Bucky Ball: Reclusive Badgers Join MCLA

by Jac Coyne | Lacrosse Magazine Online Staff | Coyne Archive

The sentiment has been fomenting for several years, a groundswell from the players on the Wisconsin-Madison men's lacrosse program to play better competition.

While the Great Lakes Lacrosse League had been a comfortable home for the Badgers for a large chunk of the 32 years since the team's inception in 1979, acquiring tougher competition would mean leaving the GLLL and trying one of the other club leagues - the National Collegiate Lacrosse League or the Men's Collegiate Lacrosse Association.

Marcus Holzer, the president of the Badgers and a senior at UW, had first heard "grumblings" for movement when he was a freshman in the fall of 2006. As the Badgers rolled through their league competition and playoffs, and even bouncing some upper echelon NCLL and MCLA teams along the way, the time finally came to make a change.

"We've gone 25-1 over the last couple of seasons and winning games is fun, but a lot of us reached a point where we wanted to play those tight games, even if we lose," said Holzer. "We want to get into one and two-goal differentials instead of beating teams 13-1. The grumblings were to start looking for better competition."

After gauging the mood of the team and hashing together the information, Holzer and the Badger board petitioned to be admitted into the Great Rivers Lacrosse Conference (GRLC) of the MCLA. The move not only raised questions about the Badgers viability, but could forever change the unique Wisconsin atmosphere that allowed it to play good lacrosse in near anonymity for three decades.

From the MCLA perspective, the Badgers are best described as enigmatic.

They feature three teams - the total roster typically consists of 80 players broken down into Red (A), White (B) and Black (C) squads - that not only maul the opposition in the insular GLLL, but also have handled the likes of MCLA reps St. Thomas, Michigan State, Minnesota and Iowa State in the recent past with relative ease. Just this fall, Wisconsin went down to Annapolis and knocked off Navy, one of the premier teams in the NCLL.

While there is very little question about UW's place in the league - several MCLA coaches feel the Badgers will come in and compete right away for a national tournament slot depending on their schedule - there are concerns about how Wisconsin will mesh with association's eligibility rules.

The multiple-team format, which will be kept this spring with one team playing in the MCLA and another competing in the GLLL, causes more than one coach to raise the potential for impropriety. Could a player be hidden on the GLLL roster and then bumped up to the MCLA roster without "starting the clock" eligibility-wise? This question and others, such as the use of graduate students and even players who aren't attending the school, have been broached.

Hal Rosenberg, the man who has guided the Wisconsin program for the past 26 years, shakes his head at these rumors.

"We haven't had non-students playing for us in over a decade and the MCLA team won't have graduate students," he said. "Wisconsin goes by the same traditional eligibility standards as everyone. Frankly, it's kind of insulting."

Insulting and baseless.

The prospect of dominant, renegade program joining the association may titillate the fan base and spook the rule-makers, but the Badgers aren't bringing a semi-pro team to the MCLA. They're just a bunch of kids who outgrew their former domain and are looking for a crack at the proverbial "next level."

In fact, Wisconsin doesn't have the infrastructure or resources of most top-tier MCLA programs.

The Badgers aren't anywhere near the coveted ‘virtual varsity' status. Due to archaic university policies, U-dub club teams are not allowed to pay their coaches, so it's been Rosenberg - and his philosophy of creating inexpensive opportunities for all students interested in the sport - who has volunteered his time over the years to keep the program humming. The team receives zero support, having to rent field space from its own school for practice and game times.

Perhaps more importantly, the players on the Wisconsin team who are joining the MCLA - the members of the three teams were given the option of associating with the new league or staying with the GLLL - are facing a serious fiscal wake-up call. The GLLL kept the Badgers very close to home with an occasional foray to another part of the country, which kept the dues for Wisconsin players at roughly $150.

It's a ridiculously small amount - roughly 3% of what a Michigan player must produce annually. In all likelihood, those Badgers who choose the MCLA route will have to pony up six times that amount, and that could be a conservative estimate.

"The guys have been working on the budget," said Holzer. "My treasurer has really done a good job of fundraising while getting opportunities for guys and finding out where the costs are that we need to cover. We need to present this as a great opportunity that is not as expensive as a lot of people thought."

Even with the daunting financial implications, Holzer said the response to having an MCLA team was ‘overwhelming,' and on track to compete in the GRLC this spring. For some, this may seem like a natural evolution for the program. This transition will, however, alter the quaint nature of the Wisconsin program that has built a very large and loyal alumni group.

It will also lessen the role of Rosenberg with the team he nurtured all these years. While it hasn't generated any ill-will, at least outwardly, the team's decision to join the MCLA is a mild repudiation of Rosenberg's inclusionary philosophy.

"When you have to pay that much money to play lacrosse, it becomes elitist," said Rosenberg, who has decided to assume the Director of Lacrosse Operations role with the program as opposed to coach. Because of this, not only are the Badgers looking for coaches for both their MCLA and GLLL teams, but they are assuming many of the duties formerly performed by Rosenberg.

"The executive board has been trying to take control and ease the burden on Hal," said Holzer, who said the alumni are excited about the MCLA move. "Scheduling, equipment, and getting everything organized for new and returning players has really been transitioned over to the executive board and the students here. The tough part is just finding a volunteer to just give us the time to coach. We're keeping our ears to the ground, but we feel like we are handling a lot of the responsibilities."

Taking a larger stake in their own future is important to Holzer and the players who want to measure up in the MCLA. They want to show their new league that this was not a whimsical idea.

This was a calculated decision that will benefit Wisconsin and hopefully the MCLA.

"We had an all-team meeting and we examined multiple scenarios that could play out this spring and we broke down the pros and cons of every scenario trying to be unbiased. We gauged the interest from there," said Holzer. "Our initial goal was to find out if there was enough interest to get a full team to play in the MCLA knowing that it could be high cost and it could be a high time commitment both during the games and practicing during the week. To play at such a high level, we need to gear-up a little more and get ready for it. We want to be prepared for it."

There will undoubtedly be some bumps in the road for Wisconsin during the transition to a league requiring more structure than what the Badgers were previously accustomed to. Assumably, conference and association representatives will reach out to this new program and help it navigate through this period. Regardless, Holzer feels the on-field product will live up to the standards it has created over the past 30 years.

"We bring a bunch of different playing styles together and we've created something special," he said. "We have something to show the rest of the MCLA."

The Conference Question
One of the lingering questions after the announcement of Wisconsin's move to the MCLA was why they picked the GRLC. From a geographic standpoint, it didn't make much sense for the Badgers to travel to Kansas and Missouri when they have three in-state teams (UW-Stevens Point, UW-Milwaukee, and Marquette) and four other teams in Minnesota in the form of the Upper Midwest Lacrosse League.

Wisconsin put competition level ahead of geography, according to Rosenberg.

"I have a lot of respect for the coaches in the UMLL, but they are basically a one-team league," he said, referring to the domination of Minnesota-Duluth, which has won the league title in 12 of the past 15 seasons. The fact that Wisconsin beat Minnesota 16-0 the last time they squared off and sent their C team to defeat Iowa State added to the belief that the UMLL wasn't deep enough.

Since the GRLC has relegated its lesser lights to a I-AA, the pervading belief is it will provide a more consistent schedule.

Holzer admitted that traveling south held more allure than heading northwest.

"A lot of us don't want to be sacrificing all of our weekends to travel to Minnesota," he said. "In the GRLC, we are able to make day trips to Chicago, play the game in the afternoon, and be back by night and then still have a life back here in Wisconsin on campus, which a lot of us don't want to sacrifice for lacrosse."

Slides & Rides
- Wisconsin is looking for a head coach, but it certainly isn't the only MCLA program searching for a skipper. The most notable team operating with out a head man is Colorado. A national semifinalist last year and a finalist in 2006 under John Galvin, who stepped down at the end of the year to pursue other interests, the Buffaloes are still seeking a replacement.

- I spoke with Dwayne Hicks, Michigan State's head coach, at the Lakefront Classic last week and he is optimistic about the upcoming season. "We're definitely a little ahead of where we were last year. It was my first year and the first thing I wanted to do was to get us playing my style of lacrosse, which is run-and-gun," said Hicks. "They didn't know what to expect; this year they do, so the expectations are a little higher."

The 2010 schedule bears that out. The likes of Simon Fraser, Oregon, Colorado, Colorado State, Florida State, Boston College, Georgia and CCLA rival Michigan are all on the docket.