PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – On Friday Pitt’s newest sport will play its first ever game. Panthers debut women’s lacrosse at Highmark Stadium and there are several reasons why it’s big for the university.
More opportunities
Women’s sports continue to grow in popularity and relativity and this is another athletic platform for women to excel.
“We are incredibly excited,” said Pitt Director of Athletics Heather Lyke. “It’s an unbelievable opportunity to give women the chance to play this great sport. Really grateful to the university for supporting this effort.”
“When we started this vision for women’s lacrosse, we knew it would be an opportunity to have an unbelievably incredible, competitive team in the ACC. In the 50th year of Title IX this year it’s a pretty neat opportunity to add a women’s sport at Pitt.”
Think Globally
“It gives 38 female student-athletes the opportunity to play this sport,” Lyke said. “It’s the fastest growing team sport in the country. When we added it, it was our highest participant sport in our summer camps.”
Let’s read into this a little bit. Lyke points out it’s the fastest growing team sport and was the most popular sport for all of Pitt’s summer camps.
What does that mean?
All of those girls, from elementary to high school age, got an opportunity to see the Pitt campus and interact with Pitt students and coaches. Some maybe never thought about going to Pitt, but let’s assume they have a good experience. Pitt is now on their college radar when they wouldn’t have been before. They tell their friends, have brothers and sisters, parents talk about the Pitt camp. The percentage is higher of those campers becoming Pitt students than Pitt student-athletes.
Growing the sport
Along the same line as with Pitt camp, growing the game can have a similar impact.
“It’s pretty amazing,” said Pitt women’s lacrosse coach Emily Boissonneault. “I go around and try to be as accessible as I can be. The (Pittsburgh) community is not huge, but I think it’s growing. I’m excited to have the opportunity to bring some of the best players in the country here, whether they are playing with us or against us. I think it’s going to be really special for them. I think Pitt alums give us a lot of love. I’m excited to show them what lacrosse is all about.”
Let’s say Pitt lacrosse gets some local, young girls excited about playing the sport. They enjoy a few Pitt games, the experience at Highmark Stadium. They sign up for lacrosse, need to quickly improve. They go to Pitt camp, and start the cycle over again.
Youth league leaders often bring in players/coaches to talk to teams. When you are elementary and middle school age, is there anything bigger than a college player talking to you about that sport? You grow a connection to that player/coach and become a Pitt fan.
“There’s a real need and passion for lacrosse,” Lyke said. “It’s growing west, it was predominately an East Coast sport. This is a great location for lacrosse, it’s gotten a lot of attention. It’s important for Pitt to have a presence not only in this sport, but in the ACC.”
Feed the Beast
There is more than just the human interaction. The heads of the conference decided they could follow the success of the Big Ten Network. They’ve invested millions into their ACC counterpart. Constantly in need of programming after basketball season is over, it’s the ‘hey look, Pitt is on TV’.
“It gives us another strong presence in our conference,” Lyke said. “The ACC historically has been just dominant in this sport, both on the men’s and women’s side. For us as an athletic department, it gives us a strong presence of this game. For the spring sports, these teams are often on the ACC Network. I think we will be able to have a presence on the network as well.”
More direct exposure for the university. It’s more than just adding a sport, it’s adding opportunity for the school as a whole.