By Mike DeSanto
Sports Editor
The last time a varsity men’s lacrosse team took the field at St. Bonaventure University, it was 1993 and the program was Division III. In 2018-19, the program will return to Bona Territory, this time as a Division I team.
Athletics Director Tim Kenney and the athletics department announced Wednesday morning that the university would be adding a new Division I men’s lacrosse team, independent of the university’s club team, which will remain as one of the club sports offered.
“What changed was it was at the stage where the NCAA said you couldn’t play down. So instead of moving to Division I, they made the decision back then and they said ‘we can’t afford it, we want to just move it to club,’” Kenney said. “I’ve heard that story, I can’t tell you how many times, from alums and stuff. To bring it back, it was almost a no brainer, and we’ve done a lot of research on it to make sure. I was speaking to schools similar to us who have it.”
Kenney said bringing back the program makes sense from many different perspectives, both money and education-wise.
“The net revenue that comes in from that program, when you really look at it from the perspective of how many kids you bring in, what is that revenue and what are the expenses, most of the people in schools like Siena or Canisius, let’s say our peers, say ‘that’s our highest net revenue sport,’” Kenney said. “So when we were looking at that, that was number one, because we knew we had to be a part of the solution for enrollment. Then we started looking at what sports would do that and lacrosse obviously came up for the men’s side.”
The process continued with the department looking at the area around the university and other areas where the university tends to get its students. One example Kenney gave was Long Island and the New York City area, using Chaminade High School as one school that could have potential recruits and provide more students.
An additional benefit, as Kenney sees it, would be that the early recruits for the program would allow the university’s name to be more exposed in the areas those players come from, as well as being able to bring in recruits in the following years from their high school teams.
“But I think the demographics, our geography, where the sport is and everything, on top of it all also leads us to have a really successful program,” Kenney said.
The process also included number crunching and research to prove that a men’s lacrosse program would provide the benefits needed, before the decision could even be presented to the university board. Kenney spoke with people from other schools who had gone through a similar process, including Richmond Athletics Director Keith Gill, about the money requirements and considerations for the program. Richmond had previously made its club team into a varsity team.
Kenney said the search for someone to man the helm of the team as head coach is on-going, but no names are being focused on at this time.
“We’re not going to have a problem finding a coach, that’s for sure, but we have to find the right coach,” Kenney said. “So we’re in that process. We’ve spent the last couple of months kind of getting names and all that done.”
Kenney also indicated that the search for a conference to play in is underway, but no final decisions have been made.
Looking at the potential benefits to the university’s exposure and improvement, Kenney said he sees the potential to have big name programs visit the campus, since there is less competition in lacrosse compared to a sport like basketball.
“Just like our affiliation in the A10 gets us with peers, it’s the same thing,” Kenney said. “You could have an Ohio State come here on this campus and play. That image, above anything else, that you are able to go do that on your place, it’s hard in basketball, they don’t want to come here and play, [but] you can do that in lacrosse.”
There are no other new athletic programs in the works, according to Kenney.
“We’re going to take it one at a time. We want to do it right,” Kenney said. “I’m not big into just jumping in and seeing if it goes. We’ll target this one, if this one works and the school continues to grow again like it’s on its trend now, then we look at and say ‘is there anything else we can possibly do?’ At this point, we have no plans, but I’ll never say never.”
The Bonnies will join Canisius as the only Division I lacrosse programs in the area.
desantmj13@bonaventure.edu
