Good questions, Hurst. I can only speak definitely for my own school, and I'm sure there are a wide variety of conditions at schools across the state.
1. As for us, we are struggling just to find enough space in the spring for soccer as is. Band, in the fall, practices on and behind the softball field; those areas are in use for softball in the spring. Baseball is in swing (no pun intended) and occupies that space; the only other open areas are the football practice field and the stadium field. The football practice field is also the soccer practice field, and the football stadium is also the soccer stadium. With four soccer teams to practice (girls and boys, JV and varsity for both) we have to use both the practice field and the game field for practices just to give a half field to each team...and that includes sharing part of the game field with track for shot and discus practice as well. It makes for really tight and not-so-effective conditions already (I had to make a deal with the devil to get my AD's permission to use the game field for girls' practice...he suggested we split between afternoon and night practices on the practice field, forgetting, of course, that there were no lights), and the only place left to expand would be to find a field off campus and transport people. So, in our case, no, there's nothing left in the spring to convert.
2. Can 1A boys soccer programs be sacrificed? Sure, they CAN...but do you really want to tell them their (in some cases long-established) programs are screwed so people at other schools can start a new sport? When you start talking about sacrificing one group's benefits so another group can benefit...I think you're treading on dangerous ground there.
No, I think if schools can find a way to integrate a newer (to them) sport like lacrosse without taking away major resource from already-established sports, that's great, but I don't think it's fair to do away with or effectively sabotage one program in favor of a newer trend.
I don't see them bulldozing the softball fields to build hockey rinks, either.
