The Oregon Athletic Department will add a new sport for the 2004-05 season, Athletic Director Bill Moos announced Monday.
The new program will be women’s lacrosse, meaning those who had hoped for a new crew, gymnastics or water polo team will have to wait for their sports to be added. Moos and Senior Associate Athletic Director Renee Baumgartner said the main reasons for the addition of the lacrosse team were support from the current club lacrosse team, low start-up costs and a recent explosion of the sport in the Northwest.
“Wow, it’s finally here,” said Baumgartner, who has been planning the addition of a new sport for two years. “We’re the first university that’s added lacrosse north of California, and our hope is to do it right and be a dominant team on the West Coast.”
Oregon was accepted into the Mountain Pacific Lacrosse League, which includes Stanford, California, California-Davis, St. Mary’s and Denver. Stanford has had a Division I lacrosse team since 1997, while Cal has had a program since 1999.
Baumgartner said that was one of the major reasons she decided on lacrosse — Oregon will have a chance to compete right away in a sport that has traditionally been played only on the East Coast. But the sport is growing fast in the West.
“Now that we’re reaching into places we’ve never been before, it’s very exciting for us,” said Chip Rogers, a representative from the United States Lacrosse National Committee. “We’re looking for Oregon to really take the lead here on helping the sport, especially here in the Northwest.”
Currently, 16 Oregon high schools support lacrosse teams, while about 30 high schools in Washington have programs.
Baumgartner used the example of Portland, which added a women’s soccer team in 1992, right before the sport exploded across the nation. The Pilots became a national power, most recently winning the 2002 national championship.
Members of Oregon’s club lacrosse team said they’re ecstatic about the addition of their sport to the varsity ranks, mostly because it’s a positive step for women’s lacrosse.
“Having it as a Division I sport (at Oregon) will give the kids in middle school and high school something to strive for,” said senior Traci Geist, an Oregonian who started playing lacrosse when her high school added the program in her senior year there. “It’s only going to grow.”
Baumgartner and Moos considered several sports during the process. They included women’s crew, water polo, swimming and diving, gymnastics and equestrian. Crew has a strong club team, but among boats, trailers and a new facility, starting up a varsity team would have cost $4.17 million. Equestrian, crew and gymnastics all had projected budgets that were at least $70,000 more than lacrosse’s , and water polo and swimming and diving would have required an expansion to the Student Recreation Center’s pool.
The lacrosse Ducks will play on Papé Field, which they will share with the women’s soccer team. The team’s annual budget is projected at $530,000, and it will require no start-up costs.
Baumgartner said the Athletic Department will begin searching for a coach in May, when the Lacrosse National Championships conclude.
“We believe the budget that Bill has laid out for this program will be very enticing to some very good lacrosse coaches throughout the country,” Baumgartner said. “Hopefully we can bring the coach in by July, give them a year-plus to recruit.”
The Ducks will play a short fall season in 2004, then jump into MPLL competition in the spring of 2005.
For older lacrosse players like Geist, it will be a little too late, but that won’t stop them from getting excited about the new sport.
“I won’t be around, so I won’t be able to play,” Geist said. “But I’ll come back to watch.”