For freshman midfielder Ari Weiss, The University of Texas was always his dream school. But he didn’t realize this until after he committed to play lacrosse at Denison University.
In January 2020, after three months of sleepless nights, Weiss called Denison’s head coach and told him he would be decommitting. Weiss said the decision came after his high school coach urged him to choose a college not just for lacrosse.
“The one thing that kind of held me back from decommitting earlier was … not knowing if I was going to get into Texas and Texas really being the only other school I wanted to go to if it weren’t for lacrosse,” Weiss said. “It (was a) really hard, really hard time, but I had a lot of different people that I got to talk to about it, from coaches, parents and friends, and ultimately I was able to make the right decision.”
For other players on the Texas men’s club lacrosse team who decommitted or transfered from Division I and Division III programs, they made the move because of education and the want for a change of pace. Their choices have benefited the Texas lacrosse program.
Like Weiss, freshman attackman Cristian Reno had previously committed elsewhere before deciding to come to Texas. His brother is a midfielder at Cleveland State University. Reno, who hails from Dripping Springs, Texas, said his brother, the coaches and the school’s facilities influenced his commitment to Cleveland State in spring 2019.
However, Reno said he realized he was burnt out from lacrosse and wanted to pursue his academics at a school with a top business program. He said he was transparent with Cleveland State’s head coach about still applying to top academic programs even though he had committed to play there. After landing an interview with Texas McCombs’ Canfield Business Honors Program in December 2019, he decided to stay in Texas.
Junior attackman Rowan Hart’s path to Texas was different than Weiss’ and Reno’s. Hart played lacrosse at Holy Cross through the 2018 and 2019 seasons, but when the computational physics major started his junior year, his financial aid situation changed. He decided to start looking at transferring to other schools and eventually came to Texas in spring 2020 because he wanted to put his education first and liked UT’s physics program.
“I think for a lot of people, you imagine the first or one of the top things you’d be thinking about is another school to play lacrosse at, but there are kind of a limited number of good academic Division I schools,” Hart said. “Realistically, I was either looking at another Patriot League school, which would be a similar tuition rate for a similar education, or an Ivy League school.”
Hart has thrived at Texas and was the number one scorer in the Men’s Collegiate Lacrosse Association with 32 goals in six games during the 2020 season. He’s not the only transfer who has found success on the field; junior attackman Nick McCall, who transferred from Washington and Lee University, ranked third in the association with 40 goals in 11 games in 2019.
“I had been plowing snow off the field since freshman year in high school,” said McCall, who attended Choate Rosemary Hall before college. “I had just only been at small New England-type schools. I just wanted more of an eclectic environment, and I think that’s what you get at Texas.”
Both Hart and McCall have contributed to Texas’ on-field success since transferring here. Not only have they been able to academically succeed while still playing high-level lacrosse, but they’ve also found a community with their teammates.
“It’s definitely nice to be able to socialize and make friends going into a new school,” Hart said. “I know it’s scary for a lot of transfers, but to just go to (a place) where 50 people are forced to hang out with you per day, that’s pretty ideal for starting to meet people. So it was really nice to make friends, and playing was fun.”
