True Lacrosse VA Boys feedback?
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Anonymous
| Looking for any feedback on boys high school level True Lacrosse teams. Anything related to coaching, player development, communication, and the overall experience. Thanks! |
Anonymous
True is a garbage program with no track record of developing local kids or placing them in college. True is owned by a PE firm and has franchises across the nation, but they are only good in the Midwest states. Buyer beware if they try to get their hooks into your 8yr old. |
Anonymous
So lots of interesting sort of right but lots of sort of wrong. 1) This will be True VA's 2nd full season (they had half a season back in 2021) when they bought NOVA Select in the spring of 2021 (which was itself 2 years old or so). So I guess the statement is kind of correct there is no track record but in 2 years a number of kids have signed to play in college at some level of lacrosse. I know that there 23 and 24 Black teams won several tournaments. I have no idea the level of tournament they were at but they still won them so that says something. Most of True's better programs are in the Midwest - Illinois specifically because that's where the program started. It has expended from there. You can see the various rankings of club teams by year here. https://www.usclublax.com/rank?state_abbv=-99&v=1025&alpha=N&y=2021&seed=vd9peq 2) Development is one part player and one part coaching. True VA has good coaches and bad ones just like all other programs. In True you do get access (for a price) to other coaches throughout the True program via clinics and camps for additional development. 3) True Va tends to run pretty tight on rosters. Usually only 18-20 kids at most instead of the large rosters you find at Madlax or others. At the local level (i.e., at the True VA tournament level) every kid plays at least some time. Again, not something you see at every program. There are other ways for top kids to play against top players via Trues regional and national teams. 4) As for specifics on True VA - True is sold as having all the True programs run the same offensive and defensive sets but Directors and coaches have a lot of leeway. VA tends to run 2 man games because that's what the director runs at Marymount. That type of game works at the HS level but tends to be problematic at the youth level because of the chemistry required to run it. 5) PE shop - I hate to break it to the respondent but most of the top national travel programs (and this isn't limited to lax) are backed by PE or IB firms or just someone with a big bankroll like Team Durant and Team Melo in the AAU bball leagues. There is a ton of money in youth sports. Someone didn't build that big complex St. James complex down in Springfield so 50 year old dads could work out. That was built for youth sports. The Cavs purchase this spring by VLC/Crabs wasn't because someone just thought it would be neat and looked under their couch for spare change. It was because of PE/IB money. 6) Having several kids play in different travel teams and different travel sports True is probably on the better side of them. Don't get me wrong they want to get money from you but they are very open and honest about it. Outside of the basic travel fees and uniforms, the other costs like clinics, regional teams, etc. is all on you to decide if you want to spend it. 7) I have had 3 kids play at different programs. One currently plays for True and another somewhere else. True VA in this area is certainly not to the level of ML, NL, DC Express but it has its place. The parents also don't tend to be conceited DBs like some of the other programs I've had to deal with in the past. |