As my teammates and I finished our final game of the 2022 season in over 100-degree weather in Round Rock, Texas, I knew we had proved our worth. Our West Coast club college lacrosse team, all the way from the University of Southern California, had now beaten and closely competed with some of its East Coast and other non-California counterparts on a national stage, finishing as one of the eight best in the country on the season.
But despite USC’s success at the club level, as well as the national success of a few other California schools during the same season, there are still no NCAA Division I or II programs offered in the state for men. And after this spring, there won’t be any NCAA lacrosse programs in the state for men at all.
Club vs. NCAA
The distinction between club lacrosse and NCAA lacrosse is important, as all three NCAA college divisions traditionally provide for a more committed and high-level lacrosse experience than playing on a club college team.
Youth and high school players across the country strive for athletic scholarships to play at top NCAA Division I programs such as Maryland, Johns Hopkins or Notre Dame. And while Ivy League schools do not award athletic scholarships, their programs still represent this highest level of DI college lacrosse. So, many top recruits still seek to play at Ivy League schools like Harvard, Yale or Cornell either on their own dime or under financial aid and/or athletic scholarships. NCAA Division I lacrosse schools field the best of the best in terms of recruiting and talent.
NCAA Division II programs can similarly offer athletic scholarships to players at a slightly reduced level of competition, and although Division III schools can’t offer athletic scholarships, “75 percent of Division III student-athletes receive some form of merit or need-based financial aid,” according to the NCAA website.
Club lacrosse, organized in a league called the Men’s Collegiate Lacrosse Association (MCLA), consists of teams from colleges either without NCAA programs or with enough demand to field both an NCAA and MCLA team. Players from an MCLA team, including myself, pay for their lacrosse experience out-of-pocket to fund a season including games, field space, referees, travel, coaching, etc., and the level of competition and commitment is typically lower than any of the NCAA divisions.
USC Men’s Lacrosse 2022
USC men’s club lacrosse came a long way to reach a season as successful as 2022. Losing records and lackadaisical attendance, which included a playoff appearance abandoned by players who wanted to attend Coachella, had plagued previous seasons. But just before global crisis struck in 2020, USC had found its stride.
After tearing my ACL and missing all of my freshman 2019 season, I was thrilled to play out my first real college lacrosse season as a sophomore in 2020 with USC’s club team.
We celebrated our eighth win of that season, on Mar. 7, 2020, as a sign of the program’s best start in history. But less than a week later, all of our remaining games for the season were canceled due to the pandemic.
Fast forward to spring of 2022, and USC is off to another hot start. Winning six out of our first seven games, our team finished the regular season with a record of 10-4 and a national ranking of 12th. With those stats, we earned a trip to Tucson, Arizona, to play against our region’s three other best teams for conference playoffs.
One weekend trip and two victories later, USC was crowned Southwestern Lacrosse Conference (SLC) Champions for the first time in program history.
“In terms of the SLC Championship, that was just really cool because that was the first time that USC had ever done it,” said Selden Leonard, 2022 USC senior defenseman and NCAA Division I transfer from Cornell University.
Leonard told me that the championship title meant even more to him because of the USC head coach he was playing for: Jake Van Nostrand.
“I know Jake would talk to us a lot about the year before me and you got to USC, and how it was like really a joke of a program and like nobody cared and nobody viewed it as like a positive in the league or at the school. So especially because Jake’s just like the best dude ever, it was really cool to do it for him, because he puts so much into the program and really cares about it a lot more than any individual kid does,” Leonard said.
With a conference title under our belt, the team earned another trip. This time, to Round Rock, Texas for USC’s first 16-team national club tournament appearance. By this point, our overall record was 12-4, and we had a national ranking of 7th, which was unprecedented in the program’s history. We didn’t know exactly what to expect, but our streak was too hot to stop.
Playing in blazing hot Texas heat in May on a turf field, the elements were against us, but luckily that meant they were also against our first opponent, Boston College. As the tournament’s 10-seed, BC was assigned to be our first victim, and beating them solidified us a spot in the quarterfinals and therefore final eight teams in the nation.
Unfortunately, our luck ran out the next day, as we lost to Brigham Young University during another hot day on the Texas turf. The 2022 season and my collegiate lacrosse career came to a close. But the accolades we had achieved by then spoke for themselves and for Coach Van Nostrand, and the effect has lasted beyond our time in Texas.
“It’s really gained a lot of respect for us. Like I said, there was a little bit of turmoil and then we were kind of like a .500 club for a little while. But we have kind of earned that respect,” Van Nostrand said about the outcome of the 2022 season. “So, there’s a lot of coaches who are like, ‘Okay, this program’s on the rise.’ And with that, we’re starting to get a lot more kids interested in being able to come to L.A. and go to a great university and get a great degree and still be able to play lacrosse at a pretty high level and, you know, compete for championships.”
USC isn’t the only West Coast men’s club team competing for championships either. Concordia Irvine, Cal Poly, Arizona and Grand Canyon also played in the 2022 national tournament in Texas, all taking losses in the first round of 16 teams. And historically, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Barbara, Chapman and other California club programs have made impressive playoff runs in the MCLA.
West Coast and California Lacrosse
Lacrosse in the western United States has long been viewed as inferior and underdeveloped relative to the sport’s presence on the East Coast, ranging all the way from early youth programs up to the highest level of collegiate men’s lacrosse. While the northeastern geographic origins of the game clearly explain how the East Coast got a head start on the West, the sport has grown exponentially since its creation, expanding like wildfire from the depths of hotbed states like Maryland, Massachusetts and New York into the rest of the country.
As it tends to do, California caught some of that wildfire, and youth and high school programs are now abundant and flourishing in many parts of the state.
“You’ve seen the sport grow, right? It’s booming, especially in California here,” Van Nostrand said. “There’s a lot more youth kids. Some of the youth club teams out of California are on the national level and beating the teams from all across the country. And so now you have that surge of athletes and players who are learning the sport at a young age in California, and there’s no NCAA lacrosse teams in California.”
Except for one NCAA Division III team, Van Nostrand is right about the absence of programs in the state. That exception is Whittier College, a small liberal arts college in Whittier, California. But after the current 2023 spring lacrosse season, Whittier’s DIII program will be shut down, reinforcing Van Nostrand’s point about the complete lack of California NCAA men’s lacrosse.
While youth lacrosse may be thriving in the state, this interactive map of the NCAA Division I men’s programs in America by conference proves that top recruits from California will almost surely be looking East to play collegiate lacrosse.
What Do Players Want?
But do all college lacrosse players want an NCAA team at a school like USC, or would they prefer the more laid-back atmosphere of a club team? Three players who transferred to USC from NCAA lacrosse programs on the East Coast offer some insight.
Donovan Econn is currently a senior defenseman and one of the team captains for USC. Econn grew up in Los Angeles, where he played local youth and high school lacrosse before going on to play NCAA Division III at Wesleyan University in Connecticut for a year.
Coming from California, Econn knew his hometown wasn’t exactly the country’s hub for lacrosse.
“If you tell someone you play lacrosse here in high school they’d be like, ‘What’s that? Is that with a stick? Like, is that like hockey?’” Econn said.
Econn had to adjust to a whole new lacrosse atmosphere upon arriving at Wesleyan and joining an East Coast NCAA team.
“I didn’t really understand the whole culture of it, and how big of a part it was of people’s lives until I kind of got to the East Coast and was part of that lacrosse culture,” Econn said. “A lot more people play. So the level of competition was definitely higher and people took it a little more seriously.”
He loved his time on the team at Wesleyan, but he found a more fitting school for himself by transferring to USC.
“It was a tough decision leaving the team because I made a lot of good friends and, you know, had some chemistry going and, you know, could definitely see myself playing out the four years there. But at the end of the day, I just wanted to be in L.A. and wanted to study real estate and wanted to go to a school like USC,” Econn said.
Ryder Mora, a 2022 USC senior midfielder, also grew up playing lacrosse in Los Angeles. He attended Maryland University and played on their historically dominant Division I team for his freshman year before transferring to USC and therefore back to his home city.
Speaking on his transition from West Coast high school lacrosse to Maryland, Mora noted, “Everyone is there for the same reason, which is to play lacrosse and win lacrosse games. The attitude definitely shifts from like ‘this is like a fun thing that we do, you know, on the side – we have school, all these other things, high school stuff…’ and then you go to college and it’s kind of like, okay, like your life is going to be like helping this team win games, which is 100% like a great experience in itself.”
Realizing why he wanted a change from Maryland, Mora told me that “they don’t really leave you much time for anything other than lacrosse… I felt like I was kind of missing out on what I had built up in my head to be what college was, which kind of prompted me to look into USC, and like I applied to a couple other schools, but, you know, looking to a different school to be like, ‘Okay, well, maybe I can do both lacrosse and, you know, have a social life.’”
Selden Leonard, the former Cornell lacrosse player, also transferred to USC, but having started his lacrosse career in fifth grade on Long Island, New York, his journey to L.A. looked slightly different.
“My goal was to play lacrosse at an Ivy League school. That was the goal. And Cornell was my first offer. That was great. That was what I wanted, you know what I mean? So, it wasn’t a hard decision to say yes. But, you know, looking back, also, I was a freshman in high school, so like, what do I actually know about where I want to go to school?” Leonard told me.
He said his experience at Cornell was draining.
“It was really just high stress,” Leonard said.
But for Leonard, playing there meant achieving the goal set by his younger self.
“It was cool, like getting to live out my dream, you know?” Leonard said.
Leonard committed to playing lacrosse at Cornell in ninth grade, but after playing with the team for a few months, he decided to reconsider. He said that after considering a transfer and visiting USC with his mother during his year at Cornell, he couldn’t get the school and Los Angeles weather off his mind.
“I was like, ‘Mom, please, whatever you do, don’t make me go visit USC and then go back to Cornell, because I will literally just think about it every single day.’ And she was like, ‘No, you have to go.’ So, we went and visited USC over winter break and exactly that happened. It was awesome. I thought about it every day back in the cold, snowing sideways right in my eyes,” Leonard said.
Econn, Mora and Leonard all transferred to USC as sophomores and joined the school’s club team almost immediately. They said that although it had hiccups, USC’s club program was a great balance between talent and commitment.
“There’s a little less structure, I’d say. I mean, with NCAA, you have a lot more regulation, you have a lot more structure to games. Just feels like the school is a lot more a part of it than it is at USC,” Econn said. “At USC, it seems like the school is very hands-off, you know, despite so many people being so invested in it.”
“It’s funny in that like you have all this talent and effort and people showing up to go do stuff. But then in like weird ways that that you wouldn’t have in high school, there are like kind of gaps. Like you don’t have a defensive coach during a game. Like, okay, actually we don’t have a field to play on, so now all of our games are away games,” Leonard said.
Despite bumps in the road, Leonard enjoyed his time on the team.
“But you know, it was really, really fun and a great, great group of guys,” Leonard said.
Mora told me he got more than he expected out of the USC club lacrosse experience.
“Playing club, I think my goals were to just like – One, to have fun. And two, to get to just keep playing good lacrosse, you know. Pretty low bar, and they were exceeded,” Mora said.
Leonard had similar goals in mind for his time on the team.
“I wanted it to be good enough that it was fun, you know, like that it’s not a bunch of kids who can’t pass and catch. Good enough that it was fun, and low enough commitment that I could experience college in the ways that I wasn’t able to at Cornell. And I think it was like the absolute perfect balance of that,” Leonard said.
Mora said the tradeoff was worth it for him.
“I feel like I gave up kind of that opportunity for myself to be playing on like one of the best teams in the country, like the highest-level lacrosse and like kind of just being as good as I can be. And I was bummed about that. And I still, you know, still am a little bummed about it,” Mora said. “But I think the fact that – going to SC I gained so much more in terms of like being a well-rounded person, student, you know, like better at academics, got to meet more people, like network more. And I think I gained so much just like experience that I was looking for in college that it outweighs the fact that, like, I didn’t keep playing [NCAA] lacrosse.”
Leonard felt the same way about leaving Cornell for USC.
“I remember me and [Mora] would have some conversations about how it just eats at you a little bit. Because you know, our freshman year was like the peak. That was the best I will ever be,” Leonard said. “But overall, it was awesome. And that was what I wanted. And I got to do a lot of other things instead of just get better at lacrosse.”
Econn, Mora and Leonard clearly appreciated the freedom that came along with the club lacrosse experience, but when I asked if they would have wanted to play Division I lacrosse at USC, their responses were almost the same.
“I definitely would have. The Pac-12, and honestly a lot of different West Coast schools, if they had DI programs, then they would be attractive places to go,” Mora said.
Econn, too, sees the recruiting potential for a DI program at USC.
“I think USC, being such an academically strong school and, you know, strong in other sports too, definitely has the resources to devote to that. And if they did, I think they would be able to recruit a lot of local talent,” Econn said.
Leonard agrees.
“That would be the coolest thing ever and USC should totally do it,” Leonard said. “My prediction for USC is that in either four or five years after starting a DI program, I think that they have at least like a quarterfinal national championship run.”
Introducing an NCAA team at USC would not mean the end of its club team unless the demand for a club team dropped below minimum roster requirements. But the University of Utah is a prime example of a school with a new Division I team that coexists with a still very active club team, so USC’s club program would likely stay alive.
“I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about if USC had a DI team,” Leonard continued. “And I’ve looked into it. Apparently, they were going to have one like ten years ago.”
So Close Yet So Far
In 2010, USC’s then-president, C.L. Max Nikias, told student news outlets about the addition of a Division I women’s lacrosse team at USC. He also mentioned plans to add a men’s team in the future.
Daily Trojan quoted Nikias as saying, “‘I wanted to give priority to the women lacrosse and then in the next three to five years I think we are going to be in a position to also introduce a men’s lacrosse team.’”
USC’s women’s lacrosse team has been competing at the Division I level since the spring of 2013, and many other notable California colleges also currently support DI women’s teams.
While Nikias never fulfilled his plans for an NCAA DI men’s team at USC, some West Coast lacrosse enthusiasts still believe that implementing NCAA men’s teams in California would do wonders for the game.
Moving Forward
Larry Turkheimer, UCLA’s men’s club lacrosse head coach, thinks that the introduction of NCAA men’s programs in the West would bring about not only new recruits, but also a whole new wave of coaches rushing to cash in on the California lacrosse gold mine.
“It would only impact the sport in a positive way. I think that there would be an influx of [former] college players who would migrate out here to take over some of these high school programs and probably some of these college programs,” Turkheimer said. “Maybe a coach who’s on a staff at Maryland or a coach who’s on a staff at Vermont or places like that. And the interviewing would be extensive at the college level. And then at the high school level it’d be like a gold rush.”
But for UCLA’s club team, Turkheimer believes it will be at least seven years before the school has a discussion about the team moving to the NCAA level.
“Unless universities commit to big money for this non-revenue situation, which is very expensive,” Turkheimer said. “We used to get [money] before COVID hit, and then all of a sudden the recreation department decided not to give anybody any more money. So all the money we raise is from you writing a check to play.”
Turkheimer supports the sport’s development in the West, but remains doubtful about collegiate expansion.
“I think that, you know, the growth of the sport out here is great. I don’t foresee a repeat of Utah or Denver in the near future,” Turkheimer said.
Van Nostrand said that while there are rumors of some California schools trying to make the jump from club to NCAA, the main inhibiting factors for USC and many other schools are Title IX and lack of funding.
Enforced by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 states, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
Title IX maintains equality between men’s and women’s sports at American universities receiving federal money, so essentially, USC would have to remove a Division I men’s sport or add a DI women’s sport to make room for a DI men’s lacrosse team.
And as far as funding goes, USC would have to find the money to pay for scholarships, coaching, equipment, travel, etc., for its new team of players. Without a guarantee that the team would become profitable (via viewership, merchandise, etc.) and make money back for the school, that is a hard sell even without the parameters of Title IX.
“You know, with funding and Title IX, there’s a lot more logistics that need to get kind of ironed out,” Van Nostrand said. “But the success of the program definitely helps bring light from alumni and from people like, ‘Hey, why don’t they have a DI team? Let’s figure out what the next steps are to getting them a DI team.’”
I reached out to the USC sports department and USC President Carol Folt’s office for comment but did not hear back.
There will always be players who prefer the club experience. But with the growth of lacrosse and the success of club teams, momentum is building for DI and other NCAA men’s college lacrosse in California… whether that will be at USC is still a question.
As Van Nostrand said, “I think that expansion throughout NCAA DI, II and III is definitely an option because there are the players, and there are usually a lot of good students, and they’re itching to go play. And right now there’s not enough programs to get those kids in.”