The global pandemic has brought to light many issues with recruiting, most especially in lacrosse, which is an equivalency sport. This means that colleges allocate a given amount of money to the coaches for scholarships and they disperse it to whatever number of athletes on a team they choose. Lacrosse receives 12.6 Division 1 scholarships per team. All Spring 2020 NCAA sports were canceled due to COVID-19 and therefore their athletes received a 5th year of eligibility, yet the dollar amount for those equivalency sports scholarships was not increased. This resulted in five recruiting classes sharing four years of eligible scholarship funds. Many athletic recruits may not be able to receive the scholarships that they were counting on. Now more than ever, the scholarship money needs to be split evenly across all years of eligibility to level the playing field for all athletes.
In contrast, other sports such as football and basketball are headcount sports, which means that scholarship funds are allocated per head and the money cannot be divided. As a result, headcount sports are not impacted adversely whatsoever. Furthermore, football and basketball have higher levels of funding allocated to their sports for scholarships because they contribute more to schools’ revenue.
Some may argue that lacrosse should not receive the same level of funding as other sports that bring in more revenue and having less scholarship dollars to distribute is of no concern. There are, however, many cases of young lacrosse athletes not being able to attend a college of their choice because of the lack of scholarship money. This year, it will become even more challenging for student athletes due to fewer dollars being distributed across a larger team. Another consequence of allocating less money is reducing the level of diversity, which has been a priority of U.S. Lacrosse over the last decade.
Even if you’re not a lacrosse player, it is amazing to watch different types of sports. This could be lost if we don’t make a change. There are players you know famously for other sports who have played lacrosse in college, which is just another reason to open up your mind to new things. Players like Jim Brown, a Hall of Fame Running Back, played lacrosse at Syracuse University and was placed in the college lacrosse Hall Of Fame. He has repeatedly stated that he would have played lacrosse six days a week and played football on Sunday, if that were an option. Unfortunately for Brown professional lacrosse was decades away from starting. He is now a major supporter of the PLL, which is the Premier Lacrosse League. Diversity within sports and allowing athletes opportunities to play multiple sports should be encouraged and celebrated. The NCAA should, in my opinion, re-consider the funding for equivalency sports so that their athletes have the same opportunity to pursue their dreams.