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Shout out to @4OneTwoLax for the nice find.
Is Utah Adding D1 Lacrosse? https://t.co/K2IFsclboL
— 412 Lax (@4OneTwoLax) July 10, 2016
Well that certainly got my attention!!!
Within the link you'll find several declaratory Tweets from Jordan Harris (@JHLacrosse), Harris is @BYULacrosse alumnus and former BYU lacrosse assistant. In his Tweets Harris states that the University of Utah is on the verge of going D1 in lacrosse. You should check out the link as @4OneTwoLax did a nice job compiling all of them. Jordan mentions that UNC assistant Brian Holman was on campus recently with recruits and that he might be the first BOSS of Utah Lacrosse.
Now as Harris freely admits, these are just rumors at the moment. But Jordan did pull a great link to support his claims. The link is from @EdwardLeeSun's June 6th, 2016 post on BOSS Starsia and how coach was looking for "another great adventure" post-UVA. I remember this line, but we were in the middle of the craziest Coaching Carousel in years and it kind of slipped to the wayside. In hindsight it certainly looks like something. In the post by Lee:
Starsia mentioned that he recently entertained a job opportunity in Utah, which he discussed with his wife Krissy.
"My wife said to me, ‘Hey, we’re not moving to Utah.’ I said, ‘Twenty-five years ago, you said we weren’t moving to Charlottesville,’" he said, referring to his decision to leave Brown University for Virginia after the 1992 season. "So we’ve sort of crossed that bridge once before."
Well that's certainly interesting!! I love how Dom just leaned back and tossed that fastball out of nowhere.
I checked out Utah's Twitter account, and while there have been two Division 1 transfer Tweets in the last month and a half (Seth Neeleman, former Loyola MD joined the Utes '20 class & August Colonna, transfer from NCAA D1 Wagner U joined their incoming class), I haven't seen any "We're going D1" (plus a Dab GIF) Tweets yet, but I'll keep looking.
Oddly enough, an article just popped up this afternoon in the Salt Lake Tribune about an active movement within the state to sanction lacrosse as an official HS sport in Utah. This is kind of a rare thing as "the Utah High School Activities Association isn't inclined to sanction new sports on a regular basis. Girls' golf received its own designation as an independent sport in 2008, which broke the 18-year hiatus since softball was added in 1990."
Given the lack of official change like this, it appears there is a healthy and vocal contingent of boosters that want Utah to get with the times and add boy's and girl's lacrosse. It appears it has worked, the article states that the sport is "on the precipice of joining the realm of sanctioned sports." The article is good and talks about the challenges The UHSAA faces and the possibility of lacrosse being a fall sport in Utah.
So that's all we know right now. Lacrosse is about to blow up in Utah, and there are some rumblings that the Utah is going to be the next D1 team. But we love rumors, innuendo, and speculation, so I had to share!!
We'll keep our ears to the grindstone in case something more pops up.
— Safe Fekadu (@Eri_Barrister) July 11, 2016