Everything You Need to Know...
...about lacrosse.
Beware: This won't be a short, "quick-hitting" blog, which is what most blog-readers go for. You've been warned.
One of the sadder developments with the constant shrinking of the newspaper is our inability to cover everything. Because of it, it means some things just can't fit in the newspaper, and the first to go are, unfortunately, club sports.
From my Orion days, I can attest that I was a big club sports fan and when I was the sports editor there, I tried to feature them as much as possible. Rugby, lacrosse, whatever. It's a Chico State sport, even if it's not on the intercollegiate ticket, so my opinion is that it should get some coverage.
It's especially true today, when the men's lacrosse team is super-competitive under coach Paul Rocchio. I don't usually like to promote for anybody, because that's really not my forte or my job as a reporter. But as a sports fan, it's my personal opinion (I love being able to have one on this blog) that, if you like lacrosse, Chico State is a program worth supporting. Rocchio took some time to fill me in on his program, so instead of ripping through and rewording everything he said, I'll just use The Litter Box as a microphone for him. Sometimes I do what I want.
Here's his program, in his own words:
Here are some basics about this year’s team, the league, the schedule and so on.
There are three areas of focus with this program that we attempt to improve each year, academics, character, and field performance. We speak of these in the order of family, academics and lacrosse and we do so regularly to try and get our players setting their priorities in this manner. We also stress the fact that you can only do two things well at one time, which to this program means that much of the social aspect that is Chico State has to be tempered in order for us to be successful in these other areas.
Going into my third season, which represents the third season after the Chico State Men’s Lacrosse Club made a conscious decision to drastically change their program, we have a team GPA of 2.78, which is just under .5 grade points higher than when I arrived. We currently have 40 players on our roster, up from 19 at the end of the first season and a number around which we want to stay, and we had almost 250 people in for our “Italian Feast” as a part f our “Fall Feast” Parent’s Weekend tourney this, which is players, parents and other family members. I realize these are odd measures for some programs, but they mean a lot to us.
We start the year ranked 22nd in the country. We start the year, according to the national poll, 2nd in the WCLL (West Coast Lacrosse League) behind Sonoma, and 3rd in the WCLL according to the league poll. Last year’s strength of schedule was 25th in the country, about where it was two years ago, up significantly from previous years, where it hovered around 45th. This team was ranked 49th in year one, 33rd at the end of year one and now 22nd. Our schedule this year includes 6 nationally ranked teams, with teams like Cal Poly, Cal and Washington on our schedule that have traditional been in the top 25 and as of right now are not. We play # 8, 9, and 10 in Sonoma, Georgia and Va Tech. We start with a tough road schedule and then just keep playing tougher competition as the year progresses.
Along the way our schedule, and our program, are built in such a way that we can impact the character aspect for these young men. From traveling by coach bus so they may travel as a team from start to finish of each trip, traveling 11 hours by bus to Seattle to uphold a commitment made to two teams Washington and Gonzaga that we played last year, traveling by bus to Boise so these young men can see a beautiful part of the country, visit a great campus and a great town, and play on the “blue” turf, which very few get to do at this level. We travel east to play two ranked teams, but also so these young men can see our Nation’s Capitol, most for the first time, visit Gettysburg, to see the battlefields and to here from one the great lacrosse men on the planet in Coach Hank Janczyk, and then to play in Blacksburg and to visit the memorial there.
Last year it was Austin, TX, that states capitol, and the year before Boulder, CO, the University of Colorado, and Colorado College, plus a trip by the US Air Force Academy. We hope character building throughout. Not to mention playing a national schedule on a big stage, such as Beaver Stadium, or University of Texas at Austin, and on and on and on.
Here is the part that makes all of this difficult. Our projected budget, including play-offs, is $ 204,000. Because we are a “club” team, we receive $ 4000 from the school and are responsible for the rest ourselves. The players now pay $ 2000 in dues, which will get us close to $ 80,000 depending on how many players we have at end of season, but this still means raising $ 120,000. The MCLA, Mid Collegiate Lacrosse Association, National Champion is Michigan. The Michigan Head Coach is the President of the MCLA, because of the football “leftovers” Michigan is fully sponsored by the school and Nike, and they are slated to go D-I NCAA after this year. Sonoma, perennial number one in the WCLL, receives money directly from the student body based on a student referendum passed some years ago, on the order of $ 80,000. Santa Clara, Chapman and others in the WCLL are funded primarily by their schools since they are private institutions and Cal Berkley has an endowment that funds their team that I have promised never to restate, but I can tell you that the team endowment is greater than their annual need, and significantly so.
Our goal this year, and every year since the 2007 season, is to win a national championship. That is why I was hired and why I accepted. I polled our players two weeks ago and their goal remains that. When you look at the national top 25, we have the largest deficit to close each year, and by quite a bit, and so that remains our biggest hurdle. I would not be sharing this information with you if I did not believe this team was capable of winning a national championship or if I did not believed they were not worthy of the support from the community.
These young men are working harder than any group I have ever coached. They have strong leaders and captains in senior Matt Ward and Junior Goalie Austin Raab. There is leadership throughout, and within every class from freshman on up. The level of leadership is amazing when you consider we have 3 seniors and 3 juniors and the rest are underclassmen. They are working together and being unselfish, two things that are critical to being successful on and off the lacrosse field. They start at the end of August with study halls, they play four weeks of “fall ball,” which as you know included a first time upset of Sonoma in OT, they have been conditioning as a team since the end of fall ball and they come back on January 11th for pre-season camp, two weeks prior to the start of the spring semester. These are committed young men, but there is only so much they can do to make this happen.
We have great sponsorship from Chevron, RW Knutsen Recharge, The Body Shop, Chico Sports Club, Caffe Malvina, Mr. Pickles, Northstate Screenprint, and others I am sure I am not thinking of at the moment, but to do things at the level of those top teams we can never have enough support.
We have great volunteer coaching from Professor Dick Flory, MCLA Secretary and first coach/advisor of Chico State Men’s Lacrosse, Eric McVey, 2007 Club President and now defensive assistant, Mike Mitchell, Upstate New York product and offensive assistant, Lorne Silverstein, Syracuse Lacrosse product and defensive coordinator, commuting from Davis, Danny Roden, VP of a major corporation, father to one of our midfielders Josh Roden, 4 time English National team player and offensive coordinator.