Do you want to know why thousands of lacrosse people are spending Memorial Day weekend in Foxboro?

Do you want to know how something happened a long time ago to change the sport forever and eventually make the NCAA Men's Lacrosse Championships a festival that is the highlight of every season? Do you want to know how that came to elevate the game to a level that would have been unimaginable 20 or 30 years ago?
 

And would you like to know who really started the ball rolling toward all this, the man who launched this glowing era when 50,000 people flood pro football stadiums for lacrosse games that are televised to millions by ESPN?

It was Bruce Allison. He's the one. He started the whole thing.

This is the same Bruce Allison that long-time lacrosse people might remember from the days when he coached Union College (New York) in the 1950s, '60s and '70s.

Yes, that Bruce Allison, now an unassuming 78-year old gentleman who lives quietly in retirement with his wife in Golden, Colorado.

Allison, who always had a great affection for lacrosse, reached the conclusion in the late '60's that the sport needed a change. He believed it needed a postseason playoff to determine a true national champion. He believed it strongly enough that he approached the NCAA leadership with the idea and sold it to them.

"After World War II," Bruce recalled, "six teams dominated possession of the Wingate Trophy, which was awarded to the national champion. The teams were Army, Johns Hopkins, Maryland, Navy, Princeton and Virginia. Many people felt that schools with exceptional records were denied access to the trophy because they did not have strong enough schedules. Schools like Williams, Amherst and Hobart never got a look."

Curiously, there are many people today — a half century later — who say not much has changed. Since 1992 all the Division I championships have been won by Princeton, Syracuse, Virginia or Johns Hopkins.

Back in the day Allison wasn't the only one who thought there was an inequity. Others who were bothered by the status quo included people at Cornell, an Upstate New York lacrosse power at that time. But, until Allison went to work on the problem Cornell had not won a national championship.

"Cornell had three undefeated teams," Allison said. "Two were coached by Ned Harkness in 1966 (12-0) and 1968 (12-0). The third was coached by Ned's assistant, Richie Moran, who moved up to become head coach and had an undefeated team in 1970 (11-0). None of those unbeaten teams was properly recognized in the opinion of many in the lacrosse family."

In truth, it's a wonder someone didn't come forth before Allison to bring about a better way of deciding the national champion. The whole thing was handled by the U.S. Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association, founded in 1885.

There are plenty of people around today who remember the less than satisfying coronation of tri-champions in 1967 (Maryland, Navy and Johns Hopkins) and in 1959 (Army, Maryland and Johns Hopkins).

College lacrosse had tri-champions as far back as 1909, when Harvard and Johns Hopkins shared the title with Columbia. Today, Columbia is the only one of the eight Ivy League members that does not have men's lacrosse.

The worst resolution had to be in 1905 with — what's the word? Quadruple-champs? Harvard, Cornell, Columbia and Swarthmore all ended the season as national champions. All of this, of course, was decided by the USILA's championship committee.

Getting the NCAA to begin a postseason championship took a lot more than writing a letter. Allison's feelings on the matter were firmed up in summer conversations at Camp Deerwood in New Hampshire, owned by Ferris Thomsen, the former Princeton coach, and his son Tommy, who later coached Denison. The Thomsens not only agreed with Allison; they strengthened his convictions.

So Allison, being a team player, went about it in the proper way. He was the head coach at Union so he started with his boss, Athletics Director Wilford "Bill" Ketz.

"I went to Bill and asked if he'd be willing to carry a proposal to the NCAA to approve a lacrosse championship beginning in 1970-71," Allison said. "He agreed to."

Going to Ketz was smart. Ketz was connected. The Union athletics director had been on the NCAA Council as a vice president at-large. He knew the people at the organization's headquarters in Overland Park, Kansas. Under Ketz's guidance Allison wrote the proposal.

"The NCAA flew me out there twice to confer with Lou Spry, their No. 2 man," Allison said. "He walked me through the tournament handbook to make the proposal compatible with NCAA regulations. The NCAA executive council approved the proposal and the membership concurred and the first championship was held in 1971."

The initial event was contested by eight teams chosen geographically. The North selections were Cornell, Army and Brown. From the South were Maryland, Navy and Virginia. The West selection was the Air Force Academy. The at-large team was Hofstra — which hosted the championship game.
 

The start was modest enough. Richie Moran and his Cornell Big Red won their first official NCAA championship by beating Maryland, 12-6, in the title game. The attendance was 5,458.

At that time the championship game was the only game played that weekend. The semifinals were held the previous Saturday on the campuses of the teams with the higher seeding. Still well ahead was the day of the modern format with the championships of all three divisions being contested on one weekend on the same field. Last year in Baltimore the Sunday double-header of Division II and Division III title games drew slightly more than 20,000.

One of Moran's memories of the '71 game was the immense traffic jam that blocked the Cornell team bus on the way to the game. Largely ignored by the lacrosse crowd was the fact that Canonero 2d, a South American thoroughbred, was going for racing's Triple Crown that day at Belmont Park, not far from Hofstra.

"I was afraid we were going to miss the faceoff for the first NCAA championship game," said Moran.
 

From that day right up to Foxboro, the sport of lacrosse has grown … and grown … and look where it is now. Just in the last decade, according to U.S. Lacrosse, the sport's national governing body, the number of active players has grown 89.3 percent from 253,931 to 480,627 last year. So, too, did the attendance at the championships.

The first title game that drew more than 20,000 was in the Carrier Dome in Syracuse in 1988. Syracuse defeated Cornell that day, 13-8. In Baltimore's M&T Bank Stadium in 2003 the crowd topped the 30,000 mark. The following year, also in Baltimore, the attendance was more than 40,000. In Philadelphia the next two years the gate kept creeping up toward the 50,000 mark. Last year, back in

Baltimore, it hit 48,000.

So, it should not shock anyone that the championship is what it is now. It has taken time but by now it's expected that the weekend will produce crowds of 40,000-50,000 for a single day of lacrosse. For  Foxboro this year, 45 percent of the tickets were sold to people from outside New England, including fans from from Australia, Canada, England, Germany and Bermuda.

The championship scene every year, no matter where it's played and no matter what teams are in it, is the essence of a spring celebration. People of all ages from seemingly everywhere tailgate and toss lacrosse balls in the parking lots, just enjoying one big celebration of the sport. Nowadays the Division II and III championships are also played at the site and the champions are crowned there.

Don't try to tell Allison we owe it all to him. You'll only embarrass him. You see, he's still the same humble yet impressive man he was even in his playing days at Cortland State in the 1950s.

"If I hadn't gone to the NCAA to get the tournament started someone else would have," he said. True enough, but it was Allison who did it. This is a man who loved the game so much that he personally undertook the challenge of changing the way the championships were decided — and pulled it off. This is a man who started us on our way to the biggest lacrosse event of the year, every year.

Many are quick to let it be known that Allison deserves any praise he's given. No one was more effusive in his praise than Paul Wehrum, now in his second year as head lacrosse coach at Union after 26 years at Herkimer (New York) Community College. Wehrum was elected to the Lacrosse Hall of Fame as "a truly great coach" but he was also a three-time all-America attackman at Cortland State in the early '70s.

"We hold our Bruce Allison Tournament at Union every fall in his honor," Wehrum said. "He looks exactly the way he did nearly 40 years ago — very tall and strong. When he coached lacrosse at Union he was also the freshman football coach. He used to get his football players to come out for lacrosse. I've seen some of his former players — guys who might be 62 years old — call him Coach or Coach Allison. Never Bruce. I've never called him Bruce. That's the kind of respect he gets.

"The first time I met him he was president of the USILA. He handed me my certificate at the dinner the first time I made all-America (1970). He shook my hand and said, 'Congratulations, but you need to work on your left hand.' "

Allison has all the lacrosse credentials. He was born in Penn Yan, New York, in 1930. After service in the Marine Corps he attended and played lacrosse for Cortland State and captained the team there in 1956. He coached Union for 20 years and became athletics director. He served as the athletics director at Colorado School of Mines and coached lacrosse there from 1976 to 1995.

One of his longtime friends and admirers, Fred Eisenbrandt, former national chief referee, acknowledges that Allison has certainly paid his dues in lacrosse.

"Bruce has held every USILA job known to man," Eisenbrandt said. "He was either president, vice president or treasurer from 1976 to 1995."

The man who got this whole championship started will not attend the 2008 championships in Foxboro. Bruce is 78 now and Colorado is a long way.

"The next championship I attend," he said, "will be played in Denver at Mile High Stadium. There must be 6,000 kids playing lacrosse around Denver now. There's no doubt in my mind that you'll see the championship played there and I think it will be very successful."