Small College Scoop: Southern Uprising
by Jac
Coyne | Lacrosse Magazine Online Staff
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| The Birmingham Southern men's team may lack experience - all but one member of the team is a freshman - but four high school All-Americans should provide some initial punch. |
The multi-sport outdoor facility recently built at Birmingham
Southern is spectacular. It has all the bells and whistles you'd
expect a scholarship athletic department to provide its
student-athletes, never mind one at the Division III level. The
latest in artificial turf technology, a cushy press box, coaches'
offices and a spacious weight room provide a memorable first
impression.
It was on that luxurious turf where Emily Thomas, the head coach of
the first-year BSC women
's program, followed the faint outline of the 8-meter with a
cumbersome machine laying semi-permanent paint. With an upcoming
girls' lacrosse camp, lines were a priority.
There are small "tick marks," as Thomas refers to them, sewn
into the turf to help guide the way, but it's still a tedious
chore.
"It's kind of like connecting the dots, but a little more extensive
than that," said Thomas, good-naturedly. "What would normally take
eight hours only takes four hours. That was my day yesterday."
At some point, BSC's men's coach Andy Bonasera, who is also leading
a first-year program, will have to perform the same task - although
working in yards and rectangles is a lot easier than meters and
semicircles on a field lined for football.
Yes, there will be varsity college lacrosse in Alabama this spring,
with Birmingham Southern as the flagship teams.
The 2009 season marks the inaugural season for both Panthers
programs, and it's something that both coaches have been looking
forward to for several years. In an effort to help the programs hit
the ground running, BSC hired Thomas in October 2006 and Bonasera
in May 2007 and tasked them to build the teams as a run-up to this
spring.
They've taken different routes approaching their
first competition.
Since he arrived, Bonasera has been focused nearly entirely on
recruiting. He balances his efforts between the big camps in the
traditional hotbeds and the burgeoning lacrosse states of Florida,
Texas, Tennessee and, particularly, Georgia.
"I looked around all over the country and let everyone know we were
down here," said Bonasera.
The roster confirms his claim: players from California,
Minnesota, South Carolina and Kentucky, among others, fill out the
26-man roster, which is made up of 25 rookies. Georgia, with nine
players, leads the way.
In a philosophy that should pay dividends in the near future,
Bonasera is willing to take on any opponent that will play the
Panthers, assuming it jives with his budget. As an example, the BSC
era will begin with a game against No. 19 Roanoke, Bonasera's alma
mater ('03), on Feb. 27.
"We aren't around a lot of Division III schools down here, so it
really is a puzzle trying to put together our schedule," said
Bonasera.
Roanoke is BSC's stiffest competition going strictly by rank, but
there won't be any lay-ups for the Panthers. Young programs like
Carthage, Hendrix, Sewanee, Trine, Fontbonne and Randolph dot the
schedule. However, as he should with a first-year program, Bonasera
is turning the emphasis away from the final record.
"We're telling our kids to get better every day, and that this is a
process," said Bonasera. "We're also pretty optimistic about the
talent we have, even though we're not very experienced. We have
four high school All-Americans and a number of all-state kids from
Atlanta. They'll pick up more experience than other freshmen would
on other teams, so hopefully that will help them lead the team in
the coming years."
Thomas has been doing the recruiting thing, as well, but she has
also been responsible for running a club team the past two seasons.
The original intent of having a club presence was to give the
program a running start, but it hasn't panned out as perhaps the
school had hoped.
Putting up flyers around campus and drumming up general
interest, Thomas coaxed 12 players from their dorms to play a
club schedule in 2007, but after two recruiting classes, none of
the grassroots players have carried over to this spring's varsity
edition.
"Most of those kids, they weeded themselves out," said Thomas.
"They didn't come to this school to play a sport. They just
decided, ‘I'm busy or I'd rather do the sorority thing.' Of
those original 12 kids who I worked with, none of them are
left."
This has left the Panthers with thin numbers - 13 players will make
up the '09 roster - but Thomas isn't in the self-pity
business. It's a trait she picked up while playing in the land of
lacrosse Darwinism known as The College of New Jersey. Thomas ,
then Emily Fellona, played on two D-III national championship teams
with the Lions and was a first team All-American during her senior
year in 2000.
"It's just going to be a matter of conditioning, and Lord knows
we'll be running," said Thomas, a Jersey girl who hopes to
eventually tap into the fertile recruiting grounds of her home
state. "It's great to have deeper numbers, but everyone has their
different circumstances. The upside is everyone is going to get a
ton of playing time."
The Panthers women's teams will be eased into existence with a
schedule that, while diverse, is not too strenuous, with no ranked
teams and only one 2009 NCAA qualifier (Christopher Newport). Like
Bonasera, Thomas has targeted nearby players, especially in
Alabama, to build her program before expanding into the
mid-Atlantic states for players. As a result, she'll manage her
program in a way that will best help her build.
"It's really important that we have realistic expectations. Let's
execute the fundamentals: catching, throwing and proper footwork on
defense," she said. "If we are struggling in what we're learning,
let's break it down and figure out why. As a coach, I care about
wins and losses, but I care about the development and the evolution
of them as individual players and as a team unit."
It's a good bet that there will be numerous athletic departments
watching how Birmingham Southern evolves, starting this year and
progressing into the coming half-decade. If a highly selective,
small, liberal arts college can successfully build a lacrosse
destination in rabid SEC football country, the Panthers could
provide a blueprint for more colleges to jump on board along the
Gulf Coast.
And who knows? Maybe along the way they'll find somebody to line
the fields.
SCAC Getting Closer
Which athletic departments will be watching Birmingham
Southern's commencement? Undoubtedly some of the member schools of
the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) that currently
don't have lacrosse will have their interest piqued, particularly
on the men's side.
With Southwestern (Texas) coming online next spring as a varsity
NCAA program, the SCAC will have five men's varsity programs -
Southwestern, BSC, Colorado College, Hendrix (Ark.) and Sewanee
(Tenn.). That's the magic number for the conference to recognize a
sport and sponsor a conference championship, which will kick in
next year. It would not affect the NCAA tournament, as a conference
needs seven teams to receive an automatic qualifier.
But it would be an incentive for those SCAC institutions primed for
lacrosse - Oglethorpe (Ga.), Rhodes (Tenn.), Trinity (Texas) and
Centre (Ky.), to name four - to take advantage of the framework
already laid.
The SCAC women have a little more work to do. BSC, Colorado College
and Sewanee are already rolling, and Hendrix is set to go live next
spring, giving the league four teams. There have been rumors about
the Southwestern women following the men's lead, and all four
aforementioned schools are legitimate candidates.
As lacrosse expands, the addition of the SCAC as a sponsored
conference - and potentially an AQ league - will go a long way
towards filling out the Central time zone as the sport moves west.
