The Origins of DII Lacrosse

Intro

SPEAKER_03 0:12

Welcome, welcome, welcome to another episode of In the Creek with Danny and Kevin, a coast-to-coast discussion of D two Men's Across. I'm your co-host, Kevin Stentram, and with me as always is that student of the game, Danny Moran. Hey Danny.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

Uh hey Kevin, how's it going, bud? How's it going?

SPEAKER_03 0:31

It's going well. It's going well. The re you know why I called you a student of the game because we are both going to be students of the game tonight as we bring on a guest who's going to give us a little background and history of the origins of D2. Awesome. Very cool. As you know, every since we did the episode back on about Jack Cayley and Tom Postell, you and I have talked about wanting to learn more about the origins of D2. So we thought, why not just make it an episode? So we'll bring him on in a few minutes. But before we go there, I learned this week that we missed another D2 coaching change recently, and that is at the Uville, head coach Cameron Prince stepped down to pursue other career options. Uh I I saw that and I I texted the old number had for him to see if it was still his. I don't know if it was a school number or not. And he texted back, yeah, it's still me. I said, How you doing, coach? Sorry to see. You know, he said, No, it's all good. You know, I'm gonna try a different career path for right now. And he is uh now working in admissions at Kenisha's College. Uh he just started there and he's pretty excited about that. I told him I would love to see him in coaching again. Yeah. Because he just brought the enthusiasm, and it was great to see.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

You know, out of all the coaches that we we we interviewed and had on the podcast, he was one of the better ones, Coach Prince. I really, really liked him. It uh it was a first-year program. We talked about how he had all freshmen coming in, right? We talked about his plan and how enthusiastic he was to be at a first-year program and and and starting the program from scratch. He had done that before in other programs, he had been part of program starting up, so he was looking to forward to doing that. But hey, Coach Prince is uh moving up to Kenesha, not too far away from Deuville.

SPEAKER_03 2:28

It isn't, he's right in the same area, and we wish him all the luck uh in admissions. Now, Deuville just announced their new head coach, uh, and they announced it on Monday, and he's Jack Wilson. He was the assistant at Felician for the past two years and really helped them improve their winning percentage by by 36% from one year to the next. You know, so he's got the creds also on building a new program. That's Felicians, a fairly new program. He's coming in De Uville as a second year, he's gonna have to build from there. So we'll try to get him on with all these coaching changes and talk to him about De Uville and where he's heading.

SPEAKER_02 3:09

It'd be interesting to see where Deuville goes because now they're only gonna have freshmen and sophomores. There's still gonna be a very, very young, young, young team.

SPEAKER_03 3:20

You're exactly right, but uh, we'll see how they do. I mean, it's it's kind of exciting to see where they go in the next few years. Like you like we've always said, those guys get playing time by the time they're juniors and seniors, they're seasoned.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

That's right. Yeah, that's right. You know, you're playing four years of Ben C double A ball, uh you're gonna get better, and you're like you're gonna, you know, you'll you'll have the ups and downs, the trials and the tribulations, and by the time you're a senior, uh you're a seasoned veteran.

SPEAKER_03 3:47

Exactly. So, well, let's move on. Let's move on. Like I said, Danny, we've been thinking about this episode for a while. Uh we learned very quickly when we were doing research on Jack Cayley and Tom Postel that we knew little about D2 before any time like of 2010. It hit us.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

There's a lot of history to division two, yeah, but it's not very known.

SPEAKER_03 4:11

Exactly. And and you and I know it from when our kids really got into it, which dates us to certain certain time periods, and it's in the 2000s at least. So and we really couldn't turn to our crack research team because that's us and we know nothing. And we have our affiliate research guys, but they're off having fun in the summer.

SPEAKER_02 4:29

I don't want to bother them, they're on vacation pina coladas, exactly, and good for them.

SPEAKER_03 4:35

So I turned to the president of the board at USILA, uh, who also happens to be a D2 coach. He's helped us out in the past. Coach Mariano from from Pace. I said, Hey, do you know anyone that can help us out? It took him literally one minute, one minute to answer me and give me the name that the guy we need to speak to is Coach Jim Fritz. And I can see why. He most recently coached at Brevard College, but before that, he coached for 13 years at Queens and 12 years at Pfeiffer when it was a D2 program. He holds the records for both wins, for most wins at both schools and in the Deep South Conference. And he's in the top 10 in D2 wins and win percentage, and really has been instrumental in the development of and growth of D2 lacrosse. So let's just welcome him in, Coach Jim Fritz.

jim fritz

SPEAKER_03 5:36

And I think we'll just start off with how did it really lacrosse and division two really start?

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Well, uh, my history of division two starts when they brought it back at 93. Okay, and I'm a little hazy on before 90. I know at one point it was like Division II, three, and there was a champion like Roanoke won that championship, but at one point we had division one and division three, and that was it in the early 90s.

SPEAKER_03 6:04

Okay, well, that that's great because I will tell you, I've actually I was talking to Danny about this uh a week or so ago. I went to Holy Cross in Massachusetts, and we had lacrosse, and I go back to my yearbook of 1985, and I don't think it's really listed as division one or division three, but it wasn't like uh if it was playing, it's almost like was it in 1985? Was it you just played who you could play in that area?

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Because ironically, you should sorry to cut you off, but actually, I played against Holy Cross in 1983 when I was at Moncler State, and as I tell people all the time, in the 80s, division one and three weren't so separate. So, like for instance, you're playing us, and we're we played seven division one programs that year. Wow, so it's really separated now, obviously.

SPEAKER_03 6:54

But that's really cool, and I went back and in my mind, I'm thinking, I don't even remember, like when I was there, I remember well Holy Cross Division I and then they split to be Division I and it was very defined in other sports like football and basketball. But lacrosse, I had friends that played. I had a guy that graduated from my high school that was an all-American in high school in lacrosse and played at Holy Cross, a great athlete, but uh it was never like he was recruited, he went to Holy Cross because of the academics, and he just played lacrosse on the side.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

So so what happened was after the 1992 season, the NCAA came down and said, if you're um a division two school, you have to play division two in all sports, you can't play up or down. So um the only exception I think Hopkins got an exception for that, but so they in 1993 Division II lacrosse started, and so a Delphi and Post actually had to move down from Division II.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Wow, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_03 8:00

So were they one they weren't happy, believe me, to go down at the time because there are other sports they played in division two?

SPEAKER_00 8:09

Correct, correct.

SPEAKER_03 8:11

Wow. So it the so let me ask you this question. You were at Pfeiffer at the time, correct? Yes, and were you in lacrosse, were you playing uh up and down, and then uh in 1993 you just played division two schools, or how did that go for you?

SPEAKER_00 8:30

So what happened was when they made the ruling, uh, we were still playing, we were playing mostly division three schools, but we were playing some division one schools like Radford, like VMI, and even a school like Virginia Tech club team, because at that time the club teams were USILA, so the game counted for you. You can no longer do that, you can't play a club team and the game counts. But um, so that became a problem when the NCAA then changed the rules for Division III playoffs, so they couldn't play us anymore. Like, so we lost games like Roanoke, Lynchburg, WNL, Hampton Sydney, and we were struggling. A lot of teams in the South were struggling to find there was only a few of us to find games.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

So the the other thing that was interesting is in 1993 at the US ILA meetings, after we wrapped up, I went to the president of the US ILA at the time, Bob Schillinglaw, who was coach at Delaware, and I said, Hey Bob, um, you know, we never talked about Division II, All Americans, North South, rankings, anything. And he kind of looked at me flabbergasted and said, Oh my god, we never thought of that. Like, just hadn't thought of it.

SPEAKER_02 9:51

And so it's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

It was kind of unbelievable. And then uh unfortunately for me, I brought it up, and then Bob says, Well, can you take care of all that?

SPEAKER_03 10:02

You're in job.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

We had to put the All-American Committee together, and at the time, Division 1 and 3 had sort of a kind of a person that oversaw the All-American Committee. So not only did I have to coach my team, put together the All-American Committee, the rankings committee, and you know, work on North South, but I had to oversee, collect all, and this was before emails and you know, making things easier. So mailing out everything to the coaches, getting all the mail back, you know, here's my candidates, getting on the phone, talking to people, and uh speaking to Jack Haley, my wife got to know his voice very well because he would call me constantly about the All-American Committee. And it was almost comic, almost funny at the time. He would call, my wife would say, Hey Jack, she goes, he'd be like, How did you know it was me? And if you have ever heard Jack speak, you know he's very distinct.

SPEAKER_03 10:55

That's what that's when we did our our episode on that. There was there was um a few there were a few um imitations being done.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Yeah, they were doing imitations of Jack Kelly, some of the coaches on the panel at night. Yeah, so yeah, I've heard of I've heard the many Jack Cayley stories, but continue, it's interesting. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

So so that that all kind of transpired. We all started, you know, doing the All-Americans and everything. But then the other thing that um I think gets lost in the shuffle is uh, you know, Tom and Jack were very supportive of D2, but at the time, the way the playoffs were, they made it tough because it was only two teams, and so they wouldn't travel. They're like, well, we're gonna play ourselves, and it it hurt the growth a little bit. Um but then Mike Sereno at Limestone got on was on the committee, chant NCAA committee, and he's one who pushed for let's go to two regions. So that really helped the growth, but also the USILA was saying if you want to be involved in committees or anything, you have to be at the meetings when we go every year. So one of the reasons that I was involved heavily because I was at the meetings, but there's people like uh Mike Murphy of Bentley, Tony Chiazza, who used to be the Dowling coach, Dan Mulholland, who unfortunately passed away at pace. You know, these guys and Sereno, we were all at the meetings, we were all the kind of the driving force at that time for the growth of Division II. We we sat around struggling because at that point there was only 20-some teams, and I think now we've grown to 80.

SPEAKER_02 12:35

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

We sat around just trying to put together a top 10.

SPEAKER_02 12:39

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

And then, you know, we had a fight to increase the All-American committee because I think we had first team, and I should know this because I was a chair, maybe first team and honorable mention, but it for a long time it was just two teams.

unknown 12:52

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

And then we got to two teams, then we got an honorable mention team, you know, and it was kind of fighting for that tooth and nail for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

Yeah, fighting for that recognition, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

And and extending the playoffs too. I mean, you know, eventually we got to four teams, and then eventually now I think we're at six. Uh and one of the things that people don't understand because the NCAA has a model for the playoffs. You have to have a certain amount of teams to have a certain amount of teams in the playoffs. Well, the division two wasn't close, and they would look and say, well, division one has 16 teams, and they've only got 50 teams, they don't meet the model, or 60 teams, I think. The problem was, and the NCAA made this code pretty clear like we started with this amount, the and at the time, the men's across division one playoffs generated more income other than men and men's basketball and women's basketball. Wow, and the reason you they don't count football is they didn't have an NCAA championship, right?

SPEAKER_03 13:57

It was the bulls, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

So it was just the bulls. So um, you know, that was kind of their argument for not expanding the playoffs.

SPEAKER_03 14:07

Wow, wow. So take so take me back a second. So 1993 is when it goes to all D2. Correct. Was it a which was the driving force and how do you separate between what the NCA was saying and what USILA was saying? What where was that? What were they combined? I'm trying to see where how you got organized under what thing or who was ruling what, I guess, to bring D2 lacrosse under just one banner.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

The NCAA made that decision, really. Um, and then you know, eventually, see, because the USILA before the NCAA came into play in the 70s, they were the governing body of lacrosse. So that's why a school like Virginia Tech say could be a USILA member, play anybody, and that game counted. But once the NCAA started getting involved more, and I don't know why it took so long, but at some point you couldn't, you had to be a varsity program to be a USILA member. And then the US ILA is really just in charge of the North South and the All-Americans.

SPEAKER_03 15:14

Gotcha. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Does that answer your question?

SPEAKER_03 15:18

It does. That that kind of brings me, and that's where you got involved in the USILA and the committee for the all-americans, and then correct. And then kind of was the let's let's talk about when did it kind of split for north and south as far as regions for the NCA tournament?

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Well, as I said, at one point it was just two teams, and if you were trying to make the playoffs, you had to try to play seven, eight top ten teams, like just to get a look. Uh and I have to say I can't remember the exact year that it split, but it was the first year that Limestone won a championship because they had fought for the two regions. And it definitely gave some legitimacy to the South region when Limestone won up at Maryland.

SPEAKER_03 16:10

Without a doubt, without a doubt, it it did. And so at that time, do you remember the number of teams? Was it still in the 20s?

SPEAKER_00 16:18

It was still in the 20s, and then it started, and then we we had a time where that some teams would come in and then some teams would drop out, and it just took a while to start growing, and then they had to keep shuffling the regions to try to balance things out. Like at one point, Mercierus was in the south region. How does that happen? I don't know, but uh, so the regions you know were were pretty messed, we're pretty mixed, and then eventually the south turned out to be where the you the hugest growth was, if that's I can say hugest.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

That's the yeah. So, like what schools started popping up in the south at that time?

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Well, initially, Pfeiffer was an NAI school playing Division III's lacrosse and then went D2. Linestone had just added. Um, there was I'm trying to think, and then uh St. Andrews added.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

Oh, that's right. St. Andrews, I forgot about them.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

That's right. They used to be very good, and we were really the only three teams in the South at that time. And then I think Wing came along, then it started to be Belmont Abbey, and then we had like two teams in Florida with St. Leo and St.

SPEAKER_03 17:35

Leo. That was gonna win. I thought that was like the mid-90s when Coach Jorgensen started that.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

Yeah, uh, a little bit later because he had played at Springfield when they that's right.

SPEAKER_03 17:44

Yeah, he he g he won the championship in '94.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

The only year Springfield was in Division II. So I I don't know what happened. I don't know all the particulars of that, but I mean, um, so St. Leo started, and then you know, they were struggling to get games because you know, teams were like, well, it was hard to travel there. But you know, more and more Florida teams added, more North Carolina teams added, like Belmont Abbey, uh, Mount Olive, Lenore Ryan, like they just started all adding lacrosse, and a lot of these schools were adding lacrosse because they can be competitive, but for the numbers for the bodies on campus, right?

SPEAKER_02 18:26

Putting putting heads in beds, as they say.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Suddenly you got 45 men, and like a school like Queens added lacrosse not only to have more bodies, but they needed more men, they were a form of girls' school.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

Oh, I didn't know that either. Wow, it's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

So these teams just kept adding and adding and adding, and then at one point we kind of oh kitauba, I'm sorry, I forgot Kitauba and then Marshall, but at one point we had a conference called the Deep South, where it was just the southern teams, and then they broke up and became we had enough teams for the Carolinas conference, and then uh Sack got enough teams, so then Carolinas and Sack split, and then the Deep South was kind of on their own for a little bit until they had enough Florida teams, once you know Tampa and Rollins and uh Florida Tech and Lynn, I think Lynn uh all added, and then they had enough teams for a conference.

SPEAKER_02 19:27

Wow. That's a pretty interesting story.

SPEAKER_03 19:31

So coach, what would you say? Can you point to um a time where you saw where you can some point to, or maybe it's a few of inflection points where you really saw that growth? And you said it started in the south, but did you see anything like have we seen that same sort of same sort of thing up in the north? And are there is there's a certain time or inflection point that you can point to to say this is probably why it happened?

SPEAKER_00 20:01

I think it was closer to once we got into the 2000s, uh, and that there wasn't as much growth in the in the north because the the north at the start had the most teams, they had the new england teams, they had the new york teams, right? But the West started adding. So you had teams like Colorado Mesa and Lindenwood came along, and uh right, I'm sure I'm missing somebody, but so the West started adding and it and they kind of fell into the South region.

SPEAKER_02 20:33

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

And and just it just it just keeps growing. I mean, I've been out for a couple years, and when somebody told me we had 80 teams, I was like, wow, yeah, I couldn't believe it.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

Yeah, every year there's at least one or two more schools popping up and starting lacrosse programs now, especially in the south.

SPEAKER_03 20:54

Yeah, you know, with the the addition of Anderson now and and Alabama Hotspill and and then you've got and then you've got about I think we've got four or five that are coming in over the next two years, with some actually joining the GLVC, some joining in the GMAC, where you you you got it right exactly, coach. I can understand that now. The north had them before, it grew in the south and kind of moved west, and now the growth is happening in I think pockets where there are conferences that could could add more teams, like the ECC or like maybe the GMAC, and in areas where it's not as prevalent, they're they're growing in the Midwest with several teams, and it's really kind of neat to see.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

Well, the other thing uh you keep an eye out the peach belt, I think is going to be the next conference that really kind of explodes.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

I agree with you, I agree with that one.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

You also uh shoot oh, and then you have like young Harris.

unknown 22:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Uh in Georgia added. And I think one of the things that's helping all the growth of the game in the college level is the growth of the game. Like suddenly you have, you know, you have kids playing Division I from Georgia, from Florida.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

You know.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

So there's high quality kids coming from all over the country, California. And you know, they're looking for a place to play.

SPEAKER_02 22:23

You're even seeing kids coming out of Minnesota now that are playing pretty high level across.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

Well, and interestingly, and you talk about the Peach Bell. Danny and I have talked about this on the podcast. We see it going to be a great conference, not only for growth, but I think the competition within that conference is pretty even and which makes it even more exciting. But you look at schools like Montevallo and University of Alabama Huntsville, they're actually getting kids locally that can play the game. Both those coaches that we've talked to, the coaches that we've talked to down there talk about how that sport isn't really well known on campuses yet, but they kind of watch it and they get people get intrigued because they see it moving fast, they see people getting hit, it's got everything you want. You know, it's got the the toughness and really some of the violence that you see in football, but it's got the speed and the finesse that you see in other sports like basketball and soccer.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

Well, the other thing that, and it's interesting because I actually had a kid at Queens from Alabama who's just a great athlete, but Florida is a good example of how much the game is improved. And the reason I say that is at one point in the early 90s, you look at kids from Florida and they just didn't have the athletes. They didn't have the athletes, mostly because of spring football. You know, you have spring football, and so coaches, and we we've had that problem in North Carolina, you know, we're trying to grow the game, do free, I'm doing free clinics, giving out sticks, and coaches, you know, I'm from New Jersey and up north, football coach wants you to play lacrosse. You know, the lacrosse the foot the football coaches here are like, no, you need to run track. So that was happening in Florida, and then what started happening is you had these kids who maybe weren't in amateur soccer, they're good athletes, maybe they're not gonna start for the football team. And you've seen that in Florida where suddenly lacrosse isn't getting the athletes, you know, maybe not the football athletes, but getting the athletes. And I think that's happening in Georgia and Alabama and everywhere. And like you said, it's a great game. No, I've never met anybody who's gone to a game and didn't love it.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

That's the truth. That's the truth.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

I've actually when I used to run some clinics for kids that never played before, and the parents didn't get it at first, and I would say, you need to watch a good game.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:50

This is field hockey. This is field hockey. Like once you see it, kids get hooked. It's different, you know, and it's a game, too, that maybe you're a six-foot, 170-pound football guy and you're just average size, but suddenly you're a good size across player, right? Or and you know, you can work hard at the game and be good at it. You know, and not that you're not working hard in basketball, but at some point, if you're 5'11 in basketball, unless you're Muggsy Bogues, you're not gonna make it because you don't have the height. But in lacrosse, you know, I I played against a guy Paul Ceno from Army was five foot four, he was an all-American.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

If you've got the athleticism and you put the work in, and even if you're not the greatest athlete, you can still put the work in and be a smart guy and be a good player.

SPEAKER_02 25:39

100%. I agree with you.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Right.

SPEAKER_02 25:41

You know, I I read an article recently. Um, Little League Baseball is down in in the youth levels because the kids are playing lacrosse now. Yeah, you know, they're saying, they're saying, you know what, dad, mom, that game's too slow for me. I want to all my friends are playing lacrosse now. So, you know, even even little league baseball is down in in the numbers.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

Well, another thing that has helped lacrosse, and while there is contact in lacrosse, a lot of people are steering away from football because of the concussion issue. Yeah, they're looking at lacrosse as a game that hey, we can play this. Uh, but yeah, I mean, baseball kid, I'm waiting I'm staying around for two hours waiting for a ball to be hit to me, and I get out on the crossfield, I can run around, I got a stick in my hand, you know. Good things happen.

SPEAKER_02 26:32

You know, you're 10 years old, they can barely get the ball over the plate. Everybody's, you know, moms and dads standing there for two hours. It's brutal to watch little league baseball. I mean, but my uh sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

No, you you continue. My nephew used to play baseball, and my sister-in-law, at one point, she was concerned about him playing lacrosse. And after he his first year, she's like, Oh, thank you, God. Thank you, God. I couldn't take another baseball game. And uh he ended up having a very good high school career.

SPEAKER_02 27:04

That's awesome. That's a great game, man. It's a great game. I know. I was a Queens, New York kid. I mean, it was basketball and and football basically, and I moved to Long Island, and it it was everybody had a stick in their hand out here. Everybody, and my kids wanted to play lacrosse because all their friends playing lacrosse, and three kids later, all in Division II, all scholarship, you know, the game's been great for my family.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

I've never um I have run into you don't know how many parents in North Carolina who told me, um, if I had known about this, I would have loved to play. We just didn't have it.

SPEAKER_02 27:40

Yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

And I remember in 1981, that's how old I am. Um we went down, I was at Frilly Dickinson originally, we went down to play uh Western Maryland, which is now McDaniel, right? And Maryland played Navy uh Navy at Navy in the stadium, and it was the double header of lacrosse on ESPN. And if I showed you the video, you'd cry laughing. I mean, your local PBS station did a better job at the announcing, the graphics and anything. But what I'm alluding, what I'm getting to is we got off the bus and I'm watching, you know, being from New Jersey, a lot of kids didn't pick it up till high school. I'm literally watching five and six-year-old kids going righty lefty. And then after I'm like, oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 28:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

You know, no wonder the Maryland kids are so good.

SPEAKER_02 28:31

I know, I know. It's amazing what these kids can do today at a young age. It's it's it's great, though. It's great. And I think that's another reason why division two is growing because more kids are just playing the game. Yeah, and I think I think universities are understanding that, hey, you know what, we can put heads in the beds and get teams going. And I think that that's where it's headed. Let me ask you this. Um, since it's growing so much at Division II, do you think we're headed towards automatic qualifiers?

SPEAKER_00 29:02

You know, everybody's been asking that question, and I do I feel we should have it. Yes. Um, okay, you know, but the problem is division two NCAA's philosophy is not automatic qualifiers.

SPEAKER_02 29:16

So not why and why is I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

Nobody knows, like, nobody knows. Like the NCAA is just this giant, you know, pub puzzle, but nobody knows why division two has voted to have no AQs, and that's not just Lacrosse, that's across the board.

SPEAKER_02 29:33

Yeah, yeah, it doesn't make sense because Division II right now in lacrosse has as many teams as Division I in lacrosse.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

And I can tell you in my coaching experience, we we would have made the playoffs a couple of years if there was all AQs. And I think there's something great about it too, where let's say you've got an important season, and now you're playing in the conference championship and you win. Yeah, you go to the playoffs. Yeah, I think it's a shame we don't have it.

SPEAKER_02 30:03

I think I think we're headed that way. I think it's gonna be a few more years and see, you know, how different the you know the conference is because like the GLVC obviously is a good conference, and and you know, they have you U Indy and and and Lyndon Wood out there making noise, and then Sunshine State bringed a lot of noise last year. The SAC is the SAC, and the NE10 is the NE10, it's these other ones, these ECC schools and and the peach belts that are coming up. Um, I think we need a little bit more, I guess, power teams. I guess I I guess you want to call them. I guess I I don't know what I want, I don't know what the word I I want to use, but I guess teams with a little bit uh you know, better better quality teams and to get those automatic qualifiers, or is it just your numbers?

SPEAKER_00 30:55

It just goes back to the NCAA division two across the board. That's the problem. And you know, they need the NCAA president, the D2 presidents need to say, hey, we want automatic qualifiers.

SPEAKER_03 31:07

That's really interesting that you put it out that way because I did not know that across the other sports, and then that makes much more sense. I looked at it from a perspective of if you did automatic qualifiers, you know, at 10 conferences, you're basically at 10 of the 12 slots already taken. So you kind of want a few more that you can bring in. So you want to you know have a get to eight per week. Yeah, have more at-large bids. So that's what I was looking at, but you're right. Maybe it's the inertia is just the fact that the NCA at D2 just does not want to amount, doesn't do automatic qualifiers across all their sports.

SPEAKER_00 31:46

It might also go back to the whole uh ruling of um you have to have so many teams to have so many teams in the playoffs. And one of the things I should have mentioned this earlier, I forgot, that helped the men, believe it or not, was piggybacking on the women in division two because they were able to get their playoffs expanded. We kind of used that. But in division three, they have 16 teams, I think. And they have 200 some teams, right? Division two needs to continue to expand, and that that was hammered home to us in meetings when we used to talk about why don't we have more teams when when NCAA rep would come and talk to us in the D2 coaches meetings, and that's what they would say. You don't have enough teams, you need to keep getting more teams.

SPEAKER_02 32:36

We're there now, I think. I think we're there now with those numbers. Like I said, we have almost the same amount of team as division one, and they get the AQs. So I think, I don't know, man, maybe another three, four, five years we might be headed there. Might be.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

I I think again the division one goes back to the fact that they make money for the NCAA.

SPEAKER_01 32:55

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

And I mean look at Division II, you know, we were I was one of the coaches heavily involved in getting the playoffs in, you know, I was on the NCAA championship committee that voted to go to Baltimore, I was on the committee that voted to go to Philly, uh, and I was on the committee when we pushed to say we need to add Division II and III to championship weekend. Because at one point they weren't they were added, but they weren't playing in the same stadium. And over the years, division two, if you look at it, and division three have been some of the most exciting championships on Sunday, and those games um don't you know the NCAA going back to that, that's why they they want those games streamed, that's why they're not on TV. Everybody's like, why is D two and three not on TV? But they want them streamed. And Division I wasn't happy about getting the Division II games, three games on Sunday, but if it's really helped the attendance, of course it has.

SPEAKER_03 34:05

Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

Sunday, go Monday, go home.

SPEAKER_02 34:10

Yeah, you get the division three team like a Salisbury that brings in a ton of people and a ton of alumni off of the weekend. And and look what Tampa and Mercy did this past year, they brought in a ton of people for their championship game. So, yeah, I agree with you. I think it's it belongs on that weekend.

SPEAKER_03 34:28

I was wondering about the streaming for the games with the NCAA for division two and division three, because we've received a lot of feedback, and Danny's even talked about it because he was watching it from the streaming in this past year and how bad it was. Yes, it's horrible, it's horrible, and and it it it does a disservice to those divisions when if the streaming's not better, because those are great games and they deserve to have a great platform. If it's streaming, fine, but make sure it's a good streaming. That's the way I look at it.

SPEAKER_00 34:59

Yeah, and I uh I still think there's no reason why they can't be on TV.

SPEAKER_03 35:03

I mean, well, I totally agree with that too, coach. We uh in fact, I sent a note back to the media reference, not that it's gonna probably do anything. This little guy's got a podcast called In the Grease, but uh, you know, the our the whole thing was uh we got a lot of feedback, and why are you showing on why is ESPN showing instead of division two loss and division?

SPEAKER_00 35:33

And I definitely feel 100 D2 and 3 need to be on TV, they need to be on TV, but I will say this just backtracking a little, I think fans forget, you know, I'm old enough, you're old enough to remember when the 1983 play at championship game was um or 84, one of those 80s was tape delayed. You got one game a year, and it was taped delayed, you know. Um, in fact, when we were my freshman year on ESPN, we had to find somebody who had cable. Yeah, and then find somebody and then say, Hey, can you find the game at you know 11 o'clock at night three weeks from now? And right, right, right, right. But um, you know, and then we went to CBS took over, if you remember, and we used to get like three quarters. Oh, well, fast forward. I was walking out of the stadium in 1987 at Rutgers at the and watch having watched the Gates as freshman play Cornell in a shootout, absolute shootout. 18-15, Cornell won. I see Leif Ellsmouth, and I said, Hey, are you guys not covering a game? Because it was before the game. And he says, No, Hopkins is the draw.

SPEAKER_01 36:45

Really?

SPEAKER_00 36:45

So they just covered two games. So the best game of the weekend, well, the Hopkins Cornell game was pretty good, but maybe the most exciting game of the weekend didn't get on TV. And you know, now we're at a point where not only do we see you know all the games, but you can you can watch Big Ten Network, you can watch CBS Sports, like fans now are at a point where you can you can watch games all week long. Exactly, exactly. And actually, I think why can't we add the two and three? I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 37:14

And I actually to go back on the streaming side, I think that's one of the things that's helping Division II lacrosse, the fact that so many games are streamed now every year. Yes, and I yeah, I've seen it gone up ex exponentially, I think, just because of COVID and people not getting to the games. Now, going to a game live is a thousand percent better than watching it on uh streaming because it all depends on the camera angle you have, you really can't see things that well, but at least you get to see the game and you have access to a ton of D2 games, which uh Danny jokes about it with me while we're doing our in-season and we're trying to watch the games during the weekend. I've got uh two monitors and my laptop in the middle. I call it Command Central, and I've got two D2 games going on at once. I'm trying to write notes on both of them. I personally have a lot of fun, but it it it just gets crazy, it's so much fun.

SPEAKER_00 38:11

Well, it is it is interesting too because you know, at one point we had coaches who didn't want you would we would play somebody like we had a game with near tech, and they're like, You can't trade this tape, there's no tape trading. So everybody would be calling you and saying, Hey, I need the near tape check. Well, we made an agreement or something, and you know, used to be you're trying to scout teams, think maybe we're playing Mercy Hearst, you're trying to get a tape. Now it's like, Well, I can stream every team we're playing, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

And it's on demand, so you can catch the last three-week games if you want. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I like the fact that it's streamed, and you know what? Some some of even though it's their smaller schools, division two, some of them do a pretty good job streaming. Like I think Limestone does a really good job with their announcing and and their streaming. I don't know, there's plenty, you're right.

SPEAKER_03 39:02

There's plenty that are good. I'm not saying that, but it's still better to see it live, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_02 39:06

Yeah, but you know, the but the NCAA, the championship games, they were horrible stream this year. Like Limestone did a better job with their team. Yeah, NCAA.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

They do a great job. They do streaming, they're announcing, just everything they do and they host a game does a great job. And uh we didn't do as well at Queens. We would we would stream from up in the press box, and so when the ball went in the corner, you couldn't see it right because of the press box, like the angle, yeah, you know what it's like.

SPEAKER_03 39:47

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 39:49

My um the other thing that would help streaming is my favorite when you're trying to watch a game and you know they're wearing yellow jerseys with white numbers. Yeah, I can really tell these kids to make them out really well. Um it's like the it's like the club kids who are like, look at this suplex jersey, man. This is so awesome. It's camo. I said, I'm here to scout you, and I have no idea what number you guys are because we can't read that.

SPEAKER_03 40:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So funny, so funny. Well, coach, this has been awesome. Kind of a good rundown of of the history, the origins, really, how division two started in the 90s, and and we covered a lot of different subjects, which I think is awesome. We really appreciate you coming on tonight.

SPEAKER_00 40:34

Oh, no problem. I I will say this, I know you guys are trying to wrap, but I think it would be better if we could see them on TV because I don't think people appreciate the talent level of Division II. You know, there's there's a lot of kids that get recruited in Division II that are getting D1 looks as well. And there's a lot of D2 programs, and I'm not disparaging any Division I programs, but you could put a lot of D2 programs up against those lower level division one programs.

SPEAKER_02 41:03

And and smoke them. Some of them would smoke the lower level division one. Uh yeah, we have yeah, so you put I would have put Tampa, Limestone, Lenore Ryan, Wingate, those teams are good, man.

SPEAKER_03 41:15

Oh, yeah. And we we talk about this all the time, coach. That we said exactly what you said about how the talent is at the level that you're right, they're getting looks from D1, and you have a choice. My son got a few looks from D1. If he went to a D1 team, he probably would not have played, he would have been on the bench, and there's nothing wrong with that. But he got to go to a good D2 school and he got to play, and he got good playing time, and he was at a school and in a program that probably could have beat my alma mater nine times out of ten, right now.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

I don't know if you remember Eric Dickinson at Lenore Ryan. Oh, yeah, sure. He was getting a lot of sea more looks now. Interestingly, I'm very familiar with him because I started coaching when he was five years old and uh uh tried to recruit him to Queens, but then the AD and I had a come to meet kind of a disagreement, and uh so once I was no longer a Queens, you know, he stopped looking at us. But uh, but you know, look how good that kid is, and he got a lot of D1 looks. But for him, it's like hey, I can go to D2, have a great experience, help lead the team to the championship, be a four-year-old American. Yeah, and I've also had kids that you know went to teams that we were better than because they wanted to just be on Division I or I've had kids who went to a school who played, you know, they were on like a Maryland, for instance. We recruited a kid who went to Maryland and he made the team. He was a four-year letterman, but barely played. And so just what sometimes what you want out of your experience. Exactly, exactly, you know, and uh so I think and I think the scholarship level too helps the division two, you know, how yeah that's happen to be able to recruit those kids.

SPEAKER_02 43:07

Yeah, and be able to stack stack the scholarships. It's a big, it's a big eye-opener for a lot of parents, you know. And being being from Long Island, you know, all the kids here and you know have those D1 aspirations. Everybody wants to go to Duke and North Carolina and Syracuse, but you know what, there's only so many spots for those kids, you know, in those schools. And the Division II, the the reason why Kevin and I do a podcast about Division II and Division II exclusively is because nobody talks about division two. And and what it can do for a family and for a kid and an athlete is an amazing thing. And like you just said, there's a lot of division one caliber players playing at the division two level that could play in division one and maybe play and get on the field at some of those bigger schools and play. You know, Dickerson could.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Went to a lot of schools and played by a lot of schools, and he just chose to go division two.

SPEAKER_02 44:06

And you know, I watched him all four years. He's a stud. He was a stud as a freshman. He can get to his spots, he can get the the rock out of the stick from any angle. He's big, he's fast, he's smart, he's got the whole package.

SPEAKER_00 44:20

It's funny, he was playing in a fall tournament, the fall of his senior year, a recruiting tournament, and I had a number of division one coaches. So I've been around a long time, I know everybody, and they're like, What's up with this kid? What's wrong? Like, there's nothing wrong. I'm just not sure he wants to go division one, you know. But that's how they think, too. It's like, well, if you're still available and you're this good, how can you know, how why are you still available? But oh, I know I was gonna say, Long Island, you talk about especially the beginning of Division II, you had Dowling, you had Southampton too. You had Dowling, Southampton, CW Post, Tech, Adelphi, and they made a good living off of Long Island kids that all went away to school, division one, and it just wasn't for them. Yeah, and they would get these kids to come home and and you know, welcome them with open arms, and those kids could play.

SPEAKER_02 45:15

Yeah. It was tech and a Delphi in post for years, those three teams. And then Dowling, you know, had a couple of championships in there, but they were competitive as well. It was those four teams, basically.

SPEAKER_00 45:28

Oh, yeah, yeah, pretty much. I mean, Southampton dropped.

SPEAKER_02 45:31

Right.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

That was that during that time I was talking about where teams were adding and teams were dropping, and Southampton dropped. And uh, so interestingly, I'll give this shout out to John Jez, who won two national championships at post. He played for me at Pfeiffer. Oh, really? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:48

We've had we've had Coach Jez on a couple times.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

And he didn't mention me, I'm gonna have to talk to him.

SPEAKER_03 45:58

Oh man. There's there's always payback, Coach. There's always payback.

SPEAKER_00 46:04

Oh, yeah. I'll give you, I will say this. Like you talk about the level of talent. I had a kid from England played for me at Pfeiffer, two times you call American, two times American for me. He goes to play for England in the World Games. He goes, they score nine goals, he has three points. He sticks one press by Andarty left-handed, you know, so he could play, you know. It was pretty good. Colin Carr was his name. Now his daughter plays at Hopkins, but you know, that's a D2 kid scoring goals in the world games. Or you probably don't remember because this is a while ago. Pace had a kid, Wasick, who was amazing, didn't get recruited out of high school because his high school coach was pushing some other kids, went to pace, four-year-old American, ended up being an MLL player for years.

SPEAKER_02 46:51

Right. Yeah, they're out there, man. They're out there, and they're in D2, and they're in D2 more and more now. Without a doubt.

SPEAKER_03 47:00

Without a doubt. All right, coach. Well, this has been fantastic. We really, really appreciate it. It's it's it's been a lot of fun. Uh, I feel like I'm a little bit smarter. I'll never say I'm smart, but I definitely feel smarter right now after talking to you.

SPEAKER_00 47:15

I appreciate you having me. And if you need me on again for anything or have any questions, let me know.

SPEAKER_02 47:20

Hey, thanks so much, coach, for coming on. We really appreciate the time and the knowledge. It was uh it was the quickest 45 minutes ever, man. That was awesome. We really appreciate it. Thank you. No problem.

final thoughts

SPEAKER_03 47:31

Danny, that was that was pretty cool starting with Coach Fritz and talking about some of the origins of D2 lacrosse, really getting going when they they made the announcement in in NCA and D2 that D2 has to play D2 schools, but we got into so many other topics, it was really a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_02 47:50

Yeah, Jim Fritz was a great guy. That was you know what? That was like a really good conversation. It really was. I really enjoyed having him on. I learned a lot tonight. It was really, really very interesting. The story of Division II is an interesting story, Kev. It's got it's had its ebbs, it's flows. It's it was on some tough times where there were there was no division two play, and then it was very little teams. And and look where we are now in in 2022, almost almost 80 teams in division two.

SPEAKER_03 48:21

And and it's only getting stronger, it's only getting stronger. Yeah, and that really goes kind of to a follow-up of our discussion last episode about D2 coaches and players being in the pros. As I look back on it, really, I don't have to look back on it. We got a couple DMs for an Instagram, and I realized very quickly we were sorely unprepared to discuss it last episode. Yes, because there are so many uh coaches and players we missed that are almost big stars. Let's look at the PLL right now. Connor Farrell played at post, it's now D1, but he's in the Chrome. He was a D2 player. Mike Messenger on Chrome played played for limestone, and there's a ton more players playing professionally in the NLL that we will be just scratching the surface, and we've got to do more research on that. Then you go to the coach's side, right? Coach Rodney Tapp of Tusculum played in the NLL, Coach Nick Cotter, Newberry, NLL, Coach Brad McArthur, Florida Tech played in the NL. We talked to all those guys about how that influenced their coaching. You've got coach Kellyan Ronker, same thing, and then you got Coach Spencer Wims of Emory Riddle, who played in the MLL for a couple years. And we're probably I'm not probably not in all of them, and I'm not even scratching the surface for the assistant coaches that have professional experience behind them. So we're gonna try to get some of those current. We've talked to a lot of the coaches, like I said, we've talked to some of these coaches and how that's influenced their coaching. I think it'd be great. And you and I have talked about this, trying to, you said it last episode, trying to get some of those current professional players that were D2 players on the podcast. So that's what we're gonna try to do. Uh, we're I'm I've got some feelers out there. Anybody out there that's uh a fan of ours and would like to have some of them, and you've got connections, we could use the help.

SPEAKER_02 50:21

Let us know. Let us know because we want to we wanna we want to get some pros on and guys that played at division two, exactly. You know, exactly play the high level, high level, high level across uh in division two and high high enough level uh and and and and enough God-given talent to make the pros. Exactly. So it would be great to get some of those guys on and talk about their talk about their careers. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 50:50

But in the meantime, we are working on our next episode, which should be a look at what it is like to be an assistant coach in D2. So everyone stay tuned for that. And as always, you can follow us on Instagram at In the Crease D2Lacks and on Facebook at In the Crease with Danny and Kevin. Please keep your comments, subscribe to the podcast, keep the comments coming. That's how we've gotten some of our episodes. That's how we're kind of working with the assistant coaches. One we got that as an as a recommendation. We love hearing.

SPEAKER_02 51:23

We listen to our fans, they come up with ideas, and sometimes when they're good, we roll with it.

SPEAKER_03 51:29

A lot of times they're much better than our uh ideas, so we'll take all the help we can get.

SPEAKER_02 51:35

Uh you're a funny man.

SPEAKER_03 51:38

And with that, Danielle, I I'm done for tonight. I think that's a wrap.

SPEAKER_02 51:42

That's a wrap, Dad.