Cleveland State Considering a Division I Lacrosse Program

When you started your Friday -- a Friday in the heart of fall with college football on the horizon -- did you expect to read about potentially mind-blowing college lacrosse news? If not, blame Lacrosse Magazine's Corey McLaughlin for Friday becoming a launch pad rather than an interminable countdown.

As he writes, Cleveland State -- that's a real place with buildings and students and everything -- is considering adding a Division I men's lacrosse program as early as the 2016 season:

Cleveland State athletic director John Parry told Lacrosse Magazine on Friday that adding Division I men's and women's lacrosse for the spring 2016 season is under consideration as part of an enrollment strategy to attract more students to the school.

"It's not a done deal," Parry said, adding that the possibility has been talked about by the CSU administration for the past two years. But he is hopeful the additions will make it into the university's enrollment task force recommendations to the CSU Board of Trustees in November.

"It's one of those things that would have to be resolved in the next month and a half if we want to field a team in '16," Parry said. "If we miss that window, I refuse to try to hire somebody in April and have them recruit, it's too late. If we miss this November, it will be next November that it's back under consideration."

There are obviously a lot of variables covered in those three paragraphs, but if the Vikings were to make lacrosse a thing at the urban campus, Cleveland State would stand with Ohio State as the state's only Division I men's programs.

The potential birth of Cleveland State as a viable lacrosse concern isn't quite as sexy as a Power Five school moving toward a Division I program, but it is good to see a school in a non-hotbed location seriously consider the benefits of sponsoring a men's team at the college game's highest level while seeking to do so with the right kind of support to generate success. Now we wait.