In early February, the University of Tampa athletic department announced the addition of a new sport to begin competitive play in spring 2012: men’s lacrosse.
The lacrosse program joins a laundry list of programs at UT; programs that have compiled 12 NCAA II National Championship titles and 72 first place conference finishes.
First year head coach Rory Whipple anticipates continuing the university’s athletic success, right from the start.
“My expectations are very high. I honestly like to think that if we can attract the right kids that we can compete for a conference championship,” he said.
Whipple comes to UT as the all-time winningest coach in NCAA Division II and has now started lacrosse programs at four schools. He was previously at Florida Southern College where he started the program and spent two years at the helm for the Mocs.
The Spartans will compete in the Deep South Conference along with four other Florida schools and four schools from North Carolina. Rollins, Florida Tech, Florida Southern, Saint Leo, Catawba, Wingate, Mars Hill, Lenoir-Rhyne and the Spartans will make up the Deep South.
In his second season at Florida Southern, Whipple led his non-scholarship Moccasins to an 11-10 win over No. 10 Saint Leo Lions, the eventual conference champions. The 1976 Cortland State graduate recognizes that he will be in a similar situation at UT and budgets will be tight for his team.
“We don’t have much scholarship money to offer so we have to sell the school and the surroundings,” Whipple explained. “Our selling point is the fact that we are a medium-size university and we are located in Tampa. Those two things alone are very appealing for kids in the northeast.”
He went on to explain that from “Maryland on up [further north] are hotbeds for lacrosse.”
Whipple’s experiences range not only across the state, but also across the world. In 1993, he spent time in Japan to work on developmental programs before being named the head coach of the Iroquois National team in 1994 where he led the team to a fifth-place finish at the World Lacrosse Championships in England.
“Throughout my years of coaching and recruiting I’ve certainly built up a lot of friendships with high school coaches that I can call and help me get connected with players,” Whipple said. “I think I’m pretty well known [in the Lacrosse community] and certainly from my biography, players will know what I’ve done and where I’ve been.”
Coach Whipple’s main focus is, as expected, recruiting. Although there was already a club lacrosse team, that team is not his focus.
He is working on sorting through accepted incoming freshmen, to see who had lacrosse experience in high school as well as speaking with junior college players.
“It’s hard for me to say how many players will make the program from the club team until I see them play,” Whipple said. “We’ve reached out to most of the junior colleges looking for transfers and we have a handful of kids that are looking at us. That would give us juniors that have played two years of college lacrosse.”
Having started a program which was building success, some would wonder why Whipple left Florida Southern to start a new program, for the fourth time.
“I hate to use the word stole,” said Athletic Director Larry Marfise during a press conference, “But we stole him from Florida Southern.”
Whipple described the situation as a new opportunity for him. To draw students from the northeast, he plans to sell the same positives that attracted him to coaching in Florida. Lacrosse is a new kind of sport that the UT campus hasn’t seen since the football program was abolished in 1974; a contact sport.
“I’m excited to be here; it’s a great situation for the school to help build school spirit. It’s a contact sport, which you don’t have, and it’s a spectator sport that spectators enjoy watching. I think it’s going to bring a lot of excitement to the campus,” he said.
He also went on to talk about the growth opportunities and why things seem to mesh so well for a lacrosse program at UT. The facilities are a big factor, Whipple explained.
“We have on-campus facilities here which we didn’t have at [Florida] Southern; on-campus practice facilities here and the plan going forward is to build more locker rooms.”
Coach Whipple anticipates fielding a team between 36-45 student-athletes and hopes to have four assistant coaches.
“We will build a quality staff once we get to that point.” The Spartans will begin their inaugural lacrosse campaign during the spring 2012 semester.
Kyle Bennett can be reached at minaret.sports@gmail.com.