Thought this might be of interest
https://www.insidelacrosse.com/article/an-ode-to-new-jersey-s-tournament-of-champions/59895
https://www.insidelacrosse.com/article/an-ode-to-new-jersey-s-tournament-of-champions/59895
Inside Lacrosse on the last Tournament of Champions
- Thread starter mdk01
- Start date
They did not have it in every sport. So football only went to sectional champions, there are 23 sections in NJ. Baseball only goes to the group. There are 6 groups.
Honestly, loved coaching in the TOC. Winning the TOC meant that for that year you were the best team in the state. Playing to one and going through the best teams in the state regardless of size was what made it special. We just watched 2 of the smaller school sections play each other in the TOC finals, One beat the Biggest Non-public group while the other beat the largest public group (4). You also saw Teams from the South earn the top seeds in the tournament for the first time ever. In the TOC era, No group 3 or Non-public B schools have ever one the TOC. Only six teams have ever won it all, four of them (Lakes, Delbarton, Summit, and BR) have done it multiple times. Kids in those programs grow up wanting to win the TOC, and now because we live in an everybody needs a trophy society they have stopped it.
I have never had the pleasure of coaching in the TOC for lacrosse, but I was lucky enough to for field hockey. I think it is an amazing thing and it is a travesty what the NJSIAA is doing. They are also cutting the time for many sports in the state but leaving others alone. There is a very clear bias towards which sports the NJSIAA cares about, and which they do not.
Getting rid of the TOC is the dumbest shit ever.
Football will play to groups starting in Fall 2022. Finally having true State Champions like every other state in the country.
Still a severe improvement over sectional/regional champions. That was utter stupidity.
No mention of the incredible history on the girls side of the TOC, which was dominated by Moorestown for many years. Prior to the NJSIAA calling it the TOC in 2007, the state played down to one final champion anyway and was referred by many of the newspapers and people in the coaching circle as the TOC. It was and is great to have ONE champion left standing, like Hoosiers. But we live in a hyper PC/Woke world where we can't possibly offend anyones feelings. Pure and simple.
That is not fully the reason. It does not make the NJSIAA money, and so they did not care about leaving it in. They did have a solid goal of creating space between the season, but they did it at the detriment to spring sports.
That would probably create a pissing contest with the NJSIAA and cause problems for the players. Reasonable initial reaction but I don't think it works.
So sad. We are going backwards.
Had a Moorestown grad at my table for the USA Lacrosse gala. Really nice girl who is on the US squad. Looking forward to seeing her play in the tournament.
There used to be something called the Coaches Tournament that pitted the best teams in the state against each other. I am hearing rumblings that there is a movement to bring that back. Of course, teams would have to opt-in to play and they would need to find facilities to play at lastly, they would have to find a workaround for the new NJSIAA rule that prohibits coaches from coaching their own team after the season.
Funny. New Jersey lacrosse got put on the map 52 years ago when an overbearing New York HS governing body kept a LI All-Star team out of the preliminary game before the D1 North-South game. Now NJ has become as bureaucratically sclerotic as New York.
Had a Moorestown grad at my table for the USA Lacrosse gala. Really nice girl who is on the US squad. Looking forward to seeing her play in the tournament.
Her name is Marie McCool, UNC/Moorestown grad, one of the best in the world and showing it in the first two games.
Her name is Marie McCool, UNC/Moorestown grad, one of the best in the world and showing it in the first two games.
Yea, great girl. Great player. We’ve been keeping in touch. She’s engaged to a former Cuse player whose game I really liked. There’d be some real talent in offspring lol
It is ridiculous that we will have to go to that length to make it happen. Especially since lacrosse will be done, and baseball will be barely into their playoffs.
I know I am preaching to the choir though.
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