Mike Sawyer, Stephen O'Hara

A Loyola University lacrosse player is slapped in the head by University of Notre Dame player in a 2012 game. Cleveland State University may face those teams if it adds a men's lacrosse team next year.

(Gretchen Ertl, Associated Press)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Cleveland State University will likely add men's lacrosse as part of efforts to increase enrollment and attract more academically qualified students.

Administrative approval is expected within the next 30 days, which would allow CSU to hire coaches, recruit students for fall 2015 and field a team in the spring of 2016. The team would play on the university's soccer field.

CSU would become only the second public university in Ohio to offer the sport. Ohio State University has men's and women's teams.

CSU would also add a women's sport, either lacrosse or indoor/outdoor track and field, said President Ronald Berkman and Athletics Director John Parry.

Adding two sports would cost about $900,000 a year for coaches, equipment and scholarships, Berkman said. But officials believe the investment is worth it to attract new students to the fast-growing sport.

In recent years lacrosse has become the latest recruitment tool for private universities in Ohio and other Midwestern states.

Relatively inexpensive to start, the sport has grown in popularity at high schools, especially those with middle-class students.

By offering the chance to play at the next level, colleges hope to attract students who otherwise wouldn't have considered those campuses.

Parry said on Wednesday that he received an email from an athlete in Tulsa, Oklahoma and a call from a high school senior in Toledo within days of a September article in Lacrosse Magazine about CSU considering adding the sport. The Toledo athlete has visited the campus with his parents.

"I was surprised," he said about the interest. "This is a different dynamic – it is enrollment driven."

The university has been studying how to increase enrollment at a time when the number of high school graduates is declining and competition is increasing.

Men's lacrosse was added as a club sport last year, Parry said.

Lacrosse Magazine said the University of Dayton will add women's lacrosse in 2016 and Ohio Northern University will add men's and women's lacrosse the same year.

There has not been a Division I men's addition announced since the New Jersey Institute of Technology said 11 months ago it would add a team in 2015, the magazine said.

In 2013 there were 61 men's and 100 women's Division I lacrosse teams, according to scholarshipstats.com. There were 51 men's and 76 women's Division II teams and and 209 men's and 229 women's teams in Division III.

A Division 1 men's team has about 45 members.

Parry said lacrosse is as fast-paced as basketball, which attracts students.

He played lacrosse while at Brown University and completed football and lacrosse coaching stints at Brown while working as the assistant athletic director between 1975 and 1979.

He served two stints on the NCAA men's lacrosse committee. His wife, Candis, is an assistant women's lacrosse coach at lacrosse at Baldwin Wallace University.