The AU men's basketball season reaches its pinnacle Saturday at the annual Phil Bender event against Holy Cross. However, barring a miracle run through the Patriot League tournament and an even more miraculous run through the NCAA tournament, the AU winter sports season will mostly be winding down by the start of March.
So bring on the spring season, right?
Well, not quite. With the men's golf team gone and the tennis teams in their final seasons after being unceremoniously cut, women's lacrosse remains the sole team that will play home matches here in the spring. Nothing against women's lacrosse, an amazing sport to watch, but there needs to be more athletic variety in the spring at AU.
Why there are so little spring sports at AU has already been covered ad nauseam, considering the outcry over the dumping of the tennis and golf teams last spring right before we found out about Ladnergate (remember him?). The problem facing AU now is what it's going to do about the embarrassing lack of spring sports.
Ideally, AU could bring in new programs. Not only would these give students something to do in the spring (you can only see the cherry blossoms so many times), but they would bring prestige to AU in the unique way sports can.
Spring is easily the best season in D.C. and is equally as good for athletics. The weather turns just right, not so cold that you need three different layers, and not so hot that you see people falling over from heat exhaustion. So what sports would fit at AU?
Well, if you ask AU students where they're from, if it's not New Jersey, odds are they are from the Northeast. Now, in Massachusetts, New York and other northeastern states, the year doesn't officially start until pitchers and catchers report to spring training in Florida. Remember when the Red Sox won the World Series? All those people in the tunnel didn't get together simply because they shared a passion for burning brooms or running onto the quad.
Baseball is arguably the most popular sport among AU students. Along with baseball, softball would be another popular addition to spring athletics. These would be well-attended by the student body and the community.
Perhaps a more reasonable addition would be men's lacrosse. If you aren't from the east coast, or have never been to a women's game here at AU, perhaps you don't fully appreciate "the fastest sport on two feet."
Watching men's lacrosse is almost like watching hockey on grass, except the players often assault each other players with their sticks. A men's team would compliment the women's team and offer students another spring athletics event to attend.
Of course, these dreams are probably beyond reach. If AU cut tennis and golf due to a lack of funding (when as far as I can tell, the only equipment the tennis team needs is a racket and tennis balls), I sincerely doubt we can ever realistically think we'll see a baseball field, let alone a team.
Men's lacrosse may be more reasonable, seeing as how there is already a women's team in place, and it wouldn't need as much funding as a baseball team.
So until AU does add new spring sports, I guess I'll be at women's lacrosse games and then in my outfield seats at RFK Stadium.
