By James Simmons

University of Denver: home to 26 NationalChampionships; 7 in Men’s Ice Hockey, 19 in Skiing, and so far none inlacrosse. Last year the Men’s Lacrosse team finished 7-8 and failed tomake the Great Western Lacrosse League Tournament. In fact, DU’svarsity program, which has only been around for a decade, has made thenational tournament just twice, and never succeeded to win their firstround game. So what would persuade Bill Tierney toaccept the head coaching position there? Certainly the commitment fromthe school was very comforting. The Pioneers have the newly PeterBarton Lacrosse Stadium, they have the scholarships to compete and theyhave the academics. Coach Tierney and DU have made it clear that theywant to be the launching pad for lacrosse in the West, and be theepicenter of the western lacrosse world.  Anotherreason is the Tierney’s retirement plans. Bill said that he and hiswife had planned to retire out west anyway, and now he’s just going tobe making that move a little sooner. The third reason, a challenge.“This job is another challenge for me, to see if I can take a programto new heights.” It could be that with his guidance the day may be fastapproaching when Denver is seen as the lacrosse capital of the West.

This University of Denver team has seen a lot happen in the past two months. Not only were three of their teammates given the boot, but they were presented with a new coach. However the student-athletes appear to be handling their new situation in stride. “They seem excited about going in a new direction and you know we have a great coaching staff here.” This new coaching staff will include Bill’s son Trevor Tierney, who is an assistant coach for the Major League Lacrosse’s Denver Outlaws as well as a color analyst for the NLL’s Colorado Mammoth. Matt Brown, an attack man for the Denver Outlaws and assistant coach of the pioneers for the last 2 years, will also be staying on board. Denver will join Quinnipiac, Air Force, Bellarmine, Ohio State, Loyola, Hobart and Fairfield in their first season in the restructured ECAC.

The majority of the 2009 DU roster resides in Colorado and Canada with only nine players calling the East Coast home. With such a big name being brought in from the East it is hard to imagine that interest in the school from the premier East Coast players won’t be peaked.

When asked if he would stick with the traditional in-state and Canadian recruiting lines, Coach Tierney responded by stressing that he didn’t care where they were from, however he did say that, “there’s nothing like having local kids on your team, brings a lot of excitement, helps the high school kids see that there are guys from their area that can play at this level.” The local talent will be huge for Denver to build up their fan base.

As far as recruiting goes, his son along with fellow Denver Outlaws player Josh Sims, are the founder of Icon Lacrosse, a local Colorado lacrosse company that helps high school players get recruited. Through his company’s camps, clinics and involvement in the local lacrosse scene, Trevor will have an immediate recruiting impact for the school. Fellow assistant Matt Brown has been in Colorado for eight years, and is now deep-rooted in the Denver lacrosse community, “He’s already done an amazing job being the bridge from last year to this year,” said Coach Tierney.  Another big plus for the program will be the new 205 West Camp. Tierney’s legendary lacrosse recruiting camp will have a second location this year in Boulder, compiling some of the best players in the Western U.S. In the end however the coach summed up his feelings with one sentence; “We’re going to find the best [players] for our school, and get them here and coach the heck out of them.”

There will be a lot of eyes on the 2010 DU lacrosse team. Tierney will have a lot on his plate in trying to turn the team around. “Forget the record. The idea is to improve each and every week, each and every day, each and every season but the most important thing is to get them to understand no matter what their record was last year, we’ve got a lot of talent here,” there will be some high expectations for the Pioneers next season, but at 57 Tierney has a bit more perspective on the situation. He understands that his first task is to make his team believe in themselves. Remember, the Pioneers are coming off of a losing season, and over the last two years have gone 2-9 against NCAA tournament teams. This process will not take place overnight. While Denver does have some talent, they cannot compete and expect to beat the perennial powers in the East in their first year.

One of the standout players on Denver is Charley Dickenson who ran the offense in 2009. Known as an exceptional passer, Dickenson connected with his teammates for 22 assists in his junior year. His 1.57 assists per game is good enough for 16^th in the country.  Faceoff man Ben Whaler will also be returning as a senior. Whaler was 15^th in the country for ground balls per game (5.80) and 5^thin faceoff win percentage (.582). He is another bright spot for the Pioneers.

Starting most of the season as freshman, Mark Matthews and Alex Demopoulosshould be starting attack men for the Pioneers. The duo had 24 and 8 goals respectively. Watch these two to improve in strides this year.

It was not until the end of the season when midfielder Andrew Lay got his chance to start, but the rising junior had 11 goals on the season. Lay is a player who has potential to be a big influence for DU in their 2010 campaign.

Pete Lowell started in net for most of the Pioneers games last year. He compiled a 5-5 record and was ranked 34^th in goals against average (9.83) and save percentage (.520) amongst all goalies who have played at least 60% of their team’s minutes. Lowell will be a senior this year and will face stiffer competition for his starting job.

Tierney spent years building a program at Princeton. He knows what it will take to turn this thing around; “We’re going to work tirelessly to coach them and we’re going to expect some things from them that will help them be quarter finalists and then a semi-finalist someday soon.”He knows what it takes to create a superpower and knows that this will be a process.

Princeton Tigers

Princeton fans should not worry too much however; the Tigers are in no danger of falling off of the lacrosse mountain. The biggest loss for Princeton on the field will be Tewaaraton Trophy nominee and first team All-American Mark Kovler. Averaging over 2 scores per game, he is 14^th all time at Princeton in goals (90).

Returning for his third season, Jack McBride will be Princeton’s best player this year. McBride, another Tewaaraton Trophy nominee, started all 16 games and had a team high 35 goals last season.

Princeton will need to improve its faceoff game. Paul Barnes finished 39^th out of 55 players with a .488 win percentage. At the goalie position however, the Tigers seem to be all set with All-American honorable mention Tyler Fiorito. In his freshman year Tyler had the fourth best goals against average at 7.40. The Maryland native also had a save percentage of .587 with 145 saves.  If he performs up to expectations, Fiorito could be the number one goalie in the country next year.

Defensively Princeton looks strong. Chad Wiedmaier became the first freshman defenseman at Princeton ever to be named first team All-Ivy. He caused a team high 24 turnovers. John Cunningham, long stick midfielder, missed 6 games last year with a broken jaw. Even still the freshman played in 11 games and had 1 goal and 1 assist. Cunningham also had 13 caused turnovers and 23 groundballs.

 Growth

Bill Tierney’s job change is being taken as one of the biggest news stories ever to come out of the college lacrosse scene. This change will not only help the sport, but it will be a catalyst for growth out West at the Division I college level.  At the youth and high school levels, Colorado can be seen growing into a lacrosse hotspot. “The enthusiasm for the game is tremendous,” says Sims. “The growth in the mountain towns is now outpacing growth in Denver and the foothills, which is great.” As a player on the Outlaws and through his business, Icon Lacrosse, Sims has seen the growth in the state first hand. Colleges could add lacrosse programs, but for the game to really stick out West it must be a grassroots progression, beginning with youth lacrosse programs. This is a process to which Denver and the University have provided a perfect model.

“With the growth of it [lacrosse] out here, the pressures that are going to come from the high school kids, from the families that are influential in any area, eventually the dam is going to break,” said Tierney, “and when it breaks it’s not going to be one or two schools picking it up, it’s going to be thirty or forty.”

It is no secret that getting big time programs to come travel west of the Mississippi is a problem.  In the last two years, Denver has only been able to get two ranked, non-conference teams to make the trip, Colgate and North Carolina. To get a Syracuse, or Johns Hopkins or Virginia to play in Denver would benefit the sport greatly. Having a good lacrosse team in Denver is one thing, but having a good lacrosse team in Denver who hosts other big time programs is a huge attraction.

“One of the reasons for me to come out here is to help enhance that growth,” says Tierney, who won’t hide the fact that expanding the game was a big reason to take the Denver job. “By making DU the best program we can, by getting other great programs to come out and play us and by putting on a great show so that other schools can see this without having to go all the way back East or watch it on TV and hopefully some administrators decide this is the way it goes.” The University of Denver is looking to be the platform from which the game of lacrosse will be launched to the West Coast.

But just seeing a game or two live is not all it will take to increase Division I participation, and pressure from families and students will only go so far. Lacrosse is an expensive sport and in the current financial climate, it is not possible for most schools to invest in an additional team. In a report released by the NCAA last year, of 119 Division IA schools, only 19 were not in the red for the 2006 year.

The second big issue facing lacrosse is Title IX. One of the three tests of compliance for the rule is that the percentage of female students must mirror the athletic opportunity for women.  The problem is that any school with a football team gives out very considerable amounts of scholarships to one men’s sport and there are no women’s sports that can possibly balance out the large football programs. This leads to the cutting of men’s sports and the addition of women’s teams, and no athletic department would dream of cutting a football program because of the potential for the large injections of cash that a bowl invitation could produce. To combat this problem the NCAA must find a way to count football scholarships in a different manner, or come to some acceptable compromise. For college lacrosse fans out West, this is just one more challenge for the growth of the sport. “I just hope they can change the way they count and eliminate football,” said Tierney, who is a big endorser of the opportunities of Title IX. “If they can, then schools will take on lacrosse and it will grow unbelievably, very quickly.”

If the game of lacrosse explodes out west, much of the credit will likely be placed with Bill Tierney. While it is one of his goals to expand the sport, and he would love to see it happen, he would like to be remembered for other reasons.

“I’ve always built my programs with good people and I try to not only make my players good lacrosse players but enhance their growth from 18 to 22 by learning how to be good citizens and by helping them be good students and also by getting them to understand the responsibility that goes with the territory of being role models for young people…getting out into the community…and by being winners in a class way. These are things that you hope your legacy is built upon,” and Tierney knows the responsibility that is placed upon him. Every year he prepares his teams to meet the rigors that will face them in season. Yet he works his hardest to also instill in them the character that will make them successful long after their NCAA careers end.

 “It’s nice that people remember the wins and remember the hall of fame stuff and all that and the championships but it’s really about the people that you touch,” muses Tierney, and there is no argument that the legendary coach has not already accomplished this. Former Princeton Midfielder Josh Sims will agree, “Bill is a father figure for his players and a tremendous role model.”

The 2010 NCAA lacrosse season is months away. But as it creeps closer every day the feeling that we are on the eve of a new era in the game begins to set in; change is imminent. In this exciting time for lacrosse, it is fitting that the University of Denver are the Pioneers, but now the only question is, will they live up to their name?