The Significance of Grant Ament to the PLL

It was Tuesday morning, March 10. If you were to open the front page of the New York Times, the top three headlines would be about the economy, Italy’s early battle with COVID-19, and an article about powerplant jobs disappearing in the state of Michigan. 

Although these types of stories would continue, another player was soon thrown into the mix. At 8:21 a.m., the Ivy League announced their decision to cancel its basketball tournaments for 2020, and they took it a step further the next morning by announcing the decision to cancel all winter and spring athletic events through the remainder of 2020.

The NCAA was the next to act. On Wednesday morning, March 11, following the Ivy League decision to cancel the rest of the 2020 athletic seasons, the NCAA announced that the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments would be held in front of empty stands. The following day, after decisions by the Big 10, SEC, ACC, Big East, and other collegiate conferences to cancel their conference tournaments, the NCAA officially canceled its winter and spring championship events, effectively putting college sports on pause until at least the fall.

Other leagues, including the NBA, NLL, NHL, NCAA, and XFL, followed suit in either suspending or canceling the remainder of the 2020 season amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and after the IOC’s decision to postpone the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and the MLB pushing the start of its regular season back, it’s safe to say that summer athletics might be affected as well. 

The biggest concern following the announcements from the individual conferences and the NCAA centered around the athletes, primarily spring athletes, and whether or not they would be awarded another year of eligibility for the lost 2020 season. Less than 24 hours after their decision, the NCAA answered those questions by granting all spring athletes relief for one season of eligibility, but that doesn’t exactly solve the problem. 

Conferences like the Ivy League don’t allow graduate students to participate in athletics, and although that might change due to the unprecedented situation that’s at hand, it hasn’t yet, leaving hundreds of senior student-athletes with questions about how their 2020 and 2021 seasons will shape out. Some of the best players in college lacrosse, including Michael Sowers, TD Ierlan, Jeff Teat, and Kyle Gallagher, fall into this group, and it will be interesting to see what decisions they make as a result of the Ivy League’s final decision regarding eligibility.

The questions, however, don’t stop there. NCAA Division I men’s lacrosse programs carry an average roster of around 44 players, but only an average of 12.6 scholarships are awarded per program. With an added year of eligibility now being handed out to players and the rumor that scholarship ramifications will be upheld for players that had a scholarship, USA Today is projecting the cost to public schools in the Power Five conferences, for just current senior athletes, to be anywhere between $500,000 to $900,000. 

These uncertainties led Penn State attackman Grant Ament to be the first player to announce that he will be taking the step from college lacrosse to the pro game in 2020, and the Big Ten record holder for career points and assists will be available to the seven PLL clubs in the PLL College Draft in April. Granted Ament already used his redshirt season as a junior when he was sidelined with an injury, but the argument for him makes sense. Instead of returning to school and likely needing to pay, he’ll get paid to play on the biggest stage that lacrosse has seen yet. 

All the other senior prospects that we are watching ahead of the PLL College Draft, however, haven’t used a redshirt season. They came into 2020 with high hopes for a successful fourth and final campaign, but unfortunately, there will be no successful finish for anyone. The NCAA has granted another year of eligibility, but with so many questions still to be asked about scholarships, it’s hard to determine how much the athletes will benefit by staying another season in college.

I talked extensively on the last two shows on my podcast, Behind the Back, which can be found on Apple Podcast, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and Audioboom, but my argument stands at this: 

If the plan coming into 2020 was to play college lacrosse, graduate in May, start a job, and play professional lacrosse, I can’t see how that suddenly changes. 

For guys that don’t need to pursue another year of school or aren’t planning on pursuing graduate school, it doesn’t make sense to stay back a year and play for no pay when you can make the jump to the pros and get paid to play. I brought up Joe Burrow as an example on the podcast, that even if the college football season was suspended in November and LSU never had a chance to win an SEC or NCAA championship, Burrow would still make the jump to the pros. 

The other side of the argument is for the guys that might have planned coming into this season to pursue a fifth year or graduate school in the fall of 2020, or that may now choose to pursue another degree. Those guys now have the opportunity to do that and play lacrosse while hopefully under an academic or athletic scholarship and while using a gifted year of eligibility from the NCAA. 

We haven’t heard much too from other players around college lacrosse. In an article on US Lacrosse Magazine, attackman Michael Sowers made it clear that his goal is to be back with Princeton in 2021, and Virginia midfielder Dox Aitken, who’s already playing football at Villanova in the fall, brought up the possibility of transferring back to Virginia for the spring in an interview with Booker Corrigan. Besides these two and Aments decision, we are yet to hear from any other player, but that should soon change.

We are exactly 26 days away from the College Draft, and it shouldn’t be long until there are more questions being raised about who is and isn’t making the jump to the PLL. 

My prediction is that more players will make the jump to the pros rather than staying another year at school, especially with the questions surrounding the Ivy League and scholarships. We should expect a decision from the Ivy League soon, and the NCAA Division I’s Council will vote on March 30 on a solution to providing “eligibility relief” to Division I student-athletes. Until then, we wait.

For more on this conversation, make sure to listen to the last two episodes of Behind the Back, which can be found on Apple Podcast, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and Audioboom.