How does LSU use men in its practices? I asked assistant coach Bob Starkey. His response:

We use our male scrimmage team 2 to 3 times a week for about an hour. Normally they are the scout team running the plays and defenses of our next opponent. We do use them occasionally in some drills where we want to challege our players at their highest level. It should also be absolutely understood that in all drills that we utilize the male scrimmage players that all of our players get reps. It is hard to believe that a coach would use male scrimmage players and not allow all their players to get work in with them -- it is a great opportunity to improve those players while some of your starters get a rest in practice.

In fact, today is a perfect example for us. We played Michigan State yesterday and our starters logged a ton of minutes. So today, in scrimmage segments with the male scrimmage players 75% of the playing time will go to the reserves.

Quianna Chaney is a player that has not started for us the past two years but knocked down 24 points yesterday. Her improvement has a lot to do with her going against the guys the past two years while she was a reserve.

You have also have brought up a lot of other merits in having the male scrimmage team and I'd like to touch on those as well.

1. These guys become huge fans of the game (if they weren't already). Our male scrimmage team travels to road games when they can to cheer on their "teammates." They come by in the summer to talk to us about the WNBA games they watch. We find out they are watching other women's games on TV during the basketball season.

2. We use them to help promote our team. They put up fliers around the campus for big games and talk up the team to other students.

3. It makes life-altering decisions for them. The perfect case for us is a young man named Casey Potts. He was on our male scrimmage team the past four years. In fact, he was the "captain," which means he organized the squad. After he graduated last year, he proceeded to send out 100 resumes and today he is an assistant coach at Catholic University (a Division III) for the WOMEN'S basketball team. We have another member of our male scrimmage team, Chris Trammel that is now coaching girls basketball on the high school level.

A decision to ban these guys would be tragic for our sport in so many ways. Obviously they make our players better. I would also argue that they cut down on injuries as we can rest players with a lot of minutes while we work on the rest of the team. I know of examples of teams on lower levels that only have 8 or 9 players that wouldn't otherwise be able to practice. Some teams may have 10 or 11 but injuries to 2 will mean no 5 on 5 work. Even more importantly because of they change of attitude that many of the guys have after working with and seeing the dedication and committment of our team, we are gaining new fans.

Quite simply, in many, many ways, using men the way we do helps us to GROW OUR SPORT -- and there is nothing more important.