Athletic Scholarships

I've never been particularly impressed by lacrosse announcers. Too much chitchat about the players' hometowns and the inbred hotbeds of lacrosse. Too much Lacrosse 101 type stuff, even though you wouldn't be watching unless you had some idea about what was going on. And not enough actual commentary about what's happening on the field, unless someone scores.

But today was something else. The announcers loved the underdog story of Notre Dame, a program which - as was mentioned repeatedly - did not give out its maximum allowed number of lacrosse scholarships until 2006. Never mind that this meant that all of the players on the current team would have benefitted from this full complement of scholarships.

Funny that they didn't mention that Cornell has never given out a lacrosse scholarship, and never will. Nor will any other Ivy program. It's ludicrous to view Notre Dame as the underdog because it took them until 2006 to give out the MAXIMUM NUMBER OF SCHOLARSHIPS ALLOWED BY NCAA RULES, when Cornell gives out ZERO.

Later in the broadcast, one of the talking idiots mentioned that Cornell Coach Jeff Tambroni always puts aside some scholarship money in case a quality kid pops up late in the process. Once again, this shows a fundamental misunderstanding of Ivy League sports.

I suppose that it's a testament to Tambroni and the Cornell recruiting program that the announcers seem to believe that Cornell gives out scholarships. At least the announcers noticed that Cornell never seems to recruit high school All-Americans, but instead turns overlooked players into great players.

Cornell lost to Notre Dame, 12-7, in the NCAA lacrosse semifinal. Make that three of the last four seasons that Cornell has made it to the Final Four, with a 1-3 record in those appearances.