Wall Street Pipeline Finds Work for College Lacrosse Players

 

Before Dom Starsia talks about national titles, he unfolds a two-foot-wide spreadsheet that gives University of Virginia recruits a look at life after lacrosse.

A big part of the coach’s sales pitch for a university founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1819 is VLAN, or the Virginia Lacrosse Alumni Network, a 300-person database of former male and female players who work in finance and other fields and are willing to help cub Cavaliers get there, too.

The database gives a person’s name, firm, industry, title, e-mail and telephone number, says Drew Fox, a managing director at Neuberger Berman Group LLC whom Starsia credits with turning a loose affiliation of former players into an organized pipeline of mentors.

“Banker, equity guy, trader, analyst -- I don’t even know what those jobs are,” says Starsia, whose teams have produced four national championships and 13 Final Fours over his 21 seasons in Charlottesville. “But I do know it’s an impressive list.”

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