(Photos by Dave Adams)

The six Founders enter the MCLA Hall of Fame as outstanding contributors.

Mickey-Miles Felton, Bob Korba, Jason Lamb, Brian Mosher, Sonny Pieper and Sam Sadtler – six men from six different regions – came together to form a unified USILA Associates league that created the first championship in 1997 at St. Louis.

The event became the seminal moment for what would become the MCLA.

Felton, the long-time coach at the University of Arizona, represented the Western Collegiate Lacrosse League. Korba, the coach at the University of Texas, was the president of the Lone Star Alliance. Lamb, the coach at BYU, repped the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Lacrosse League.

Mosher, long-time coach at Illinois, held the flag for the Big Ten Lacrosse League while Pieper was the president of the SouthEastern Lacrosse League. Sadtler of the Pacific Northwest Lacrosse League acted as the liaison with the USILA during the process.

From that eight-team championship in ’97 rose the 200-plus organization that became the Men’s Division Intercollegiate Associates under the banner of US Lacrosse. Several years later, it evolved and was renamed the MCLA.

With any of those conferences missing from the equation, the MCLA might never have formed. The Founders, however, made it work.

"With over 20 years under our belt now, founding the organization that matured into the MCLA doesn't sound too difficult. It's important to understand just what this venture took to accomplish," said MCLA president Ken Lovic. "Attempting to unify a nationwide non-varsity sport was a hugely speculative venture in 1997 that took the most dedicated of visionaries to pull off."

"The Founders were undaunted in their quest to create the opportunity that we all take for granted today. It is because of the foresight and perseverance demonstrated by these six individuals that we celebrate them with induction into the Hall of Fame in our inaugural class."