Detroit Mercy announced their men’s lacrosse recruiting class nearly three weeks ago, and six of the eleven signees hail from the state of Michigan. Midfielder Dylan Swanson of Ann Arbor Pioneer was among those who will continue their playing careers in a Titan uniform, and he’s excited to be a part of the Titan family.
Dylan Swanson will go from Pioneer to Titan in 2013. Photo via UDM.
“Detroit Mercy is a place where I can focus on my studies as well as a chance to play against some of the best competition in the country,” said Swanson. “My goal at Detroit is to make it to the NCAA Tournament and make some noise there.”
That’s no small task for a program that has yet to play its third year on the Division 1 level. However, The Titans were within a game of making the tournament in 2011, and the program has grown to the point where those are realistic goals. Adding talented offensive prospects like Swanson will only help to take Detroit to the next level. He has the athleticism to succeed, and need only add polish to become a top-flight player.
“He is an excellent athlete who is growing into his lacrosse body,” said UDM head coach Matt Holtz. “He has a ton of upside and potential.”
Swanson agrees with his future coach that athleticism is one of the strengths of his game. He has the offensive ability to score or make plays for his teammates, and the attitude to do the small things that help a team win games – even if they don’t show up on the box score.
“I would describe myself as an aggressive slashing middie who can share the ball as well as get to the goal and score,” he said. “I don’t mind rolling my sleeves up and playing gritty either.”
With the majority of Michigan’s 2012 signing class hailing from out-of-state (only two of 18 players come from Michigan), Detroit has continued to be the go-to program for players who want to continue their careers in “the mitten.” Before taking his talents down I-94 to the Motor City, Swanson has one final spring of high school ball. His goals for Pioneer in 2012 are lofty.
“I want nothing but the best I and my team can do,” he said. “I want to play in a championship, and be voted an All-American.”
Many thanks to Ryan Hagy and Hillary Robinson for getting me in touch with Dylan. If you’d like to share a news tip with me, you can e-mail me or tweet @GreatLaxState.
Looks like a big strong kid in the picture.
For obvious reasons Michigan isn’t going to be a lacrosse destination for many local kids. It’s great that the Detroit program exists so there’s more opportunity for the best Michigan players to play D1 lacrosse close to home. I think that UDM’s strategy to recruit Michigan kids for at least half the roster is smart.
What are the obvious reasons you speak of? Are they inferior athletes? Ask Dom Starsia who he recruits and he will tell you Attackman, goalies, and DI-AA football players. I agree that it is smart, though. I also agree that most of the attackman coming out of Michigan (the state, not the university) aren’t ready for the D1 level, but there isn’t a reason a Michigan kid can’t be a D1 athlete and learn the D1 game during college. Look at what Jamie Hebden has done at Detroit. I could name others that were all americans out of Michgian but I might be dating myself a bit. Maybe Detroit just has a better eye, or (more likely) the type of team they are building is different than what Michigan is building.
Syracuse and Virginia build very different teams every year, and yet seem to always rise to the top at the end of May.
Just a thought…..
CK got it right (below). I think both UNC and ND are good models of what UM is hoping to build. Virginia and Duke too. All are elite academic institutions with national name recognition in states that are not lacrosse hotbeds. It’s a no-brainer that they will try to follow the successful models they have already built.
I didn’t mean my comments as a slight to UDM at all. Detroit and Michigan are very different institutions. They will have very different resources, including recruiting budgets. Michigan has a much bigger reach for many reasons (budget, reputation, academics, facilities, expectations, alumni network, media coverage, etc.). UDM is doing this exactly the right way for them, in my opinion. They can recruit top athletes from Michigan who know more about the school already, have more access to their families (and their families to them, thus making the total cost lower when you factor in travel to watch games), are less likely to want to transfer out to somewhere where the grass may appear greener, and will buy into the Detroit marketing and motivation angle that is similar to the Chrysler ads: gritty, tough, hard working, overcoming obstacles, etc. If they recruit and motivate correctly, which they seem to be doing, their players will actually take pride in what they are doing despite the resources they don’t have compared to bigger schools. My point was that I think UDM is nailing it with kids like Swanson. Sprinkle in a couple of good Canadians and a handful of under-the-radar kids from other states and you have a team that’s already challenging for conference titles. Obviously what they are doing is working.
Obvious reasons:
UofM is a highly selective school (with a much larger than usual out-of-state student population, almost 40%) that is recruiting lacrosse players from some of the top high school programs in the country. Therefore, the opportunities for Michigan high school players to play for UofM (in the near future and beyond) will be extremely limited.
On the other hand, UDM (with 95% in-state student population) is not as academically selective as UofM, and has made a commitment to having a roster of about half in-state players.
Also note that even top teams (Syracuse, Maryland) from top lacrosse states (NY, MD) only have half of their players from in-state. UNC might be the best model of what to expect of a UofM roster in the future. (5 out of 46 players on the roster are from NC).
AndyD, Michigan and North Carolina are nearly identical schools as well as states:
1. Both states have about 100 boys high school teams.
2. Both states have similar populations, 10 million in Michigan and 9.3 million in NC.
3. Both states are lacrosse non-hotbeds, but increasingly established lacrosse states nonetheless.
4. Both UNC and UofM are Top 25 ranked (public) universities.
5. Both UNC (20%) and UofM (40%) have larger than average (10%) out-of-state enrollments.
6. Both states have two D1 lacrosse teams. Michigan with UofM and UDM, North Carolina with UNC and High Point.
7. Heck both states even lost D1 programs, NC State and MSU.
Regarding #6. I believe UNC’s friends up the road in Durham, NC would take offense to you forgetting they have a program. I believe they won a rather important Lacrosse game vs Notre Dame about a year and a half ago.
As soon as I woke up this morning, Durham, NC popped into my head. Perhaps what people say about the east coast nature of Duke is true. In other words, sometimes it’s easy to forget that the “Harvard of the South” is in North Carolina.
Maybe the State of Michigan can annex Indiana, so we can add Notre Dame to the equation for an exact comparison between the states?
Perhaps CK is a UNC alum. If that’s the case, forgetting about Duke is understandable.