Cornell lacrosse 2021

[gored]

No season this year.

[Jeff Hopkins '82]

Can't say I'm surprised.

[abmarks]

Ivy rejected billionaires offer to spend $5MM+ on an ivy lacrosse bubble

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/the-ivy-league-is-still-on-the-sidelines-wealthy-alumni-are-not-happy-11613397614

OMG, how bad would the optics of that have been?

Serious question here- I don't see the optics problem.   One of the western conferences played  hockey in a "bubble" around christmas IIRC.  What's the difference whether the institutions pay the bill or a wealthy alum does?  What am I Missing?

[Al DeFlorio]

Ivy rejected billionaires offer to spend $5MM+ on an ivy lacrosse bubble

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/the-ivy-league-is-still-on-the-sidelines-wealthy-alumni-are-not-happy-11613397614

OMG, how bad would the optics of that have been?

Serious question here- I don't see the optics problem.   One of the western conferences played  hockey in a "bubble" around christmas IIRC.  What's the difference whether the institutions pay the bill or a wealthy alum does?  What am I Missing?

Maybe missing that there are many other men's and women's spring sports as well as non-athletics extracurricular activities that are not happening as a result of Covid.

[upprdeck]

had they accepted the offer they might have also gotten a few other people to step up and do the same thing for other sports.. who knows if the kids would have bought into it either.

[margolism]

The posted roster now shows a bunch of people no longer there (like incoming frosh CJ Kirst.)

Similarly, some players that didn't appear in the fall are now on the roster - like Jeff Teat.  

Not sure how to interpret all of this.

[Redscore]

I interpret this to be trouble.  Plain and simple.  I don't want to focus on whether the decision was correct or not, but more on what the result of all this will be when the dust settles. Ivy sports may never recover.  The fact that Yale is down to 7 players on the Lacrosse team, just a couple of years after winning the national championship, is extremely concerning. We all were proud of the fact that the Ivys, and our school, proved that you could field teams that were national championship contenders while still prioritizing academics.  The transfers out of Yale would suggest that Elite players just want to play on Elite teams and won't stay just for the academics.  Obviously there are plenty of schools that provide excellent academics without the attitude towards athletics that the Ivys project.  This has always been the case but we now have a whole new level of disregard compared to other schools.  The impact on our ability to attract great coaches will also be a casualty.  We've been lucky in hockey, with Schafer, but not in lacrosse.  And now, why would a top-notch coach want to be here after the Ivys have prioritized almost everything else over athletics.  Why come here.

[upprdeck]

nothing stopping kids from transferring back into Yale though..

[mike1960]

I interpret this to be trouble.  Plain and simple.  I don't want to focus on whether the decision was correct or not, but more on what the result of all this will be when the dust settles. Ivy sports may never recover.  The fact that Yale is down to 7 players on the Lacrosse team, just a couple of years after winning the national championship, is extremely concerning. We all were proud of the fact that the Ivys, and our school, proved that you could field teams that were national championship contenders while still prioritizing academics.  The transfers out of Yale would suggest that Elite players just want to play on Elite teams and won't stay just for the academics.  Obviously there are plenty of schools that provide excellent academics without the attitude towards athletics that the Ivys project.  This has always been the case but we now have a whole new level of disregard compared to other schools.  The impact on our ability to attract great coaches will also be a casualty.  We've been lucky in hockey, with Schafer, but not in lacrosse.  And now, why would a top-notch coach want to be here after the Ivys have prioritized almost everything else over athletics.  Why come here.

Great points. It could take a years for Ivy schools to develop into title contenders again. I think it will happen with Cornell lacrosse eventually. We have a really good coaching staff now. And schools with deep traditions usually bounce back in college sports.

[abmarks]

I interpret this to be trouble.  Plain and simple.  I don't want to focus on whether the decision was correct or not, but more on what the result of all this will be when the dust settles. Ivy sports may never recover.  The fact that Yale is down to 7 players on the Lacrosse team, just a couple of years after winning the national championship, is extremely concerning. We all were proud of the fact that the Ivys, and our school, proved that you could field teams that were national championship contenders while still prioritizing academics.  The transfers out of Yale would suggest that Elite players just want to play on Elite teams and won't stay just for the academics.  Obviously there are plenty of schools that provide excellent academics without the attitude towards athletics that the Ivys project.  This has always been the case but we now have a whole new level of disregard compared to other schools.  The impact on our ability to attract great coaches will also be a casualty.  We've been lucky in hockey, with Schafer, but not in lacrosse.  And now, why would a top-notch coach want to be here after the Ivys have prioritized almost everything else over athletics.  Why come here.

Iirc, yale was down to seven players because the best majority of the team had just not enrolled for that semester. They didn't all transfer out many were reported to be taking internships or other things and effectively treating as a leave of absence.

[billhoward]

I interpret this to be trouble.  Plain and simple.  I don't want to focus on whether the decision was correct or not, but more on what the result of all this will be when the dust settles. Ivy sports may never recover.  The fact that Yale is down to 7 players on the Lacrosse team, just a couple of years after winning the national championship, is extremely concerning. We all were proud of the fact that the Ivys, and our school, proved that you could field teams that were national championship contenders while still prioritizing academics.  The transfers out of Yale would suggest that Elite players just want to play on Elite teams and won't stay just for the academics.  Obviously there are plenty of schools that provide excellent academics without the attitude towards athletics that the Ivys project.  This has always been the case but we now have a whole new level of disregard compared to other schools.  The impact on our ability to attract great coaches will also be a casualty.  We've been lucky in hockey, with Schafer, but not in lacrosse.  And now, why would a top-notch coach want to be here after the Ivys have prioritized almost everything else over athletics.  Why come here.

Because how many of the 74 NCAA D1 programs are more top-notch than Cornell? Five, ten? Better could be better salary or it could be better place to be a coach.

On pay, FWIW, Brown coach Lars Tiffany jumped to Virginia for a salary of $165,000 (plus $115,000 incidental income plus a $25,000 first year bonus). Outgoing and long-time coach Dominick Starsia had been making $150,000 salary plus $100,000 incidental income. $150K for a Cornell head lacrosse coach seems possible but not the incidental income thing. I'm not sure how much life is better at 250 than 150.

It's hard to know how much money former Cornell lax coach Jeff Tambroni makes in Happy Valley. Penn State is a public university but the school has long masked coaching salaries and so far gotten away with it. According to this story in the Centre Valley Times, written by Cornell grad Sarah Paez in 2019, the top 25 earners outside the schools officers (such as the president, $826K) in 2018 were the head football coach at $1.61M, the AD Sandy Barbouur at $728K, football assistant Brent Pry at $694,000. and a bunch of doctors at $1.34M down to $602,000. So Tambroni makes less than that. Actually the top earners included ex-President Graham Spannier, forced out in 2011 (football sex scandal fallout) and still on the payroll at $600K per through 2017. https://www.centredaily.com/news/local/education/penn-state/article233258309.html

On working conditions, Cornell has tradition on its side, a winning history in lacrosse and hockey, it's a nice place to live, there are first rate schools for your kids in Ithaca and Lansing, and decent if not stupendous facilities. It's one of the top 10 jobs in college lacrosse and if you're a coach looking to move up, how many of those top jobs come available each year, 2, maybe 3? Cornell probably holds the record for most lax head coaches in the decade 2021-2020, but that's an outlier. Princeton is the other Ivy school that could be considered a top ten lax school in a combination of salary, facilities, and awesome alumni support especially the cadre of graduated athletes.

An Ivy coach should be annoyed about sports being shut down, but 500,000 dead from Covid is not your usual year. I believe the quote one-time grad student eligibility thing for 2021-2022 will become permanent the following year, or year after that.

[margolism]

Teat earns a spot on the 2021 Tewaaraton Award watch list.

A bit surprising given that his numbers are really, really down this season.

[billhoward]

Teat earns a spot on the 2021 Tewaaraton Award watch list.

A bit surprising given that his numbers are really, really down this season.

Teat might have a shot at being the Cornell Daily Sun senior male athlete of the year twice.
https://cornellsun.com/2020/09/07/the-suns-male-senior-athlete-of-the-year-2020-lacrosses-jeff-teat/

[jeff '84]

Huh?

Penn Moves Into Ivy 'Stage Four,' Can Compete Starting This Weekend

https://www.insidelacrosse.com/article/penn-moves-into-ivy-stage-four-can-compete-starting-this-weekend/57542

Edit - Penn will be "competing in abbreviated seasons against strictly local competition. No team will face any Ivy League foes."

https://www.thedp.com/article/2021/03/penn-athletics-phase-iv-sports-resume-ivy-league-spring-season

[mike1960]

Dartmouth is playing.