It’s been a month since three national champions have been crowned in NCAA women’s lacrosse.
The offseason has started off with what has now become a flurry of resignations, firings, steppings down, or partings of ways.
It’s a dizzying series of changes, and some are more perplexing than others.
For me, the two that I’m keeping an eye on are at opposite ends of the country. The University of Southern California found itself with a new coach after Lindsey Munday left, and less than a month later, hired Tewaaraton Award-winner Sam Apuzzo as head coach.
The other is the firing of Amy (Appelt) Slade from her position at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County.
Both Munday and Slade had been coaching for 14 seasons. Each have had seasons of expectation and heartbreak. Munday had taken USC to within one goal of the Final Four in 2016. Slade made a valiant chase for the NCAA Tournament white whale, but the Retrievers were not able to win an AQ to make it into the field.
Apuzzo, who is currently on the U.S. World Cup team and playing professionally for the Maryland Charm, is going to be expected to fly the flag for western lacrosse heading into the 2028 Olympics, which will be held a kilometer away from the USC campus. It’s an appealing situation for any coach.
But whoever comes into the UMBC situation is going to be going to a place where the athletic department has seen more than its share of scandal over the last dozen years or so. Most recently, there was a federal investigation into the school’s handling of a former swim coach, and the cancellation of the entire 2026 softball season following the firing of two coaches.
Given what we’ve been seeing in the collegiate athletics space since the Coronavirus pandemic, I can but wonder if candidates for the position aren’t a little put off by what is going on.