Joining the ECAC was a tough adjustment, but the reality is that Hobart is in 3rd place in the league with a win over Loyola and a 2OT loss to Georgetown. To say Hobart "can't compete" is not true.

The laxpower posters were instrumental in getting the HWS BOT to listen, but the credit should go to former Hobart Laxer Joe Leska '01 for being the catalyst starting the online petition.

Thanks for the credit but we at LaxPower did not create the online petition - It was created by Hobart alumni who asked us to post a link to it on our forums which we did - traffic was so high over the past few days that it was our second busiest day ever behind the NCAA selection show night last May

I went to Vestal High School with Joe Leska and played lacrosse and football with him. I remember him once winning two faceoffs and scoring two goals in a row within eight seconds to send a game to overtime. Before the second faceoff, he supposedly said to the kid he was going against, "Do you think you have a chance in this one?" The kid said no.

Anybody have a way to contact Joe? I'd love to congratulate him on the successful petition drive.

- Anthony Wilson

The first fish was thrown at Cornell/Richie Moran on a rainy day with very few people in the stands at the old Boswell Field in 1969. I was there. I don't remember the final score, but I sure remember the fish!

Thanks for the note about the fish throwing. I have added the line that my editor's story may be apocryphal but is fun nonetheless.

And Anthony, who knew you were so plugged in! Maybe you can be my Vestal High insider. First job is to track down Dave Siock, haha.

Speaking of emails, Anthony, you asked for mine a while back. My home email is swezeyc72@yahoo.com. Work is swezeyc@washpost.com.

I think the petition exposed the fact that the Trustees had NOT made a decision to D-3, but rather were fabulously oblivious of what was happening under the Administration's orchestration until they saw the petition. Maybe they can go back to sleep now that their work is done.

I was not surprised by the original announcement as I sensed that the adjustment to D-1 was more difficult than what the Hobart had originally envisioned. Hobart's tradition of championship play in D-3 changed dramatically as the Statesmen have participated in only a handful of D-1 tournaments. What I did not know is that apparently Hobart has been playing D-1 ball without scholarship players. So I have a couple of questions, perhaps naive. First, if can JHU offer scholarships why can't Hobart? Second, why would Hobart not be able to play against D-1 schools had it returned to D-3? When it was still in D-3, it played Syracuse and PSU among others every year. Why couldn't Hobart just return to the type of schedule that it previously had while in D-3? Third, what will Hobart do to try to equalize its chances against D-1 teams, i.e. will it be able to offer scholarships? To be sure, Hobart is remarkably competitive given its size and scholarship situation. But I have to believe that its supporters would like to see this lax tradition rich college appear in the tournament more often. Appreciate answers on these questions by those who know a lot more than I on this topic. Thanks.

To Mark:

Hobart cannot give lacrosse scholarships a la Johns Hopkins because it joined Division I after the NCAA passed a ruling that the lone Division I team among Division III programs can no longer give scholarships. I think the cut-off date was 1988 or 1993.

The NCAA doesn't want one program to be on a different plane from the others was its logic. Hopkins and several of the schools with Division I hockey and Division III other sports were grandfathered in on that clause.

About the schedule, the NCAA also has mandated against Division I teams playing Division III teams in lacrosse. This happened about 10 years ago.

I have often wondered whether that ruling came at the behest of Division I coaches who no longer wanted to play Division III teams. It's too bad, because things like Appalachian State beating Michigan in football was pretty special. (That was a I-AA team beating a I-A team.)

I also have always been curious about how a really top D3 team, like Salisbury or Gettysburg, would do against a D1 team.

So as you can tell by the above, Hobart has been painted into a corner by a lot of different folks (the NCAA, the Patriot League, etc.).

Thanks for reading the blog!!

CS

Confirmation: The fish story dates to 1969. After which, Richie Moran, Cornell's coach, refused to play at Hobart. So, for a stretch of years all Hobart v. Cornell games were played at Schoellkopf Field at Cornell. (One of the most brutal artificial turf fields around at the time) Cornell didn't return to Geneva until my senior year, 1975, and it was a blow-out at home: McEneaney and French were just too much.

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