S2 E27. In-depth with Mikey Thompson, Drew Fox, and the Future of College Lacrosse: A Compilation, Part III.

Get the LAX Scoop: In-depth with Mikey Thompson, Drew Fox, and the Future of College Lacrosse

In this engaging podcast episode of 'Get the LAX Scoop,' hosts Big Dawg and Jaybird dive deep into the world of lacrosse. Featuring a candid interview with Mikey Thompson, head coach of Christopher Newport University's men's lacrosse program, they explore his journey from childhood passion to collegiate success, his family legacy, and his experiences with NFL star Russell Wilson. Additionally, the show touches on pivotal changes in college lacrosse, highlighting the landmark House vs. NCAA case and its potential impacts, discussed by Virginia lacrosse alumnus Drew Fox. The episode also includes a 'Mindset Minute' on the power of habits and exciting updates on JML courses and offerings.

We hope you enjoy this compilation. If you do, please go ahead and give a like, subscribe and share with a friend. Also, please leave a review, it would really help our podcast grow!

00:00 Introduction to Lax Scoop Podcast

00:23 Meet the Hosts: Big Dog and Jaybird

01:44 Special Guest: Mikey Thompson's Journey

05:19 High School Memories with Russell Wilson

09:08 Mindset Minute: The Power of Habit

09:26 Exclusive Content and JML Courses

14:51 Mikey Thompson's College Recruitment

16:49 Athlete vs. Lacrosse Player: A Personal Reflection

17:06 Coach Mikey Thompson's Inspirational Speech

19:28 A Tribute to Mikey’s Grandfather and the Longest Game

21:17 Drew Fox on the House vs. NCAA Court Case

25:59 The Future of College Athletics and Private Equity

32:38 The Ivy League's Unique Position in College Sports

37:50 The Changing Landscape of College Athletics

42:44 Conclusion and Upcoming Interviews

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Lacrosse Charities Mentioned in S2 E36:
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Transcript

Jay: 0:00

It's time for get the La Scoop, a podcast bringing you all the people and stuff you should know. In the game of lacrosse, we take LAX seriously, but ourselves, not so much. Join hosts, big Dog and Jaybird, and the biggest names in the game. Brought to you by Jay McMahon lacrosse. That's J M L Skills, mindset, and LAX IQ training. Ron Doish, the big dog, was a collegiate football and lacrosse player at Brown. He was also an assistant lacrosse coach and the executive director of the sports found. and Jay McMahon, the Jaybird, a three time All-American Midfielder Brown. He was a captain of the US Junior National team and is the founder of J M L. And joining us in the studio, Steve gfi, who's collegiate lacrosse career statistics equals one goal against Dartmouth. Brought to you by Jay McMahon lacrosse. That's J M L Skills, mindset, and LAX IQ training. Helping the next generation cross players. Get to the next level.

0:59

Hello everyone. And welcome back to the podcast. We have an exciting interview for you. Next week with Penn men's lacrosse head coach Mike Murphy. This week, we have an intriguing compilation for you with coach Mikey Thompson. Followed by drew Fox discussing the house versus NCAA court case, which will change the college lacrosse landscape forever. You will find our interview in progress. All right, ladies and gentlemen we're ready for another episode of Get The Lax Scoop. Jay, somewhat nice to see you. Ronald, get to work, excited to see our guest. So it's going to be a great night. Jay got a great division three head coach with us tonight. And why don't you tell us about him? Absolutely. Our next guest is the head coach of Christopher Newport university's men's lacrosse program. He has helped the captains establish a new standard of success. while building the program into a consistent power on the D3 national stage. During his time in Newport News, Virginia, he has helped CNU earn five NCAA tournament berths, climbed to the top of the U. S. ILA national coaches poll, and shattered nearly every conceivable record. Since taking the reins of the team in 2016, meanwhile, the captains have also made their mark nationally, winning eight games in the NCA tournament, including incredible runs to the final In 2021 and 2023 incredibly, since 1990, no Division III men's lacrosse team has gone from its inaugural season to the national semifinals quicker than the captains did after our next guest helped Christopher Newport reach the Final Four in only the program's 15th year of existence. Please welcome our next guest, the one, the only, Mikey Thompson. Welcome. Yeah, thank you very much. It's great to be here with you guys. Awesome. We can't wait. Mikey, Mikey, we never cut you short on the never sling you short on the intro there, Mikey. I mean, that's, Jay does a hell of a job there. I cut that way down. That was, that was dog's text today. You might want to do a shorter intro on these guys. Oh, please Jay. Jesus. Come on Ron. Just take away glory from this young man. Let's go. Ron, could you please start? Jay, I'd be happy to. So Mikey, one of the things, you know, you look at that resume, right? And you've coached and played at the highest levels of the game. And we always think it's fun to go back to like, what was the first spark? You know, where do you remember first kind of developing a love of the game? Some people early in your, your career or your life that really fueled your passion for lacrosse? Yeah. Yeah, well, it starts with the family. My, my grandfather was a captain at UVA way back in the day. And you know, we kind of had that love of Virginia lacrosse,, deeply ingrained is a family early on. And my dad played two sports in college as well. He played lacrosse and football at Hampton Sydney College. And so I just remember growing up, going up to Charlottesville and watching those games on the Hill at a pretty young age. And that's kind of what I always wanted to do. I just, I love the sport right from the start. I was also me and two of my buddies were were ball boys for collegiate school. We're in like, you know, first and second grade. And I always remember thinking it was pretty cool to be able to leave school early to go travel with the team and get to know those guys on the field. On the varsity team at collegiate and stand behind the goal. I don't know if they even still have ball boys these days. It doesn't seem like it, but those were like some of my best memories, just standing back there with the collegiate helmet on those old back rack helmets. And you know, just watching and being enamored by the level of talent. And I just love the game right from the start. So and then I was lucky one of my best friends, Andrew O'Shea, his dad, Tim O'Shea. Started Geronimo lacrosse right when you were in first grade. And so I remember. My parents, opening that letter because at the time there was no rec, you know, there was no rec sports. There was no ability to really play lacrosse besides just with your friends in the backyard. And it was basically, this new rec league is, is coming to Richmond and you got to show up with your friends and I went all the way through that program and it's doing amazing things today. So all of that kind of collided, I guess, when I was really young to develop my love of the game. That's great. Awesome background. Excellent. And then, as we mentioned, in high school you're a multi sport athlete and as we mentioned, had played with Russell Wilson and that's just a extremely high caliber athlete, needless to say. So what was it like having that experience, being around someone like that who obviously made it to the biggest stage in one of the biggest sports in the world? And what are some of your favorite memories with, him and your teammates and any stories surrounding that? Yeah well, we had a lot of great athletes, within two or three years at collegiate growing up. And one of the reasons why I think it's just the environment we were put in. We were like that group of friends that just. Played every single sport as much as possible. We'd always go over to our friend Zach Mendez's house and it was kind of one of those houses where like anything goes. So we could really like play physical and push the push the limits a little bit. And it didn't matter what sport it was, but it was just like this breeding ground of competition and trying out all these different sports. And so as we kind of went along, we all developed and we always knew what each other was about to do. And we just had this great chemistry, you know, whether it was on the lacrosse field or the football field or even playing basketball. But Russell was really a part of that group. And he was a multi sport athlete as well. He's a great baseball player is a great basketball player. And then ultimately, football and baseball is what he pursued. But yeah, it was special years. You know, we won two straight state championships in football and then lacrosse. We lost in the state championship. Game my junior year, and then we ended up winning it my senior year. So we had a lot of success over those years and like I said, I think it just stemmed from those, that nonstop competition from a very young age getting to know each other really well. And we really cared about sports too. We Mm-Hmm, we, you know, we went the extra mile. We put in a lot of work in the weight room when we weren't in season and we were just a group that wanted to win. And it made for a really special high school experience. That's great. Awesome. Yeah, one of the things we like to talk a lot about too on the podcast is just Mindset, we kind of look at skills Mindset lacks IQ is helping kids like develop kind of the best picture of the game and I would say, as As they're getting older, it seems like they have the skill a lot of times. They might even have the athletic ability. But if they don't have the right kind of mindset and those intangibles, it can get in the way of success. And just curious, could you see that Russell Wilson had incredible intangibles? I mean, naturally, he's a great athlete. He probably understood sports well, but did he have tremendous intangibles and mindset? Yeah, and I would say that's the thing that separated him from the pack. I mean, his, the thing that he says all the time is the separation is in the preparation. And, it wasn't like this. Greek athlete that just right off the bat blew you away, but he just kept getting better and better and better every single year. And that continued when he got to college and it continued when he got to the pros, because, there's not a guy that's as mentally tough as Russell Wilson. And the funny thing is when you know him. You see the media's perception of him sometimes and people that don't really know who he is, that he can, you know, he can come off as, you know, corny or whatever you want to say about him, but that's, that's who he is. And he's authentic to himself. And he truly believes in the way that he talks to himself. The way he talks to the media is the way that he talks to himself. And he's very disciplined about. The types of thoughts that enter his mind and the types of thoughts that he will, give his attention to. And so and so mindset, he's a phenomenal athlete, obviously. And he's an extremely hard worker. He's committed. He's put in as much work as anybody, but I would, I would say that his, his mindset is what has separated him.

Jay: 9:08

How about if we transition to. J m l and let's do that. We'll get into a little bit of the mindset. We'll do a mindset minute here.

9:22

We're so glad you're joining us for season two of our podcast. Get the lax scoop. As we've mentioned earlier and due to popular demand. We've put together a patron page for the show. This will allow those interested in supporting our efforts to do just that and to get exclusive access to unedited interviews, big discounts on JML online courses and merchandise for our new online store. There have been some big additions to the JML course catalog. Now we have a defenseman's course taught by none other than UVA head coach, Lars, Tiffany. And the goalie course taught by former two-time all American and UVA assistant coach kept earner. You can check out our Patrion page with the link that is listed in the description. As well as taking a look at the online store again, with the link listed in the description. You can check out these updates to the course catalog. With the free version of the J McMahon lacrosse app. Simply would register following the link that is listed in the description. For our mindset minute, we've got a message from none other than Dr. Rob Gilbert. He says, this is a message that can change all of our lives and it starts off with a riddle. Figure out who this is. I am your constant companion. I am your greatest helper or your heaviest burden. I will push you onward or drag you down to failure. I'm completely at your command half of the things that you do, you might just as well turn over to me. And I will be able to do them quickly and correctly. I am easily managed. You must merely be firm with me. Show me exactly how you want something done. And after a few lessons, I will do it automatically. I am the servant of all great people. And of all failures as well. Those who are great. I made great. Those who are failures? I made failures. I am not a machine though. I work with all the precision of one. Plus the intelligence of a genius. You may run me for profit or run me for ruin. It makes no difference to me. Take me train me, be firm with me and I will put the world at your feet. Be easy with me and I will destroy you. Who am I. I started out as a thin thread. And I end up as a strong cable. Who am I. I am habit. Now that you know who it is. Let's run through this lesson again. I am habit. I am your constant companion. I am your greatest helper or your heaviest burden. I will push you onward or drag you down to failure. I am completely at your command. Half the things you do, you might just as well turn over to me. And I will be able to do them quickly. And correctly. I am easily managed. You must merely be firm with me. Show me exactly how you want something done. And after a few lessons. I will do it automatically. I am a servant of all great people and of all failures as well. Those who are great. I've made great. Those who are failures? I've made failures. I'm not a machine though. I work with all the precision of one. Plus the intelligence of a person. You may run me for profit. Or run me for ruin. It makes no difference to me. Take me train me, be firm with me and I will put the world at your feet. Be easy with me and I will destroy you. I am habit. Dr. Rob Gilbert recommends that we think of one habit. That we want to start with and start it as soon as this message ends. Or maybe as soon as this podcast ends. And this will be that life changing message. Just think of one habit. You want to start a health habit, a work habit. Of workout habit. nutrition or diet habit say to yourself, I'll do this just for today. And that's how we start. And then tomorrow, same thing just for today. Let's say walk 10,000 steps. And tomorrow. The same thing just for today. We'll start out as a thin thread, a thin delicate thread. And end up as a strong, strong cable. Do we want to change our lives? It's all about habits. So there you go. That's our mindset minute. Hope you get out there and give it a shot. Now we will return to our program as coach Thompson continues to describe his experience growing up with NFL. Great. Russell Wilson. And he's worked with a lot of great guys. Like Trevor Mollad was his sports psych over the years. You know, if you're looking for any good books, look up his books, and there'll be no surprise as to kind of what Russell grew up learning in that, in that regard. Yeah, we could probably list that, definitely list that in the description. Trevor Moab, you said? Yeah, he's got, he's got a good book that's called It Takes What It Takes, I believe. And then he came out with, he came out with one other one recently, but they're both really good. I would butcher the spelling, but I think it would be M O A B. D. D. Trevor Milad. Okay. Cool. Awesome. Great. So Mikey, I didn't know Jay was so infatuated with Russell Wilson. I'd like to actually bring the interview back to you as our guests. I did meet him once and he really liked me. Apparently Jay. Yes, clearly. So Mikey, you know, you mentioned you have this family. Tradition that UVA, you're growing up in Richmond. So you're going to those UVA games. But as you say, you know, it's kind of incredible when you think about where the game is today, that like rec lacrosse is just starting when you're a young kid. Like there weren't a lot of opportunities. So what was your recruiting process like, and how much did the game grow? To allow you the opportunity to go to a place like UVA and play in college. What was that progression? Was it always Virginia for you? You know, walk us through that a little bit. Yeah. Well, to start, with your last question, when I was getting some interest from other schools Virginia was always the school that I wanted to go to and the school that I wanted to play for. I didn't know if I would ever get that opportunity, but I knew that that was a goal of mine. And you know, I did play obviously multiple, multiple sports in high school and I really didn't even play club lacrosse, you know, which is crazy to think about. I remember going to two different showcases, I think after my sophomore year, and that's where I got some of my attention within recruiting. But I also remember when I was a freshman, Bud Petit was a senior goalie and he was, he was headed off to Virginia and I remember seeing the Virginia staff on the sidelines at a couple of our high school games in the Charlottesville area. And I remember, playing pretty well in those games as a freshman. So maybe that was how I got on coach stars is a radar. But You know, it wasn't a hotbed. And I think, back then it was basically, if you came from Virginia and made it onto the Virginia lacrosse roster, you were probably going to end up playing defense or defensive middie, or, not necessarily like one of the skill positions. And so it's kind of funny cause I was a midfielder, my whole career growing up. My senior year of high school, I played attack cause I had a knee injury. And I, scored six goals in our, State championship game. And within a week, I remember being on the phone with my head high school coach, Andrew Stanley, and he had just talked to coach stars yet, and it was already being talked about that. I was going to play D midi. And at the time I was kind of like, come on, man, I just scored six goals. Like I got to do play. I could play offense, but ultimately I, I really didn't care. And I think that at heart I'm more, I was more of an athlete than a lacrosse player. And I think that that translated well into the type of player that I, I became for Virginia. And this next clip, coach Mikey Thompson discusses a speech he gave at his Alma mater collegiate school in Richmond following the death of one of his good friends. Yardley love. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think, the speech kind of the theme of the speech was a quote from Victor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning. He was a Holocaust survivor. And talked, talked about finding purpose in your life. And the quote that really resonated with me was he talks about the last of human freedoms and how there's a space between stimulus and response. So whatever happens to you, just to take some space to realize, Hey, I have the ability to choose how I'm going to respond to this. That's really the last of human freedoms. It's something that no one can ever take away from you, no matter what the situation is. So that ability to choose how we respond to any adversity was really what I based my speech off of. And, I went back and went, went through my journey in high school and some of the stuff that you just mentioned, you know, state championships and getting to the chance to go to play at UVA and then. And then we lost one of our good friends, Will Barrow who died of suicide. And, we had the yard, we loved strategy tragedy and. I lost two of my my young cousins during the time. And there was just a lot of this, a lot of stuff that was unfortunate. You wouldn't want to go through one of these things in a lifetime, but it kind of just kept piling on. And and what I did was I kind of went back through each of those tragedies, relive them a little bit. And then and then just was able to detail kind of what came of those tragedies. So you would never want any of this stuff to happen, but, we'll use the one love, the one love foundation of, is an example. I mean, how much more awareness has been raised to relationship violence since one love was founded. And and you know, the, the examples are endless, but that was, that was really the theme of of that speech. As a coach, what I want my guys to realize is that like hard times are coming. It's not, it's not if, but when, and if you understand that you do have that, that space between stimulus and response, and you realize that that is our, as a human, our greatest superpower you're still going to make mistakes and choose unwise responses plenty of times. But I just think that that's a good lesson for all of us. It absolutely is in this next clip. We go on the lighter side, as he talks about his grandfather who was also a wahoo alumnus and how he couldn't wait. To see the end of the longest game ever played, which was at university of Virginia versus Maryland. I think it was seven overtimes. We'll let coach Thompson take it from here. My grandfather, him and my dad, my two biggest, heroes, he was one of the first guys that actually brought lacrosse to Virginia post World War II and so he was a two time captain there and, I'm William Warlaw, the fourth, and I now have my three and a half year old son, who's the fifth. So, pass that along to him. If he wants to keep it going and have a six, that's his problem, but but yeah, he was, again, one of the main reasons I fell in love with Virginia lacrosse and just kind of did everything with him and my dad and, he lived until he was, I believe 95. And he he was at all of my games at UVA. He was at all of my CNU games. And now that he's since passed, I guess I, I feel okay telling this story, but I was a I was a junior the year that Virginia beat Maryland in seven overtimes. It was like the longest lacrosse game of all time. Yeah. And I don't know how old he was at the time, but. Like he had to go to the, he really had to go to the bathroom and like, he like refused to get up and go to the bathroom in case the overtime goal was was scored during that time. This was at UVA, right? This was at UVA. So anyway, it was number one, but like, I'll let, I'll let you, you, you know, decide what happened from there, but he didn't. He didn't miss the final goal. He stayed to the bitter end. Yeah. That's how much he loved it. That's awesome. That's fantastic. And Next up, we have drew Fox at university of Virginia. Men's lacrosse, alumnus as well as a private equity financier in New York city. And he's a member. Of Cav futures that collective, that organizes and disperses funds to athletes who earn money through name, image, and likeness at UVA. In our exclusive interview with Mr. Fox, we discussed the potential impact of the house versus NCAA court case.

Speaker 3: 21:40

the new court case that was recently settled in the House versus the NCA. And how could it impact the N. C. A. And the schools involved and N. I. L. And I know again, Drew, we're throwing you one that's got a lot of question marks still involved, but we're hoping you can help us and our, our listeners start to make some sense of it.

Speaker 2: 21:58

House is a big deal. House settled on May 23rd 2. 8 billion. It's going to impact the Power Five. A 2. 8 billion settlement for a number of sort of attached lawsuits and claims. Which many folks believe will completely change the college athletics landscape. The decision allows universities, this is the key point, to directly pay student athletes. The affected universities are essentially going to be paying between 20 and 22 million based on current projections as a percentage of revenue, 20 to 22 million a year, Directly to the student athletes and each school can decide how to divide up the money among programs. Important and athlete. So revenue is based on TV contracts, and the biggest TV contracts are in the Big Ten and the SEC. And you've seen those two conferences start to attract a lot of new athletic programs into those conferences you will have other conferences and other universities that have athletic programs that sell. Fund that can exist away from the revenue model, but the smaller schools are going to have a real issue with house and the settlement achieved if you're a mid major and you're having to pump dollars, but you're not getting the TV revenue to offset that. So a lot of questions before, you know, call it fall of 2025 when house kicks in when those, those money start flowing on how mid majors are treated. How the conferences realign, how the revenues are split across to, to women's athletics, the, just the roster count of athletic programs at different universities. there have been all types of behaviors around NIL because literally the road has no guardrails, has no guardrails,

24:06

Speaking of no guardrails that so many of our listeners describe the college lacrosse recruiting trail. So we've responded by putting excerpts of our 10 best interviews with legendary coaches, such as bill Tierney, Lars, Tiffany and Andy towers. Into a book that you can access for free on our JML app. Simply download the J McMahon lacrosse app at the apple app store or at Google play for Android and check it out. And for those. Who would like a book in their hands? Or on their Kindle, it is available on Amazon, under the title inside the recruiting game insights from college lacrosse coaches. So with that, you will see the description of these items also in the show notes. Big additions to the JML course catalog. Now we have a defenseman's course taught by none other than UVA head coach, Lars, Tiffany, and a goalie course taught by former two-time All-American and UVA assistant coach kept Turner. And the summer we are offering for a limited time only. 70% off. That's right. 70% off of our four week online courses that help young players take their skills, mindset, and max IQ from good to great. That means you can get access to these highly rated trainings for only$90. That's right. For$90 offensive players defensemen and goalies can take their game to the next level. The summer is the best time of year to improve your game. And that's why we are making this special offer. So jump on it now because it won't last for long. Simply download the free version of the Jane McMahon lacrosse app. Or just follow the link that's listed in the show notes. And you will see the coupon code noted for each different course. We're excited to get back to our interview and you will find that interview in progress.

Speaker 3: 25:59

I mean, Drew, I think the reason this is like this, every question leads to another question, right? So, I mean, I think this is really such a fascinating conversation. Jay, I want to come back to Drew's sense of the Ivy League because I'm really intrigued by his sense of the, how he, you know, how you think the Ivy League is going to be competitive. But, but. Drew, let's talk about another dimension of this that you know, college athletics has long been big business, right? You've never really thought about it in the sense of a, of a PE, of a private equity investment, or an investor that would somehow get return on that investment. So I, I read in some of the articles that there's some sense that this new economic model could Make that a possibility. Can you, can you talk through sort of some of the thinking there or, or how that's being talked about or thought about?

Speaker 2: 26:56

Yeah, look in pro sports pro sports franchises are selling minority stakes.

Speaker 5: 27:02

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 27:03

The NBA being, being the most prominent one that you know, is out raising their profile for being able to provide investors in certain funds, slices of NBA franchises. Because of the recurring revenue of TV contracts and because of stadium gates and the branding of these athletic programs, This is a very attractive area for investors that want diversified recurring revenue stream. These are cash flowing businesses. Now, the interesting thing about college athletics is certain areas are cash flowing investments. Other areas are just known loss leaders that are part of the wider ecosystem of ethics. But because the the revenue sports are the the profit centers Allowing the sale and scale up of those revenue pieces into a diversified pool is, is a very attractive proposition. Private equity has long sought to get away from just generating profits through buying and selling, companies after enhancing the underlying fundamentals and structures of these companies. And so what, what has become a modern twist on buyout private equity has become where Successful fund managers themselves sell a minority interest in their own business and what we call the waterfall of cash flows is very attractive. And so if you can get 20 percent of that waterfall recurring over time. It's a very powerful cash machine. The same way with college athletics. If you can get a 20% Slice of the recurring revenue on the profit side of the balance sheet in college athletics. That's a very interesting proposition. And so there are dedicated general partners in private equity who have sports practices and franchises, and there are others looking, looking to get into this area, knowing that. that universities will need to likely diffuse the amount of revenue they're paying out in this new sharing proposition brought forth by house and have further partnerships to help them meet the financial obligations of these, of these settlements.

Speaker 3: 29:42

Now, Drew, these PE companies always like to take a role in management. So, you know, and so, you know, all of a sudden they on some board within the athletic, you know what I mean? Like, what's, what's that part of the relationship? Because obviously,

Speaker: 29:59

they'll be coming out to practice

Speaker 3: 30:01

in the weight room. They believe they're going to bring value right by, as you said, enhancing those underlying fundamentals of the business because they want to maximize their value over the long haul. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, how the heck does that, how do, you know, are there, I mean, I understand it for an NBA franchise. It's just, it's just hard to imagine, and maybe this is my own sort of old school mentality of that being a part of an athletic department.

Speaker 2: 30:28

When you say that, Ronnie, what I hear is Larkin Kemp would not have been allowed to take as many shots as he took.

Speaker 3: 30:35

That, well, if he did the other things he did, we were okay with it, I gotta tell you.

Speaker 2: 30:41

Hey, I'm just kidding. I'm sure I'll get a tweet. from Larkin. Terrific ballplayer, and we loved his style of play and we installed it ourselves at UVA with our own big tall guys in the middle there. You know, it is an interesting proposition. In some of these franchise models where general partners are selling minority pieces of themselves. It's kind of their own ecosystem. So getting involved or having ways to provide recommendations, that's, that's kind of their own business. When you start talking about entertainment or sports or other areas, there's a difference between providing capital to your partner and providing your advice and day to day involvement. I think in the case of like the NBA franchising that's occurring the fund managers aren't showing up at practice and, you know, making recommendations on the press that the coach is,, is looking to put on in the next game or the, you know, set offense. They're really just trying to make the capital structure more efficient. In college athletics because of the heavy revenue demand and then the sharing that's going to, you know prospectively occur here, they're going to be basically providing a lot of insight and advice on financial maneuvering to make the, the system more efficient. Many times that's great. Sometimes with the incursion of additional debt, And other structuring, it can create some challenges for the underlying business, that being the athletic administration and then the university. So certainly caution in in those programs needs to be undertaken.

Speaker 3: 32:38

Jay, do you want to bring us back to the Ivy League?

Speaker: 32:39

Sure. So Drew, you did, you're kind of considering when you look at this big picture that the Ivy League really has an upside when you look at, at this whole landscape. So would you like to share that with us?

Speaker 2: 32:52

Yeah. You know I think Look, I've been a fan. My parents are Ivy League, grew up around it in Philly with Penn right there. I used to go to Brown practices because I went to school up in New England. I used to watch that Brown 85 team. What a team

Speaker 5: 33:10

six

Speaker 2: 33:11

and O in the Ivies had an unbelievable attack unit, had a tremendous goalie, great face off great D you know, so fun to watch. I think this is really all hugely beneficial to the Ivy league. Here's why they don't have to do any of these things and they have these giant endowments. And all these specialized students who all do these incredible things at a very high level, some are in the lab, some are in the orchestra, some are on the, on the stage, some are running downfield with a long pole. They all benefit from the healthy financial status of the institution. And I think if the world becomes a world where some programs in power five lacrosse programs are taken care of by their athletic administration and others are kind of left to privatize and self fund themselves. All of a sudden you look at the Ivy League and with the endowment. And the model they've got, you figure they're going to continue to take care of all these different programs in the Ivies, like Stanford have some of the largest athletic footprints of of any schools in the country. You know, I think it becomes a very appetizing proposition. Obviously, you don't have the scholarship piece there, but with. The finding on house, who's to say that someone doesn't raise their hand and say, Hey, we're the Ivy League. We want to, you know, we want to have the ability to provide some sort of athletic scholarship of some type. So, to me, really, the athletic the athletic opportunity presented by the Ivy League in a, in a house settlement post house settlement environment. Is very attractive.

Speaker: 35:13

So with the settlement, then the Ivy League is free to have a private donor step in and provide a scholarship. Is that what you're saying?

Speaker 2: 35:21

Well, it reads that way. You know, and certainly some of the programs have already had tremendous input from from You know, donors and and have have, you know, funded various things within programs. So who's not to say someone could show up and say, Look, this isn't any money off the balance sheet of the endowment of the school. This isn't any money off the balance sheet of the athletic program. We're just gonna privately fund all the coaches positions, and we'd like to privately fund 44 scholarship. Physicians on the team. So

Speaker: 36:03

that would change that.

Speaker 2: 36:04

That's something to keep an eye on.

Speaker: 36:07

And then, you know, on the other hand of it, certain schools just don't have the endowment, you know, certain perhaps other leagues, what have you, don't want to point any fingers, but they're, you know, as you said, these Ivy League schools do have these huge endowments and you look at some of these other schools and they just don't. So over time, you know, some of these articles were kind of surmising war talking about it. Talk about basketball and talking about football was that smaller schools probably will get squeezed as time goes by What are your thoughts on That? You look at maybe the mid atlantic conference which is a good lacrosse conference you look at the patriot league, you look at some of these other places. What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 2: 36:48

It's hard to say anyone that makes those types of predictions needs to know donor behavior because If someone says this or this is going away. Don't doubt the love and effort and action of, you know, incentivized donors who will step right up and say, Oh, you want to cancel water polo at my school? That's my program. Here's a check. That program is now self funded. So I think, you know, widely saying the smaller schools might be at a disadvantage out of the gate that that seems to be a fair initial assessment. But if the pro, the athletic departments at those smaller schools, then say, look, folks, we got to self fund these programs, or we're gonna have to do away with X, X and X. Those folks could raise up and privately fund, and they continue on.

Speaker: 37:49

Interesting.

Speaker 3: 37:50

And Drew, how, you know, how do you well, I guess I'll just share my own sort of high level perspective and ask how you've kind of continued to come to terms with the reality of the landscape now, which is, you know, it seemed like we got to this place because the NCAA was just so rigid about making all this money for them and their schools and not In some way sharing that with athletes, you know, and, and now the pendulum has swung to where, again, we don't even know what the guardrails are and how all this money is going to get distributed and there's multiple pots. And so, and you know, you got recruits not having a conversation like you were having with Dom about where's the best place for me. You know, this is, and like what you're doing, the Virginia lacrosse alumni network, trying to position young people for success in life because as we know, The vast, vast majority of even power five conference student athletes are not going to professional league. And so it just feels like things have gotten flipped upside down now. And I, you know, it's like, you can't put the genie back in the bottle, but. So how have you come to terms with all those different human elements of it for this, if we put the student athlete back at the center.

Speaker 2: 39:09

Yeah, I think, look, we struggle with this a little bit on the Virginia side, where some of our alums, men's and women's. You know, just weighed in and said, look you know, we're being asked to, you know, contribute on the NIL side. I didn't get any NIL. You know, I would have liked to have got NIL. I was starving every night after dinner. I had no money for food. I had no extra money. I was an amateur athlete. And now you're asking, you know, To provide essentially an economic allowance for those that qualify through and I our through our charitable side with our foundation. I think the, the thing about college athletics now that the is basically let go, they let go because. To not let go meant they could go all the way through these trials and potentially lose the entire franchise. The N. C. A. A. Could have been sued into oblivion ultimately. And so they look to settle and to live another day. And they put the onus on the state and federal. And so far, state has been active. Federal has been rather inactive. There's been all kinds of behaviors. And I think, you know, we've heard about one school, a prominent football school that pays 50, 000. If you're an enrolled lineman at that school, you don't have to do anything. You just have to be enrolled and on the team. 50, 000. We've heard other stories about recruits being incentivized while they're still in high school, and they phone 11 famous phone call, the recruit got on the phone and said, I want 300, 000 and I want to escalate pickup trucks. And the head coach is there. The head of the collective is there and mom is there. And the coach is like, do they even make those anymore? And they scrambled and Googled and realized, Nope, Cadillac doesn't make those anymore. So we can get you two Silverados. And how about 200, 000? And famously, the calls winding up and mom says, Okay, coach, I think we're coming to your town that I'll not mention. But we just need that in writing. And coach hung up. This is all in the fringe out there happening, right? Transfers. You know, getting millions of dollars to transfer into schools. And then famous point guard got multimillion to transfer into an ACC school. And then the starting point guard says, well, if you're paying him that I need to get paid this. So I just think Our idea, the three of us, our idea of college athletics, that is gone. It is never coming back. You know, the genie is out of the bottle. The toothpaste is out of the bottle. Everything's out of the bottle. So the future, there is no

Speaker 3: 42:03

bottle.

Speaker 2: 42:03

There is no bottle.

Speaker 3: 42:05

The bottle

Speaker 2: 42:05

got sold. So fast forward from late June 2021, there have been all types of behaviors around NIL because literally the road has no guardrails, has no guardrails, You know, I think, I think where it is, is just the, the modern landscape is just so different. And to me, the thing about the modern landscape is not just how different it is. But how rapidly every day, every week, it's still evolving. So where we are today is very likely not where we're going to be when house starts paying out in 2025.

42:42

That is for sure. Since airing this interview, many schools have started to outline their plans and a recent publication on ESPN news and Yahoo sports. Men's lacrosse was listed with a roster limitation of 48 spots. All 48 spots are eligible for full scholarships. Women's lacrosse was given a roster limitation of 38 spots. All eligible for full scholarships, both programs men's and women's lacrosse had roughly 12 scholarships over four years previously. Just where that money comes from as anybody's gas. And in the Ivy league, Dartmouth basketball has formed a union and in a separate matter, there's an antitrust court case pending that states the Ivy leagues agreement, prohibiting athletic scholarships is price fixing. I would imagine it's hard to argue against that point. Well folks that concludes our compilation. As we mentioned, our next interview will be with coach Mike Murphy from Penn men's lacrosse. Hope you have a great week.

Ron: 43:43

until we meet again, here to, hoping you find the twine. We're signing off here at the Get the LAX coop. Thanks again so much. We will see you the next time.