA Division I level in 1997 while California has done so since 1999. They have competed in an association known as the Mountain Pacific Lacrosse League, which also includes St. Mary's (CA), UC Davis (Division II) and Denver.
Oregon's addition of the sport will increase league membership to six teams, making the MPLL eligible for application for one of the NCAA's automatic berths for the 16-team NCAA Tournament. The number of automatic qualifiers will increase to nine conferences beginning in 2004.
Linfield College (McMinnville) and Puget Sound (Tacoma, WA) currently are the only colleges or universities to officially sponsor the sport on an intercollegiate basis in the Pacific Northwest (Division III level), and two of only five schools on the West Coast (along with Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, University of Redlands and Whittier College) to do so. Linfield has sponsored the sport for the last five years and shared the NCAA Division III West Region's top ranking in last season's first poll of the year.
Lacrosse has accumulated the base of its support on the East Coast while 73 of the 77 NCAA Division I programs exist east of the Mississippi River.
Princeton snapped Maryland's run of seven consecutive NCAA Division I women's national lacrosse championships with last spring's 12-7 win over two-time runner-up Georgetown.
Teams from 17 high schools in the state of Oregon and approximately 25 schools in Washington are scheduled to compete in the sport this year, with the majority of schools sponsoring the sport in Oregon residing in the Portland area. However, the sport has encountered phenomenal growth as of late, with the number of NCAA schools sponsoring lacrosse increasing 115 percent from 1990-91 through 2000-01. The number of schools fielding teams at the NCAA level (Divisions I, II and III) this year will be 256.
The University of Oregon has sponsored a women's club team since 1995, with participants numbering about 25 women. They are tentatively scheduled to play a 15 to 20-game schedule from March through May.
Nationally, the number of participants at the high school level has increased 267 percent during the same 10-year span, with the number of schools increasing 262.5 percent.
Oregon will utilize the women's soccer team's field (Pap? Field) west of the Casanova Center as its primary game-day site of competition.
