the first season, though they will be compensated for travel. Corporate partnerships also will be a source of revenue. “Building those relationships with the community will play forward the loyalty of the fans to the players and put more butts in the seats,” Murphy said. “When you look at why soccer folded or why the WNBA has to be funded by the NBA, we believe that women have a lot of catching up to do. We need this middle step in the process to catch up to the 125-year history that [women’s lacrosse] has enjoyed.” While the UWLX welcomes lessons from MLL, Murphy wants to draw a line and distinguish the league as being “for women, by women.” Hiring former U.S. World Cup captain Michele DeJuliis as the UWLX commissioner was the first step in that direction.
Michelle DeJuliis
After becoming the winningest coach in college women’s ice hockey history at Brown, she led the Boston Blades of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League (CWHL) to two Clarkson Cup titles in three years. Not only were the Blades the first American team to win the Cup twice, Murphy was the first female and American-born coach to earn two Cup crowns. In March 2015, Murphy traveled with then-Blades general manager Aronda Kirby to the Beijing “Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality” event held in New York, where they were moved by a speech on equal pay by actress Patricia Arquette.
As representatives of the CWHL, Murphy and Kirby then were invited to the Impact Leadership 21 Summit at the United Nations. Having coached several Olympians, including Kelli Stack, Murphy served on a panel about pay equity within the sports industry alongside Stack and Shannon Miller, the former Minnesota-Duluth and five-time NCAA champion hockey coach who is suing the university for discrimination. Kirby and Murphy
46 LACROSSE MAGAZINE » June 2016
were honored at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival with the Disruptive Innovation Award for their work with the Blades, which included a campaign called “Pass the Puck, Pay the Players.”
At the American Hockey Coaches Association (AHCA) convention that spring, STX director of marketing Ed Saunders told Murphy about Team STX — a national brand keeping women’s lacrosse players in the game with a compensation bonus. By the end of the month, STX had announced a partnership with Play It Forward to launch the UWLX.
“Needed some new trails to blaze,” Murphy wrote on her LinkedIn blog. “On our way to building a sustainable hockey model, we bumped into lacrosse.”
That sustainable model requires working in conjunction with Play It Forward, soliciting donations, promoting ticket sales and partaking in grassroots efforts through the players with speeches, camps and clinics. The UWLX athletes will not be paid during
“This is about owning the
sport,” Murphy said. “We want to be women’s lacrosse and we will follow wherever DJ wants it to go.”
DeJuliis, a Penn State
graduate and founder of Ultimate Lacrosse, plans to make the UWLX a competitive environment similar to that of the U.S. program. With limited spots on Team
USA’s roster, the league will provide 80 women across
“This is real. This is a real opportunity.” Devon Wills
A Publication of US Lacrosse
©JOHN MECIONIS (DW)
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