Lacrosse Team Perseveres Through Loss of Coach

Fall training intensified for the women's lacrosse team – they lost their coach. Jessica Morgan, who has served as the team's coach since January 2009, recently accepted another position at UVA, her alma matter.

For the team of 21 girls, this poses a setback.

"Everybody was kind of upset about it. I know as a captain I was upset about it," said Ashley Lawrence, senior physical education major. "But it's something we just have to move on from."

Lawrence, a midfielder, has played on the team for four years and says the next coach will be the third coach of the team since her first year.

Under Morgan, Lawrence said, the team began to see some progress.

"We had 10 recruits that came in through Jessica Morgan, so basically this is her team," she said. "Even though she left she brought a lot of love for the sport to the team. She was here day in and day out."

The search for a new coach has begun and the athletic department anticipates interviewing candidates for the position in the coming weeks, said Interim Athletic Director Charles Gibbs.

"Historically, this has been a part-time coach's position which can sometimes be difficult to balance when some of them have other obligations," Gibbs said. "We recognize the difficulty in this balance and are working to convert the position to a full-time status."

Without a coach, the team's captains are taking on new responsibilities in order to prepare for their spring games. Captain's are making sure new team members complete their paperwork for the NCAA and register for classes. They also have to plan out their fall training, said Chasity Dailey, junior administration of justice major and one of the team's captains.

"If we just stick together and everyone keeps everyone on the right path, we should be fine," Dailey said.

The challenge for the team this semester seems to be more mental than anything.

"We have to be there for each other," Lawrence said. "We need to stay together as a team its the only way that's going to work, and if that foundation breaks, then a lot of things are going to go wrong."

Aside from their internal challenges, the women's lacrosse team, which was established in 1988, holds a stake as the only lacrosse team in the nation at an HBCU.  As a result, the women of the team go into each season with two objectives: proving they're good and maintaining awareness for black lacrosse players across the country.

"We want to prove everybody wrong," Lawrence said, "because there are still people out there that say that blacks can't play this sport."