Here’s the official response from Joe Browning, UNC-Wilmington senior associate athletic director for communications:
“We realize lacrosse continues to grow in popularity, especially in this area, but we have many other needs to address before adding another sport here at UNCW. Our goal is to fully fund all of our existing sports and upgrade current athletic facilities before considering the addition of any programs. The addition of a program also has other implications, i.e. Title IX, that would have to be addressed as well.”
Only 60 of approximately 340 NCAA Division I schools currently sponsor men’s lacrosse; 91 have women’s programs. Sixteen teams make the NCAA tournament for both men and women. The number of programs at the Division II and Division III levels is much higher.
Date posted: June 3, 2010
User-contributed question by:
Tim Karp
How UNCW can ignore one of high school’s most popular sports….their excuse will be one that goes on for years…CCU and Campbell just added added womens lacrosse….and how does someone like elizabeth city state and uncp have football- both much smaller schools…too bad uncw admissions doesnt actually have to work to recruit students since beach is so popular….
How is the new athletic director’s proposed plan at UNCW different from the former? No new sports are in the offerings at UNCW despite area competitors CCU (adding football and womens lacrosse) and Campbell (adding wrestling, football, and womens lacrosse), and also despite the popularity of all three sports mentioned, on the high school level
The reason seems to be for enrollment increase purposes that the Division 2 and Division 3 schools, have more lacrosse programs. Since UNCW does’nt have that problem and the popularity with the beach, why is’nt UNCW increasing athletics student fees to add several teams? The quality of eduation and location has made it
to where growth is going to continue, is the athletics department
still in a “60′s-70′s” mode, where only a few sports were
offered? How does UNCP and Elizabeth City State U., schools with much less in enrollments (ECSU is smallest in state system), have football (UNCP added approx 5 years ago, and held on to wrestling) without upsetting Title 9 standards…..questions should be asked why routine answers are taken for grante all these years….
Robert Mack
Owner
Wilmington Rugby Football Club “Liberty Ships”
and our affiliated clubs- see our facebook pics
Exp: Pfeiffer U grad 87′
2 years Sports Info Assistant Pfeiffer (85-87)
843 796-0536
Thank you Dan Spears and sports staffers for this forum and UNCW athletics for their hard work, especially to maintain the Division 1 level of committment that it takes!
My last comments:
Are UNCW officials basing their sports offerings on a least cost available basis? Does anyone believe for a minute that applications would decrease if you raised student fees and added football (div 3- aka Davidson and Campbell), along with wrestling, and womens lacrosse, the location seems to spur on continual growth, with the schoo now being able to fill all and being selective…why is the athletic departement and board of directors not being challenged over status quo? If sports offerings were in part due to whats popular in Div. 1 as a recent comment made, would their still be mens and womens swimming at UNCW- especially since few high schools in state can offer it?
CCU and Campbell both have football and both are adding womens lacrosse next fall, how arethey so different from UNCW? end thanks again for forum and our pic in 7-4-11 edition of star news!