lax culture from an insider

[Anonymous]

<<Showcases have become watered down and are now the greatest story ever sold.>>

very true...

[Anonymous]

I'd add that I hope parents and kids can start to view D3 schools and programs as an equally good thing as D1 walk-on or small scholarship. I have a nephew who played at Wesleyan and there are number of real top schools, better colleges than a lot of the D1 colleges for lacrosse. He could have walked on at UVA and had some small scholarship offers at places like UVM and Drexel, but he picked the school he really liked and played a lot all 4 years. He'd have been only a practice player at UVA and may or may not have seen the field a lot at Drexel.

D3 lacrosse is in no way trading down. There's hardly much of a professional game and if you look at MLL rosters you will see a shocking number of D2 and D3 players on MLL rosters. D3 is a great student athlete experience and for a lot of kids a better fit than forcing at all costs a reach to get the D1 placement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:<<Showcases have become watered down and are now the greatest story ever sold.>>

very true...

So if you do not do showcases, how does one get "exposure"?

[Anonymous]

The events at the colleges are the best out of the routes I can think of. Every D1 program and most D3 ones now have recruit or prospect days and camps. Of course most players who want to play college go with club teams like Madlax, Blackwolf or VLC locally. Frankly, I think club lacrosse has turned into garbage "me ball" and has low to no value as well.

I'd take the portfolio approach. Practice and play with a club for what that's worth, practice and play for your school. Do showcases very selectively. My oldest son followed the club / showcase hustle for a couple of years and it was really frustrating for him. Frustrating for me too because I paid the club scumbags quite a bit more than needed. He went to three prospect days in summer before junior year which was "too late" and got interest from all 3 and an offer from 1 which he was happy about because it was his first choice all along. Whether your kid wants to play at Bucknell, Brown or Bates College the best of it is to show up, show an interest in their school and play at their prospect event.

[Anonymous]

Think about this so far as the showcase racket is concerned. One of the "premier" ones to get noticed, get committed is the NXT Philly Showcase. The list of kids going to this was recently published. The list of freshmen is 12 pages long single spaced. The list of soph and juniors is 21 pages single spaced long.

This so so exclusive that if you don't sign up or your credit card is denied, you can't go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The events at the colleges are the best out of the routes I can think of. Every D1 program and most D3 ones now have recruit or prospect days and camps. Of course most players who want to play college go with club teams like Madlax, Blackwolf or VLC locally. Frankly, I think club lacrosse has turned into garbage "me ball" and has low to no value as well.

I'd take the portfolio approach. Practice and play with a club for what that's worth, practice and play for your school. Do showcases very selectively. My oldest son followed the club / showcase hustle for a couple of years and it was really frustrating for him. Frustrating for me too because I paid the club scumbags quite a bit more than needed. He went to three prospect days in summer before junior year which was "too late" and got interest from all 3 and an offer from 1 which he was happy about because it was his first choice all along. Whether your kid wants to play at Bucknell, Brown or Bates College the best of it is to show up, show an interest in their school and play at their prospect event.

You really put into words what my gut has been telling me, and "me ball" really sums it up. We aren't as far along on the player mill, but some teams and experiences have left us feeling like our son is the grist for someone else's gain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The events at the colleges are the best out of the routes I can think of. Every D1 program and most D3 ones now have recruit or prospect days and camps. Of course most players who want to play college go with club teams like Madlax, Blackwolf or VLC locally. Frankly, I think club lacrosse has turned into garbage "me ball" and has low to no value as well.

I'd take the portfolio approach. Practice and play with a club for what that's worth, practice and play for your school. Do showcases very selectively. My oldest son followed the club / showcase hustle for a couple of years and it was really frustrating for him. Frustrating for me too because I paid the club scumbags quite a bit more than needed. He went to three prospect days in summer before junior year which was "too late" and got interest from all 3 and an offer from 1 which he was happy about because it was his first choice all along. Whether your kid wants to play at Bucknell, Brown or Bates College the best of it is to show up, show an interest in their school and play at their prospect event.

Great advice. So if my kid is aiming for d3, when should he start going to prospect camps?

[Anonymous]

For D3 it would be good to attend summer before senior year. These schools will welcome rising juniors to attend, but the D3 timeline is really to reach the coaches as a junior, send your grades and scores and make sure to schedule a visit before senior year begins. The D1 timeline is a circus, and that answer is literally all over the place from middle school club guys putting calls in to sometimes rising junior or even seniors. Drexel for example only wants to look carefully at kids starting at rising juniors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For D3 it would be good to attend summer before senior year. These schools will welcome rising juniors to attend, but the D3 timeline is really to reach the coaches as a junior, send your grades and scores and make sure to schedule a visit before senior year begins. The D1 timeline is a circus, and that answer is literally all over the place from middle school club guys putting calls in to sometimes rising junior or even seniors. Drexel for example only wants to look carefully at kids starting at rising juniors.

Thank you very much to this poster - so glad to hear of this approach and how to go about it. Any other tips you can share? Is there a site where most of this is posted or do we just search each school's program?

[Anonymous]

Check each school's athletic website. There will always be at least contact data for the coaches, and there should also be a link to do a player recruit profile to submit. Then you'll get every needed update on events and timelines.

On the tack of lacrosse quality, I'd urge readers to just look at these clips. About 3/4ths of the players in these 2014 Minto Cup games were rising HS juniors, rising seniors or kids gearing to go to college, and about 1/4th were kids who'd finished one year of college. Watching this should give you a good measure of where local club lacrosse is and where local prep lacrosse is versus these Junior A league players. There is a distinct trend now with NCAA coaches to head north drooling to recruit these players. Just have a look at the level of skill and team ball movement here as a compare to some Crabs vs. Madlax game or even a Landon vs. Gonzaga game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71Z8u-jhLZU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFkotLGq6RU

Now, this is not a suggestion to move to Ontario or Buffalo NY this summer, but if you are impressed with those two four minute lacrosse summaries, I'd urge you to look into whatever is available this winter and spring for box. Garrett Ince runs a league in NOVA, and there is an Annapolis league. Crabs has also talked about doing one in Baltimore and Howard County. There aren't a lot of real box offerings in the US yet, but we are lucky to have a few in this region.

If your son has ambitions to play college lacrosse, or even if your son is a commit and would like to actually play when he gets to that college, these videos show the level he'd need to be meeting or exceeding in order to do that. Just watch it once and consider the level of play versus what you are paying a lot of money for right now.

[Anonymous]

One more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM-dnAH_jz8

[Anonymous]

Do the colleges send mass mailings for prospect camps, or is there some attempt to send to a target (ie, possible actual recruits) audience?

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the information!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do the colleges send mass mailings for prospect camps, or is there some attempt to send to a target (ie, possible actual recruits) audience?

Mass mailings. They get email lists from club tournament directors for signing in at those summer and fall tournaments your club team attends. Prospect camps are at least in part a business. For D1 where they do many sessions and charge $250 a day times 120-140 kids, that money ups compensation for the assistant coaches at those programs. But for all college divisions, going to a prospect camp is the closest you'll get to a real chance to play for a day in front of coaches you'd like to play for in college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Think about this so far as the showcase racket is concerned. One of the "premier" ones to get noticed, get committed is the NXT Philly Showcase. The list of kids going to this was recently published. The list of freshmen is 12 pages long single spaced. The list of soph and juniors is 21 pages single spaced long.

This so so exclusive that if you don't sign up or your credit card is denied, you can't go.

You do realize that NXT Philly gets about 5,000 applications for the 460 spots right? You can do the math.

I'm no fan of the early recruiting trend or the the death of rec lacrosse and rise of club ball -- but this is the reality of youth lacrosse right now. To say NXT isn't one of the premier events being held right now is way off base. Recruiting is a proactive exercise for your son. If they applied and got in, they should have already notified the coach's of the school(s) they are interested in to let them know they'll be at Philly.

I have no affiliation with NXT.