Dave Pietramala heard the rumor once. Then twice. Finally, when the Johns Hopkins men’s lacrosse coach heard chatter about Michigan adding men’s lacrosse the third time, he sent a text message to his friend, Michigan club lacrosse coach John Paul.

Paul responded quickly that, yes, it was a possibility.

As Pietramala discovered Michigan officially added men’s lacrosse Wednesday, he expressed excitement for his close friend and for his sport.

While he couldn’t assess the long-term effects Michigan adding the game would have, the immediate impact was obvious.

Pietramala

“It’s tremendous,” Pietramala said. “Great publicity for our sport to have such a well-known academic institution pick the sport up. Michigan carries a pretty tremendous fan base because of football, basketball and their other sports.

“But at the end, the ultimate impact it has is that it is another positive step and growth where we’ve taken some steps back.”

Michigan became the first major college athletic program to add the game in 30 years while schools like Butler and Presbyterian dropped it. Other schools, seeing the Title IX commitment, are hesitant to add it.

Then here came Michigan, which already fielded 27 varsity sports, making a commitment from outside the traditional Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic pocket for lacrosse.

Air Force coach Eric Seremet compared it, in the lacrosse world, to when legendary Princeton coach Bill Tierney left for upstart Denver. It created a spike of conversation and interest in lacrosse.

It also expanded the game. Denver will play in this year’s Final Four — the first team west of the Mississippi River to do so.

“Now, it’s Michigan,” Seremet said. “It’s always a positive thing for the sport. I’ll be honest with you, for a university like that to add it, now kids don’t always have to think about going to the East Coast to play lacrosse. It’s growing in Texas, growing in Michigan, growing in Illinois, California, all these non-traditional areas.

“So kids don’t always have to think about going so far away from home.”

That’s been part of the rub with lacrosse. As it grew exponentially on the youth and high school levels, the college game didn’t expand opportunities. College club teams sprouted everywhere, but Division I school numbers remained the same.

Coaches around the country said they hope Michigan adding the sport becomes a model other major football conference schools can look to.

As if to say: It’s doable.

“I think it says something about where the sport is and where the sport is going,” Notre Dame lacrosse coach Kevin Corrigan said. “At the times of tough equity decisions year-in and year-out, it’s not an easy sport to add.”

Now Michigan has — and if there is one school more excited about it than others, it might be Ohio State.

Michigan’s biggest football rival will likely be in the same lacrosse league as the Wolverines, the Eastern College Athletic Conference. When asked if Michigan-Ohio State lacrosse could take place prior to Michigan’s spring game at Michigan Stadium, Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon responded “that’d be fun, wouldn’t it.”

“It’s a special rivalry,” Ohio State coach Nick Myers said. “You look at Ohio State and Penn State being the Big Ten schools, we play unofficially for the Big Ten championship every year now. It’s great to see another school now add it.”

It is also a school teams want to play. Corrigan said he would "absolutely" play Michigan.

Pietramala said he and Paul have already discussed playing, although it isn’t likely in 2012 since many teams have already finalized their schedules.

But Johns Hopkins has other ties with Michigan already. Hopkins scrimmaged Michigan and Army in Ann Arbor in the fall of 2007, something Pietramala did in part to help promote the game in Michigan.

“It was a win-win situation for everybody,” Pietramala said. “We benefited from being out there. It helps us in recruiting, but we did go out there with the purpose that we hoped it would help him, the Michigan people and administrators see the value of the sport. But I don’t look at it as a favor. I look at it as a responsibility of a program like Johns Hopkins.

“If we can do that, any one of us, one of the big programs out there, we have a responsibility to do that and we benefited it as well.”

Those games didn’t count in 2007. The next time they play, it will.

Michael Rothstein covers Michigan sports for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2558, by email at michaelrothstein@annarbor.com or follow along on Twitter @mikerothstein.