Michigan Press Conference Notes

Always looking for excuses to post the sailorweasel helmet.

Adding to the general notes from this morning’s press conference (a must-read), a few specific things from David Brandon and John Paul. All quotes from JP unless otherwise noted.

• Brandon said “It’s also a great television sport,” which likely means some TV down the road. I asked him specifically about that, and he said he hasn’t directly communicated with Big Ten Network yet, but “they certainly know what we’re doing here.”
• For women’s coaching candidates, Brandon said he wanted somebody with a track record of building a program from the bottom up. AnnArbor.com’s Mike Rothstein is going to be all over the coaching search there, so definitely follow up with him.
• JP stated that 25 members from this season’s club lacrosse roster will return to the team for next year’s inaugural varsity year. Trevor Yealy will return as a 5th-year senior, but Harrison Freid will not return (instead transferring to St. John’s, as previously planned). “We’re confident that the guys we have will be able to leave a foundation culturally” going forward.
• Although the coaching staff hasn’t recruited with a promise of a promotion to varsity over the past few years, a lot of recruits might have picked Michigan because they thought such a promotion was inevitable. “I have never recruited based on something that I wasn’t sure about.” Michigan has 10 incoming freshmen that JP is confident are Division-1 players. “The way lacrosse recruiting is going now, we’ll have a shot at our first truly elite recruiting class in 2013.” Recruiting will be the biggest change going forward, though the Wolverines have already been recruiting heavily on the East Coast and nationally.
• There have also been elite players in the state of Michigan that haven’t been able to play at a high level in-state until recently. JP gave a shoutout to GLS’s The Next Level series.
• There have been several potential transfer students contacting Coach Paul about coming to Michigan. They’ll have to be released by their former schools (more about this tomorrow) and be admitted to Michigan before anything is definite. “There’s a lot of interest. People have been contacting us for weeks now.”
• Brandon is confident Michigan will be admitted to the ECAC (hell, Denver coach Bill Tierney thinks it’s a done deal) once the application is reviewed by member schools and the conference. It will be interesting to see what happens with the conference down the road.
• 

  Photo from 2011 Spring Practice

  Schembechler’s practice fields (pictured at right – oh, the perks of being a football reporter), the Big House, the UM Soccer Stadium, and other facilities will be used in the meantime. Building their own home is in the long-term plans, though Brandon said that’s at least 3 years off – depending on the panning process and funding. He also stated in no uncertain terms that the new Al Glick Fieldhouse is not an option as a competition venue.

• Brandon expects the men’s and women’s teams to both be competitive right away. “The only thing I’ll tell you is: We’re Michigan. We’re not gonna add these sports, and we’re not gonna make the financial commitment and put the time and energy that we have and will put into these if we’re not prepared to go out and compete for championships.”
• “The idea of featuring the sport in conjunction with the spring [football] game – because the seasons overlap from a timing perspective – I know Ohio State has done that with great success.” That’s something Michigan will consider going forward. Insert link to my awesome trifecta plan.
• As far as scheduling, JP said he’ll hold off on talking about schools that have been in contact, but Rothstein has sources telling him that Notre Dame and Penn State are both planning to play Michigan in 2012. I’ll bet you a dollar Johns Hopkins is also an option.
• Coach Paul and his wife had decided two years ago to give a varsity program at Michigan just a couple more years, and if this hadn’t happened, JP would probably have started looking for varsity coaching options elsewhere.
• Michigan and Marquette are exciting additions: “Michigan and Marquette are big-name branding schools.” There’s a potential domino effect going forward.
• JP will be at this weekend’s Final Four in Baltimore. He’s missed one FF in the past 30 years, but this is the first time he’ll go as a peer, rather than just a fan of the game.

Obviously, much more in the days to come, including reactions from around the web. For my stream-of-consciousness from the press conference, check out the archive of the liveblog or my twitter timeline.