The NCAA News - News and Features

February 23, 1998

After years at a successful site at Maryland, men's lacrosse looks for another positive experience at well-situated Rutgers

Location, location, location

BY MARTY BENSON
STAFF WRITER

For every bumper sticker and T-shirt proclaiming that "Maryland is for crabs," you probably could find a local who would want to add "and lacrosse."

That's the reason the NCAA men's lacrosse Championships Weekend has been held in College Park since 1993 -- that and 48,000-seat Byrd Stadium, which is tailor-made for the event.

It is no coincidence those five years sold the most tickets in the event's 27-year history, better than 68,000 (three days combined) each year.

This Memorial Day weekend, the show heads to Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick. Championships Weekend was scheduled to migrate to the Garden State last year, but the hosts-to-be voluntarily withdrew in October 1996 because the field of their newly renovated stadium needed to be redone.

Given that, and Maryland's history of success, the logical question follows: Why Rutgers?

First, for those unfamiliar with the sport, understand that the sport's popularity areas, in addition to Maryland, include Long Island and Central New York State. Logically, the three most important factors the NCAA Men's Lacrosse Committee considers when choosing a site are the same factors that real estate agents stress to home-buyers who are choosing where to live--location, location and location.

"The thought was to rotate every two years," said John Parry, committee chair and director of athletics at Butler University. "The Washington, D.C.-to-Long Island corridor is the heart and soul of where the game is played. The plan was to slide the games between those two sites every two years to give people from the northern and southern extremes equal opportunities to attend. Once we get fans to attend in their own area, we hope they will follow the event when it moves.

"There has always been the thought that the Central New York and New England crowd is more willing to travel. So an interesting question to be answered this year is how many people will make the trip from the southern extreme. We hope crowds will continue to be in the high 20s or low 30s (per game)."

Rutgers posted the seventh-highest paid attendance (57,418) in event history in 1990. At the time, that three-day total was the event's second-best. Rutgers also hosted in 1974, 1978, 1983 and 1987. Under the leadership of director of athletics Frederick E. Gruninger, who is retiring after the season, Rutgers has a long history of hosting other successful NCAA championships, including the 1996 men's basketball Final Four.

Members of Rutgers' staff have traveled to the last two championships at Maryland, so they know what will be expected of them.

"The people at Maryland and at the NCAA have been great with us," said Kevin MacConnell, Rutgers' assistant athletics director for marketing and promotions. "We have picked up a lot from them during that time, so we're not going into this cold."

Of course, what happened with the field last year no doubt has created skeptics, but Rutgers believes the past is just that.

"We put down a completely new field," MacConnell said. "(Last year) the last thing we wanted was to host this championship before the grass had time to knit and take hold. We didn't want to jeopardize the tournament.

"We resodded the field (last spring) and no one was on it until (this year's) football season. We had no problems this year. It's ready."

Rutgers Stadium today

Those who have not been to Rutgers Stadium since 1990 may not recognize it. Much like the event it's going to host, the facility has grown dramatically.

The original bowl, which held 20,000 fans, has been renovated and enlarged to hold 32,000.

An additional two upper decks have been added, bringing total capacity to 42,000. As an aesthetic bonus, the new decks provide a view of the hills of Pennsylvania and the top of New York City's World Trade Center.

"They say it's renovated, but it's really been completely redone," Parry said. "It has been, and will continue to be, a great place to play and watch lacrosse."

Tailgating, which became a Maryland institution the past five years, could be even bigger this year. Philip A. Buttafuoco, the NCAA senior assistant director of championships who oversees the event for the national office, said that Rutgers has 6,000 parking spaces near its stadium, roughly twice Maryland's total.

Buttafuoco also said the seats are somewhat closer to the field, which should make for an intimate setting.

"Hotel space also is similar. The whole fan experience should be very similar," Buttafuoco said.

Division II debut

One thing that will be different this year is the number of games. With Division II staging its championship game during the weekend for the first time, there will be five games instead of four.

For a couple of reasons, Rutgers is the ideal site for the Division II premiere.

First, there's that location thing. Since being reinstated as an annual championship in 1993, the game has included a team from nearby Long Island every year.

Moreover, both teams have been from the Island in all but two games. So the fans will be well within reach.

Second is the field -- not the one at Rutgers Stadium, but at Yursak, a 200-yard walk away.

Rather than increase the likelihood that any of the games might have to be played on a sloppy field because of wet weather, the committee elected to place the Division II game at an auxiliary field. In Rutgers' case, that means the 5,000-seat facility where the Scarlet Knights play their regular-season games; Maryland, by contrast, has a 1,500-seat auxiliary field. Since the Division II game's reinstatement, the paid attendance record is 1,227.

The Division III game will be at the Rutgers Stadium at 1 p.m. May 24 -- the Sunday of Championships Weekend -- with the Division II game following at 4 p.m. across campus.

MacConnell said those who are working both games will have to hustle, but, for the most part, the fields have separate staffs, enabling the school to run both games successfully.

"We'll be in such a mode already that (the additional game) shouldn't make much of a difference," MacConnell said.

Unlike the ticket package that includes all the other games, there will be no advance sale of Division II tickets because of the different venue.

The future

Next year the event goes back to Maryland for two years before returning to Rutgers for two more. No other future sites are set.

The lacrosse committee knows it's taking a chance leaving a place where it has enjoyed unprecedented success, but it did so when it followed basketball's Final Four concept in 1986 and created Championships Weekend, and again in 1992, when it added the Division III game. Both have been unmitigated successes.

If the same happens here, perhaps a T-shirt proclaiming that New Jersey is for lacrosse will be in order.