lax culture from an insider

[Anonymous]

From a Mom of a kid playing rec lacrosse and looking to possibly do club lacrosse, thank you. I'd like my kids to have a positive experience in sports and appreciate that post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I played lacrosse in college and recently graduated from an ACC school and played at a local private school power.

Lacrosse is really not that sweet after high school and trust me, when it is all said and done, you might get a $3K - $5K type scholarship each year.

Don't get me wrong, I played because I loved the sport but more importantly, I met a bunch of nice guys who I will be friends with for life.

If you are some crazy lax mom or dad who thinks just because your son has made a verbal to a program as freshman or sophomore, you are in for a rude awakening when get onto college campus.

Even though, I'm a recent graduate, the number of kids who made EARLY VERBALS in my generation (during Thanksgiving of your Junior Year.... which now I have been told is very late as some of the college coaches have now pushed it up even further) several of them NEVER even saw the field in college or some of them couldn't deal with the adversity and QUIT.

You will soon realize, especially at the Big Ten and ACC Schools, Hopkins and Notre Dame etc.etc the roster sizes are HECK of a lot bigger than what they post on their website. When you have 50 - 60 kids at a practice, you seen realize, you might have been the CLUB SUPER STAR with the Crabs or Mad Lax or made the WashingtonPost ALL MET team, it will not equate to success at the college level.

Parents - just let your kids play the sport, hopefully their head coach will instill good morals and teach them life lessons on and off the field. Don't buy into the CLUB LACROSSE HYSTERIA. If you are a stud athlete, they will find you.

Great post. But what about the admissions bump argument?

[Anonymous]

What about it? Get top grades and top scores, apply to 7 selective colleges and get into several of them. Kid may not get his or her #1 choices, but will get to a great school on that list.

Or worship at the alter of a club or prep school lacrosse coach who can circumvent all of that for your son to get him in. Kid goes to selective college and graduates with a sociology degree with a 2.8 GPA. What advice is left for that kid? Forget the top graduate schools. Call lacrosse alums for a job reference? I see hundreds of resumes for every position opened at my company. I only bother with the ones with exemplary academic records and prior job experience. A lot of young recent grads who were college athletes are unemployable and don't even get interviews.

[Anonymous]

Ah, yes. The classic "either/or" argument. Either the kid is focused on academics and gets into a great school, or the kid is focused on sports to the point where he still gets into a great school, but bombs academically.

Has it occurred to you that not everything is black and white? There is a lot of grey in between.

[Anonymous]

I know a lot of very wealthy lacrosse players on Wall Street 14:43. There is a huge lacrosse network on Wall Street. The WSJ has written articles about this league. GOOGLE IT

Being a small to midsize business owner, when hiring, I actually look for kids who in college who played a sport. it shows commitment and and more or less, if the individual has a solid GPA, manages his or her time wisely.

Hiring directors make decisions based on the competencies required in the position.

[Anonymous]

I know a lot of former student athletes in a number of sports on Wall Street...the soccer, the hockey, the swimming, the lacrosse circles. I worked with a number of Penn and Princeton lacrosse players in NY at big banks. I think you are pretty mistaken to imply that lacrosse butters anyone's bread. Lacrosse alums can push for interviews for kids, but then it comes down to interviewing with 15-25 people as a candidate. Showing you juggled school and a sport AND got exemplary grades AND majored in a challenging department like Econ or Math or an undergrad business school program is an absolute requirement. There might be a job or two here and there for a dolt with his 2.5 in sociology or anthropology who is a jocular ex-athlete on the repo desk or in operations. Those are the jobs that put you in a brownstone in White Plains in 20 years. The kids getting Wall Street jobs who were lacrosse players are getting those opportunities because they performed with distinction at some very good schools in very challenging majors.

Getting a job with some real estate development firm selling crappy low rise leases in Reston isn't nearly the same thing or the same success. Plenty of those jobs around here for lax bros.

[Anonymous]

PP: i know plenty of Landon, Prep and Gonzaga Fathers who are making a killing in CRE.

you might want to choose your words before you make such an ignorant comment.

you are also assuming that anyone who plays lacrosse is a dumb jock.

stop being soo bitter and lighten up.

[Anonymous]

That wasn't being defensive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP: i know plenty of Landon, Prep and Gonzaga Fathers who are making a killing in CRE.

you might want to choose your words before you make such an ignorant comment.

you are also assuming that anyone who plays lacrosse is a dumb jock.

stop being soo bitter and lighten up.

Sounds like somebody's lease loan came through and he got a red convertible 3 series!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know a lot of former student athletes in a number of sports on Wall Street...the soccer, the hockey, the swimming, the lacrosse circles. I worked with a number of Penn and Princeton lacrosse players in NY at big banks. I think you are pretty mistaken to imply that lacrosse butters anyone's bread. Lacrosse alums can push for interviews for kids, but then it comes down to interviewing with 15-25 people as a candidate. Showing you juggled school and a sport AND got exemplary grades AND majored in a challenging department like Econ or Math or an undergrad business school program is an absolute requirement. There might be a job or two here and there for a dolt with his 2.5 in sociology or anthropology who is a jocular ex-athlete on the repo desk or in operations. Those are the jobs that put you in a brownstone in White Plains in 20 years. The kids getting Wall Street jobs who were lacrosse players are getting those opportunities because they performed with distinction at some very good schools in very challenging majors.

Getting a job with some real estate development firm selling crappy low rise leases in Reston isn't nearly the same thing or the same success. Plenty of those jobs around here for lax bros.

Penn alum (from the 90s) -- there are lots of the former lacrosse players from those years in positions all around Wall Street - some is just simple cohort theory where that's where they went together post school to look for work, told each other about openings, helped each other out, got their friends to help them out [ie. there's a similar, much less affluent cohort type of situation for policy jobs in DC!]. I'd say most of them were probably B students & some better than - at a school where the bell curve is a B. They had to have been strong enough students to get in in the first place - and also the hard working thing (maybe also play hard but doesnt negate the work hard). I say this with no love loss for Sigma Chi or Fiji.

[Anonymous]

Yes, there is an annoying cycle in the DMV where lax bros return from college and get jobs in commercial real estate. Many of these guys aren't geniuses, but a good number of them are able to create a decent/great living for themselves. But this network is as much about the Catholic Mafia in this area as it is lacrosse guys looking out for each other.

There aren't a lot of finance jobs in this area which is why commercial real estate is the default go to job for these guys. But for many lacrosse guys (in the Ivy Leauge, in particular) there is a very strong network to get jobs on Wall Street. Those guys do look out for one another and many of them find jobs that pay very well. That is a much different animal than what is found in this area.

[Anonymous]

There must be a Landon, Prep, Gonzaga social medial algorithm running on a co-lo server farm server in the basement of some armpit building that trolls for derogatory comments about their schools and lacrosse clubs. Are robots posting that leasing crappy office space in the DMV is a high powered career? A nut less monkey could do that job.

[Anonymous]

someone sounds bitter.

those who tend to put down others, tends to have some insecurity complex.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There must be a Landon, Prep, Gonzaga social medial algorithm running on a co-lo server farm server in the basement of some armpit building that trolls for derogatory comments about their schools and lacrosse clubs. Are robots posting that leasing crappy office space in the DMV is a high powered career? A nut less monkey could do that job.

No love for any of those schools, but your comment is unfair. Yes, many of those leasing guys (young or old) are complete idiots. But there are worse jobs to have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Performance, Club Blue, Bethesda Lacrosse Club (BLC) and Breakout seem to be the ones offering good coaching and an emphasis on inclusive player development and the owners running them are not foaming from the mouth lunatics.

Club blue and Bethesda don't have HS teams.

Neither does Breakout. Madlax and Blackwolf have owners who are nuts; the other clubs in the area are run by decent people.

http://deadspin.com/hey-ungrateful-quitter-emails-from-an-angry-lacrosse-660703941

Vel lacrosse fields high level high school teams without crazy coaches. They will also be fielding an eigth grade team this year.