Calling all female lacrosse enthusiasts – grab your sticks, cleats and attitudes.
The Department of Recreational Sports has added women’s club lacrosse to its Sports Club Program this year. The idea for a women’s lacrosse team has been floating around for three or four years, but last April ideas were put into action.
In mid-July the Department of Recreational Sports began looking for a coach and conducted interviews. Liz Holmes, a former University of Pennsylvania lacrosse player, was named head coach. Soon after, the budget was approved, and Tim Moore, associate director of recreational sports, began looking for members.
After sending out an e-mail about the club, Moore said he received contact from 40 women who were interested in playing.
“Since lacrosse has grown in the Metroplex area with more high school teams and club teams forming, there has been a need for it at SMU,” Moore said. “Also we have many students here at SMU from the east coast who played in high school.”
Most of the 17 women on the team have high school experience, which Holmes believes will help make the team competitive in its first year.
“We have some real talent on the team,” Holmes said. “I expect to be real competitive in the Texas Women’s Lacrosse League.”
The SMU women’s team is the newest member of The Texas Women’s Lacrosse League (TWLL), a collegiate league of 13 other schools. Some of these schools include Baylor, TCU, UNT, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and the University of Texas. The league requires teams to host or travel to seven doubleheader tournaments on the weekends during the season.
Because of student and alumni support as well as many talented players already on campus, women’s lacrosse seemed like a logical addition to the SMU club sports scene. SMU is a member of the Magnolia conference, which is a group of benchmark schools that all reference each other. The other schools in the conference are Vanderbilt, Emory, Wake Forest, Duke, Miami, Rice and TCU. According to Moore, until this year SMU was the only school in the conference that did not have a varsity or club women’s lacrosse team.
Holmes believes the team will be well received by the student body, especially since the sport is popular around the nation.
“Lacrosse is the fastest growing team sport in the country,” said Holmes.
President Kate Wilson knows how much lacrosse is growing, especially here in Texas. She began playing in Denver in the fifth grade, but had to stop when her family moved to Dallas.
“There was no team at Highland Park until I was a senior and we started the first team,” Wilson said. “I was the captain of the team.”
While Wilson has experience in starting a new team, Holmes has years of experience playing on and creating successful teams. Her success began as a player at the University of Pennsylvania, where in her junior year the team won the Ivy League Championship and was ranked third in the country. After graduation Holmes went on to coach at The Academy of Notre Dame de Namur in Villanova, Penn. for 10 years. Holmes coached at both the junior and senior high levels and had several undefeated seasons.
Holmes has an incredible passion for lacrosse and her new team.
“I believe a coach should help athletes develop physically, psychologically and intellectually,” Holmes said. “Our goals are to create a team atmosphere where members feel pride and to have a great time.”
Holmes also wants to establish a foundation from which the program can grow and have similar success to other club teams on campus, such as the men’s lacrosse team. Men’s club lacrosse has been at SMU for 24 years and has seen vast improvement.
President Kimble Ratliff believes the women’s team is a great addition to SMU club sports and will help create a fan base for lacrosse on campus.
“If lacrosse is going to continue to grow at SMU, adding a women’s team was a necessary step towards that goal,” Ratliff said. “Having a women’s team increases our exposure and vice-versa.”
The women’s team will see its first action on October 21 against Texas A&M in College Station. One of Wilson’s goals is to be in the upper division of teams in the TWLL and to grow together as a team.
“We hope to start a strong organization on SMU’s campus that gains the respect and support of the fellow students and alums,” Wilson said.