Taking to social media, the 2014 America East men’s lacrosse championship garnered attention through the use of #LaxIsland.
Hosted at Stony Brook University, the “Lax Island” hashtag gave a nod to the long-standing status of Long Island as a hotbed for high school lacrosse. Without fail, the area consistently churns out some of the top recruited lacrosse talent in the nation. According to LaxPower.com, the island has produced at least one top-five high school program every year since 2005, including four national champions.
But top Long Island high school players from programs like Smithtown West, Chaminade and Massapequa have mostly chosen to continue their lacrosse careers far from home.
Denver, Virginia, Duke and, more recently, budding Big Ten programs like Penn State, have all found success in recruiting players from the Northeast for the growing sport. Virginia’s roster, specifically, features as many New Yorkers as Virginians. Seeing these collegiate programs use northern players to sweep in titles and recognition, one question troubles college lacrosse fans on “Lax Island” as well as other lacrosse hotbeds throughout the region:
Where is the America East?
Why does a conference like the America East — one of the only Division I lacrosse conferences whose membership is exclusive to the Northeast — have problems with keeping many of its nationally renowned high school players local?
The argument for the nation’s elite players leaving the Northeast often concerns the level of competition in the AE as opposed to a conference such as the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). As far as national titles go, ACC member Syracuse leads the pack with 11, but the appealing Orange aren’t the only squad drawing talent along the Atlantic Coast. In fact, 1987 was the last year that at least one current ACC member did not make it to the national championship — for only the third time since the NCAA recognized lacrosse in 1971.
And in all three of those title games, the contenders were Johns Hopkins and Cornell.
One player for Johns Hopkins in its 1987 title game was freshman attack Scott Marr. One championship ring and two offensive coordinating gigs later, Marr, a Yorktown, N.Y., native, found himself at the helm of the Albany men’s lacrosse team in 2001. In 14 seasons, he has led Albany to six America East tournament titles, his most recent coming after a 20-11 victory over UMBC earlier this month.
While Marr has found success in bringing top talent from nearby to his Albany squad — namely in landing Onondaga Nation’s nationally recognized and highly sought-after Lyle Thompson to dress in purple and gold — he also sees a long road ahead for the conference in becoming a go-to for local elite caliber players.
“It is difficult for any team with local ties to keep guys in their own area,” the America East co-Coach of the Year said. “A lot of guys want to go away to school.”
Marr also acknowledged the current stronghold in recruiting held by the 16 teams that have taken a national title in the modern era.
“It’s hard to break into the establishment,” Marr said of the concentration of national champions in collegiate lacrosse. “When you’re trying to compete for that kind of an athlete and those schools have 100 years of tradition and championships under their belt, it’s a tough sell to say, ‘Come to the new program.’”
The America East has only been in existence since 1979 and in its current Division I standing since 1996. It has yet to have a team break into college lacrosse’s final four, though Albany, Stony Brook and UMBC have all come close. To compare, by the first NCAA men’s lacrosse championship in 1971, ACC teams had already combined to take 12 national titles participating in the former United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (USILA).
When picking a program as a recruit, the choice seems pretty clear.
But the America East has been creeping up in the ranks for some time now. Along with NCAA quarterfinal appearances in 2007 and 2010, conference members have provided storied lacrosse programs with serious scares and, in some cases, even slapping them with upsets.
In 2013, Albany took down Johns Hopkins and Syracuse in the regular season before dropping a close tournament opener against Denver. On Saturday, the Great Danes continued to shock the lacrosse world, upsetting 2012 national champion and third-seeded Loyola Md., 13-6, to advance to the quarterfinals for its second trip in program history.
Sharing the AE Coach of the Year honor with Marr is Binghamton’s head coach Scott Nelson, a former player for North Carolina State’s now defunct men’s lacrosse team — an ACC program.
Despite being taken out in the first round of the America East men’s lacrosse tournament on May 1, Binghamton also ran with top out-of-conference programs in 2014, playing three games against top-20 competition. In one of these ranked games, against No. 8 Syracuse at the Carrier Dome, the Orange barely got by Binghamton, winning by a slim 10-8. Conversely, in their previous meeting in 2009, the Orange soundly beat the Bearcats, 13-4.
On the matter of the America East teams struggling to recruit elite talent from its own backyard, the Bearcats coach claimed “that’s not quite true” for his squad.
“We have several talented kids coming next year from [Long Island]. We feel we’re doing very, very well in that area,” Nelson said of his team. He additionally alluded to academic quality and low tuition as main factors in drawing standouts through the state to Binghamton.
But it isn’t just Nelson who sees a bright future for the sport in the AE. With more school districts introducing lacrosse nationwide, every year a greater, more even pool of talent emerges. With parents and athletes today looking for an alternative to the American staples of football and baseball, both coaches expressed hope for the sport’s progression in years to come.
“We’re what [the America East] calls a ‘top-tier sport.’ So the conference certainly wants to see us [in the NCAA tournament],” Nelson said. “The whole conference has good schools in it, so we should see continued improvement.”
The conference also makes an effort to bring in the liaison as well as America East commissioner Amy Huchthausen to coaches meetings to stress the importance of the sport personally, going as far as to broadcast the conference title game on national television.
It was a 10 a.m. slot on ESPNU, but, nonetheless, progress.
“I do think that as a conference we are getting stronger,” Marr said. “We’re just finding more and more athletes who are playing our game, and we have more of an opportunity to find good players.”