KCAC adds lacrosse with eye on future

It’s a small thing, but it’s something.

Ottawa men’s lacrosse coach A.J. Stevens noticed it during the school’s inaugural lacrosse camp this week.

“Every time I turned around, there were people coming out and taking pictures of us,” Stevens said. “I think they’re curious … to be honest, I think they’re excited about what we’re doing.”

What Stevens and Ottawa are doing – and what the KCAC and commissioner Scott Crawford are doing – is bringing college lacrosse to Kansas for the first time. It’s an endeavor with an eye on the future, as there is no high school lacrosse in Kansas or many surrounding states outside the club level.

The KCAC begins men’s and women’s play in 2015-16 on the NAIA level with six schools from a smattering of conferences across the Midwest, and one in Denver.

Ottawa and Saint Mary are the only two schools from the KCAC in the conference. Saint Mary played last season and Ottawa begins play this year. Benedictine and Missouri Valley of the Heart of America Athletic Conference are also members.

St. Gregory’s and Clarke are the two other men’s teams. Johnson & Wales — in Denver — and Midland are the two other women’s teams. The KCAC is the third NAIA conference to add lacrosse, following the Appalachian Athletic Conference and the Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference.

“There are great places for lacrosse in the metro areas, places like Kansas City, Omaha, Oklahoma City and Dallas,” Crawford said. “We have a presence in several of those places, and that’s a key. Youth and club sport systems can fill a lot of these roster spots, not unlike soccer or basketball with AAU.

“It’s unfair to say that every kid that comes to (the KCAC) to play a sport comes from a high school, they come from AAU and club programs as well. Big picture, no one is really prepared to tackle it as a conference, but Ottawa and Saint Mary are first in that approach to get a head start on other schools, and I think you’ll see that long-term impact. We’ll have affiliate schools, and we’ll also have, I think, three or four more (KCAC) schools that eventually add lacrosse.”

Lacrosse on the NAIA level took a big step at the NAIA national convention in April when it established coaching associations and agreed on guidelines for the sport. This begins a two-year transition for lacrosse that, if it shows the proper growth, could turn it into a championship sport in 2017-18.

Currently, lacrosse is categorized as an “invitational” sport on the NAIA’s website.

And Crawford wasn’t far off in his assessment of lacrosse’s growth in the KCAC. In a poll of the nine athletic directors at other schools in the KCAC (Oklahoma Wesleyan joins this fall), three said they were in the early stages of evaluating costs for adding men’s and women’s teams, while six said lacrosse wasn’t in their plans for the immediate future.

Stevens, who was hired last November, also started the men’s program at Colorado-Mesa in 2011 and is the president of the NAIA lacrosse men’s coaches association.

Ottawa’s roster this season will include — so far — players from Colorado, Canada, California, Nevada, Arizona, New York, Maryland, Delaware, Florida, Illinois and two from Kansas City, Mo.

Stevens signed his first recruit, Austin Babb, on Feb. 5.

“My life since I got hired has basically been traveling and being kind of a telemarketer for lacrosse,” said Stevens, who estimates he made close to 100 calls and sent 100 texts per day during the early stages of recruiting. “It’s just a mindset you have to have … if you’re just going to recruit locally, it’s going to be tough to compete nationally.”

Both men’s and women’s lacrosse will have a six-week practice period beginning in September and will play a 12-game spring schedule. Startup costs for equipment are around $10,000 per team.

“I think Missouri Valley is probably going to be one of the best teams in the nation next year, so our conference is going to be a lot of fun,” Stevens said. “I don’t think it will take long for our teams and our conference to establish itself.”

This story was originally published July 17, 2015 at 2:48 PM with the headline "KCAC adds lacrosse with eye on future."