Syracuse’s, N.Y. -- Le Moyne athletic director Bob Beretta said that the school is looking to add sports as it transitions to Division I and one of the potential options has been a mainstay on the local sports fan wish list.
Beretta said that he is a huge proponent of college hockey and that the school will look seriously at the possibility of adding both men’s and women’s hockey programs.
Syracuse University, the only Division I program in the city until this week, has a women’s program but only offers men’s club hockey.
“We are huge proponents of hockey,” Beretta said. “I come from a hockey background at (Army). I was the executive chair of the Atlantic Hockey committee for several years. I sat a term on the NCAA rules committee. I’m a huge hockey person. If we had a rink that was on-campus, it would be a no-brainer.”
Hockey is one of the few college sports where demographics favor schools located in the North.
Upstate programs Cornell and Colgate both finished in the Top 20 in men’s hockey last year. Merrimack, a member of the NEC, finished the season ranked No. 14 in the country.
On the women’s side, Colgate, Clarkson and Cornell all finished in the Top 15.
“The fact that our neighbors play hockey is very compelling,” Le Moyne President Linda LeMura said.
Beretta and LeMura spoke to reporters on Thursday following an on-campus celebration of the school’s decision to move up to the Division I level.
The event was held at Le Moyne’s in Grewen Auditorium one day after the school announced it would join the Northeast Conference and transition to Division I.
The event included remarks from Beretta, LeMura, men’s basketball player Isaiah Salter, Le Moyne Board of Trustees chair Pete Dilaura and NEC commissioner Noreen Morris.
Beretta said there have been discussions about potential real estate developments in Syracuse that include a skating rink. Beretta declined to provide specifics about the rumored development.
“There have been discussions about some development that might take place here in the area that would make it an absolute slam dunk for us,” Beretta said. “We’re going to take a look at (hockey) this summer. We’re right in the heartbeat of hockey and it makes so much sense for us. ... Long-term, you could see intercollegiate hockey here at this level.”
Beretta said that Le Moyne currently has a men’s club team. The school tried unsuccessfully to launch a women’s club team last year. It will try again this year.
Beretta said Le Moyne’s move to a higher level won’t involve cutting any of the school’s programs and that Le Moyne only plans to add teams.
Other potential programs that Beretta or LeMura said that the school is considering adding include women’s bowling, field hockey and men’s volleyball. LeMura said the school wanted to be especially active in increasing women’s sports.
“We could add sports here in the next couple years,” Beretta said. “We’re going to take a look at men’s volleyball, women’s bowling. Those are two that are offered in the NEC.
“We want to grow. We don’t want to shrink. There is absolutely no discussion of eliminating sports.”
No to football
Le Moyne will join Fairleigh Dickinson as the only two Northeast Conference schools that don’t have a football team and LeMura said she doesn’t anticipate that changing any time in the near future.
“Certainly not any time soon,” LeMura said. “We’re not a football school and we don’t want to be something we’re not.”
Football makes up the largest portion of the budget at nearly every school that has a team. Even if Le Moyne was interested in having a football team it would force a major overhaul of the way the school does business.
While Le Moyne will enter the NEC with one of the smallest overall athletic department budgets, Beretta said the school believes that number is misleading because other schools have costly football and hockey programs.
He said the school plans to provide most of its programs financial resources that place it in the middle of the pack in its new conference.
“We looked at the numbers and said, ‘What will this cost to be in the middle of the pack in the NEC,’ ” Beretta said. “In some sports we’re actually above that. In others we’re a little lower. We’ve built a plan to where we are funded in the mid-level.”
Who will be on the schedule?
Beretta declined to say which Syracuse-Le Moyne contests he expects to be played next year but said he would love to play as many games against Le Moyne’s in-city rival as possible.
“We’d love to play Syracuse in every sport,” Beretta said. “We really would. If the schedule works, we’d like to play them everywhere. It’s a natural fit. It’s an elite institution. It’s elite academically, elite athletically and a premier brand. That’s important. Who you play matters. We really believe that.”
In addition to Syracuse, Beretta said that over the past 24 hours Le Moyne has heard from programs at Wisconsin, Villanova, Georgetown and Penn State.
“That’s the trade-off for our student athletes,” Beretta said. “To walk into those venues is a lifetime experience.”
Future of the NEC
Don’t expect Le Moyne to be the new kid on the block in the NEC for very long.
Conference commissioner Noreen Morris said the league will have nine teams next year but that she expects that number to change as conference realignment in college sports continues.
Given the number of teams switching conferences in recent years, she said the NEC hopes to end up with at least 10 or 12 members. She said it could expand further than that.
She declined to say which schools the NEC is targeting for future expansion.
What about NIL?
The conversation in the upper reaches of college sports has been dominated in recent months by the way college athletes are being compensated, with much of it coming through payments labeled (and mislabeled) as name, image and likeness.
With Le Moyne’s jump to Division I, the school is likely to find itself on the shallow end of the pool and likely to have its best players poached annually by bigger programs.
Beretta said the subject wasn’t a major discussion for Le Moyne’s decision-makers as they weighed whether to make the shift to Division I.
Bereta said that leaving Le Moyne in pursuit of a payday was already something the school was dealing with at the Division II level.
“We were already impacted by NIL,” Beretta said. “We lost our top pitcher in baseball. He’s at Rutgers. We lost one of our top men’s basketball players. He’s at Bradley. We’re impacted by that right now.”
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