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First Season for UCSB Women's Lacrosse

Jan. 1, 1980

Santa Barbara, CA - The UCSB women's lacrosse program is started when junior Lynn Shapiro ('81) gets it going in 1980. Lynn reported later she remembered filing forms to be an official club somewhere between 1979-1980 and the team traveled all over California to play games.

The first coach was Frank Garahan (UMass, Amherst '75) who was previously the head women's lacrosse coach at UMass, Amherst in 1976, '77 and '78. The program had help from the UCSB men's lacrosse club too, as the players on both squads were all friends. Lynn, an attacker from Huntington, NY, "played goalie at times, since no one else wanted to." 

Lynn also reported that in "those days women didn't wear goggles, we used wooden sticks too." Indeed, the first year goggles became required in the United States was 2002 and hard boundaries weren't adopted until 2006.

UCSB played at Claremont and at Stanford their first season. Some photos are available in the 1980 Photo Gallery. Additional information about past seasons is available in our Archives and additional history lines are on the timeline of the UCSB Women's Lacrosse Fan Page on Facebook.

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• Photo Gallery 1980
• Alumni List (All-Time)
• Archives (All-Time)