Parents Have Incentive to Put 'Lacrosse Stix' in Their Kids' Hands at an Early Age.

[ by Howard Haykin and Melanie Gretchen ]

Lacrosse is not a sport with much of a following in New York City schools - something to do with a shortage of green grass and open space.  But somehow Wall Street apparently has bonded with the sport and investment banks now seriously recruit student athletes from powerhouse LAX colleges - UVa, Johns Hopkins, Syracuse, Cornell, and elsewhere.

In some cases, the schools are playing up this connection.  Take, for example, University of Virginia lacrosse coach Dom Staria, who begins his recruiting pitches by showing where players end up working after graduation.  He relies heavily on  the Virginia Lacrosse Alumni Network (VLAN),   a 300-person database of former male and female players who work in finance and other fields and are willing to help cub Cavaliers get there, too.

The VLAN database provides names, firms, industries, titles, e-mails and phone numbers, according to Neuberger Berman MD Drew Fox, whom Starsia credits with turning a loose affiliation of former players into an organized pipeline of mentors.

Coach Starsia then wows the recruits with UVa's 4 national championships and 13 Final Fours - collected over his 21 seasons at the school.

Other VLAN members include:

• Andrew Kraus, MD for investments at Merrill Lynch Private Banking;
• Landon Hilliard, Partner at Brown Brothers Harriman;
• John Sommi, Managing Member at High Tor Asset Mgmt;
• Garth Appelt, Portfolio Manager at Moore Capital Mgmt.

Wall Street in Waiting.   All told, there were about 1.5 million lacrosse players in the U.S. last year - up 37% from 2008.  This indicates Wall Street may have found a new hiring pool.  Here are further scenarios that support the notion that the trend goes well beyond the University of Virginia.

• Dave Huntley, a former Johns Hopkins University player and principal at Baltimore-based HR Investment Consultants, said he takes a second look at any resume that includes big-time lacrosse.  The sport’s tribal nature, he said, explains why players feel a sense of obligation to help each other.
   
• Friends of Princeton Lacrosse,  a network overseen by 3-time national champion Jon Hess who graduated in 1998, works in equity trading at CapRok Capital LLC - which coincidentally was co-founded by former Cornell player Joe Lizzio.  The group has 3,000 members, about 500 of who played lacrosse.
   
• SAC Capital COO Sol Kumin "touches base" with John Hopkins lacrosse coaches during the year to find out which players want a career in finance. 

• Harvard University's Varsity Club has made its mission to support athletes, coaches, the athletic department and the university.

• Drew McKnight, a managing director at Fortress Investment Group, credits VLAN for helping to start his career.  While searching for an internship in 1998, he contacted Appelt and Fox, who put him in touch with Matt Rakowski, who at the time was a VP for high-yield sales and trading at Goldman Sachs. Thanks to Rakowski, McKnight landed an internship at Credit Suisse;  that led to jobs at Goldman and Fir Tree Partners.

• Mr. McKnight, in turn, helped John Haldy, co-captain of UVa's 2011 national title team.  Haldy is now at Forward Insight Commodities, a brokerage firm.

The stories continue at:  [Bloomberg, 5/23/13].