The city of Baltimore houses the Lacrosse Hall of Fame, the sport's national governing body and four Division I powers. But the last time it hosted the men's championship was 1975. Come Memorial Day weekend at Ravens Stadium, that will change in a way the city hopes will explode the event's popularity.

One of the reasons the reunion has taken so long is finding a facility to match the crowd. The Division I semifinals and championship game routinely draw 20,000 to 25,000 fans per contest. With no Division I-A football in the Charm City, no suitable venue existed until NFL football returned to town with a new stadium.

When the state-of-the-art facility opened in Camden Yards, local businessman and Johns Hopkins graduate Sandy Jordan, who had been in the stands for most of the previous championships, got an idea that sent him knocking on doors.

First he hit the Maryland Stadium Authority, then the Ravens and the Orioles, all of whom were interested. Then came some number-crunching, the results of which Jordan shared separately with the athletics directors of the four schools, starting with Loyola College's Joe Boylan, then a member of the NCAA Men's Lacrosse Committee and its then-future (and now former) chair. Pow wows with local ADs Tom Calder at Johns Hopkins; Charlie Brown at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; and Wayne Edwards at Towson University also proved fruitful. Each agreed that while none of the schools had the staff or resources to go it alone, together it was possible, especially given the support from the rest of the Baltimore athletics world (the children of many Ravens and Stadium Authority officials play lacrosse). Even the Orioles, who play next door, agreed to ask Major League Baseball to schedule them away for the weekend in order not to hinder the game-day operations.

Unique cooperation

Not coincidentally, the championship was site shopping, something of which Jordan was well-aware. The University of Maryland, College Park, which hosted every year but one from 1993 to 1999, wanted a hiatus until 2005. Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, host in three of the last six years, completed a two-year contract last season. The Scarlet Knights were ready for a break.

"The stars all fell in place in for us," Boylan said. "The community got together and started thinking that this would be a neat thing for the city and would give men's lacrosse a boost."

Since UMBC hosted the 1995 first and second rounds of the Division I Men's Basketball Championship at Baltimore Arena, the Retrievers' AD drew up the ultimately successful host bid to submit to the lacrosse committee.

Chappy Menninger -- director of athletics at Mount St. Mary's College, 45 miles up the road in Emmitsburg, and current chair of the committee -- said that the cooperation of the four host institutions was necessary, admirable and unique.

"This is unprecedented for lacrosse and probably for any other sport," said the former Terrapins player. "It demonstrates the collegiality that extends through this sport."

Menninger said such an attitude is the latest example of the sport's spirit of community, which previously was spotlighted by moving all three divisional championship games to the same site in 1998. Although the move has been successful by any measure, men's lacrosse remains the only pure team sport to do so, though Indianapolis hosted all three women's rowing championships, considered a team/individual sport, last year.

Since the day the Ravens rumors began, and even more after they were confirmed, this particular Memorial Day weekend has been the talk of the lacrosse world more than any other.

Johns Hopkins coach Dave Pietramala, who played for the 1987 Division I champion and 1989 runner-up Blue Jays, said, "I'm very jealous of the opportunity (the players on) the teams that get there will have."

Towson's Edwards said that even if none of the Baltimore teams makes it to Memorial Day weekend, the event will break crowd records because most of the teams likely to get there are within easy driving distance.

"This area is so strong for lacrosse and the area has so much going for it that I don't think which teams are in it will matter," he said. "I really think getting 40,000 fans is not out of the question.

"I think this will change the whole perception of NCAA (men's) lacrosse as a sport."

Boon for Division II

One would expect the locals to gush, but how does a coach from a perennial contender who grew up on Long Island, a rival hotbed, feel about Baltimore hosting? University of Virginia head coach Dom Starsia said the city is the logical, and possibly only, place to try the step to a municipal stadium.

"It's a tight community," said the former lacrosse committee member. "In every other place where this game is big, they have deep roots, but things are more spread out than they are in Baltimore.

"Most (associated with the game) would have to admit, even if reluctantly, that (Baltimore) is the place where we are most likely to get our best crowd. We would be holding our breath if we were trying this anywhere else."

Not only is Baltimore the ideal city, Ravens Stadium is the ideal venue. The natural turf, known as GN-1, is a hybrid Bermuda developed by professional golfer Greg Norman. The grass is the same that Super Bowl XXXV was played on. The stadium was the 2002 home of the local Major League Lacrosse team. A 100-foot-long video screen graces each end zone.

"Can you imagine being a kid who grew up here, scoring a goal and seeing yourself on that video screen?" Pietramala wondered aloud.

Once the committee awarded the bid, the schools divided duties but still needed someone to pull everyone together. That became the job of local businessman and tournament director Marty Schwartz, who held a similar post for the 1995 basketball tournament when he was UMBC associate athletics director for development.

Lax4Baltimore (Web address: Lax4
Baltimore.com), the local organizing committee, officially launched its campaign with a press conference in January, held in conjunction with the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association convention, which, naturally, was held in Baltimore.

"That was a really great way to kick it off," said T.W. Johnson, coach of defending Division II champion Limestone College. "They are doing everything they can to make it the best lacrosse weekend ever."

Johnson and his Division II counterparts have reason to be even more excited about Baltimore than the other divisions. Since 1998, the Division II title game has been at a facility adjacent to where the Divisions I and III teams played for the title, because of field durability concerns. Because of that, tickets for the Division II game had to be purchased separately from the Divisions I/III tickets for the main stadium. This year, because of the assurances of the Ravens crew, the committee will move the Division II game into the stadium. The soon-to-fall crowd record for the Division II game is 2,180.

"Obviously, this (site) is going to be great for lacrosse at all levels," Johnson said, "but for Division II, the last few games have been really exciting and it will be a chance to showcase that even more."

Permanent site?

Schwartz said that close to 7,000 all-session tickets had been sold by February 7. The strategy is to maintain an intimate setting by selling only the lower bowl (capacity 32,000) and club- level (8,200 more) seats. A sellout under those conditions is the goal.

Not only are the city and the stadium perfect fits for this event, the immediate area of the championships, Baltimore's Inner Harbor, is unique for its combination of major family attractions, accommodations and accessibility. A train runs from nearby BWI Airport to the stadium. Other public transportation, even water taxis, abounds. Many of the top hotels will offer weekend specials. The restaurants and shopping are the seafood center's finest.

"There may not be anywhere else in the country that has these kinds of facilities all within walking distance of each other," Brown said. "The players can almost walk from their hotels to the stadium."

Just as with the Division II championship, the banquet attendance record is a lock to fall. The opening dinner for all participants, held the Friday evening before the Division I semifinals, will be open to the public with the purchase of a banquet ticket. The ballroom at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront holds 1,700 people. Previous crowds, which were restricted because of facility size, were about 300.

Tourists who come for the everyday harbor attractions such as the National Aquarium, will be tempted by lacrosse at every corner.

"We are going to turn the Inner Harbor into lacrosse heaven," Schwartz said. "We'll have a pep rally before the banquet, fireworks after, vender tents and plenty of interactive displays. The harbor draws a lot of people anyway but there isn't another special event going on in the area that weekend -- this is the event. That's why the city is so excited."

The Fan Festival, which has been on an adjacent athletics field at previous sites, will be impossible to miss because it's on the Ravens Walk, the path everyone takes to the stadium. Much as for NFL games, it will be packed with activities for fans.

Lax4Baltimore has been up front about how often it wants the event to be held away from Ravens Stadium in the future: Nevermore. The organizers want Baltimore to become like Omaha, Nebraska, which has hosted every Men's College World Series since 1950.

"Our goal is and has been to make this one of the NCAA's premier events," Schwartz said. "We want to eventually put 60,000 people in that stadium, and we think we can do it.

"This year we are going to turn some heads."

The committee decides on a site for 2005, and possibly a few more years, during its annual meeting in August.