lax culture from an insider

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Starting to wonder why it seems like too much to hope for that these lacrosse prep and club guys could be decent people, mentors and role models.

There are many great mentors and role models for kids in lacrosse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Starting to wonder why it seems like too much to hope for that these lacrosse prep and club guys could be decent people, mentors and role models.

There are many great mentors and role models for kids in lacrosse.

Breslin from Breakout and now Bethesda is one. Of course maybe his niceness is the reason why he's never been able to put together super competitive teams and his best players routinely got plucked away by VLC and Madlax. Hope be fares better with Bethesda.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Believe me, Prep administration was very happy to see Giblin go!

The guy was a total jerk, he would openly bad mouth Prep administrators including, his boss, Danny Paro, the longtime AD.

He will be forced out of SJC with in a year unless the SJC AD is that desperate to build a program and deal with his sideline behavior.

A previous poster said Giblin is no longer at St. John's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Believe me, Prep administration was very happy to see Giblin go!

The guy was a total jerk, he would openly bad mouth Prep administrators including, his boss, Danny Paro, the longtime AD.

He will be forced out of SJC with in a year unless the SJC AD is that desperate to build a program and deal with his sideline behavior.

A previous poster said Giblin is no longer at St. John's.

I do not think Goblin was ever with St. John's. All DCUM rumormongering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Believe me, Prep administration was very happy to see Giblin go!

The guy was a total jerk, he would openly bad mouth Prep administrators including, his boss, Danny Paro, the longtime AD.

He will be forced out of SJC with in a year unless the SJC AD is that desperate to build a program and deal with his sideline behavior.

A previous poster said Giblin is no longer at St. John's.

I do not think Goblin was ever with St. John's. All DCUM rumormongering.

He was at least coaching a STJ team in a fall league. That was not a rumor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Believe me, Prep administration was very happy to see Giblin go!

The guy was a total jerk, he would openly bad mouth Prep administrators including, his boss, Danny Paro, the longtime AD.

He will be forced out of SJC with in a year unless the SJC AD is that desperate to build a program and deal with his sideline behavior.

A previous poster said Giblin is no longer at St. John's.

I do not think Goblin was ever with St. John's. All DCUM rumormongering.

He was at least coaching a STJ team in a fall league. That was not a rumor.

How did that team do? Which league?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Starting to wonder why it seems like too much to hope for that these lacrosse prep and club guys could be decent people, mentors and role models.

There are many great mentors and role models for kids in lacrosse.

Breslin from Breakout and now Bethesda is one. Of course maybe his niceness is the reason why he's never been able to put together super competitive teams and his best players routinely got plucked away by VLC and Madlax. Hope be fares better with Bethesda.

Agreed. Breslin's a super nice guy, but he's at the mercy of too many outside forces. Winners is his pet project but it is a charity thing. A couple of talented kids have found a path into places like Madlax. The rest are learning fabulous skills and getting a great experience. Breakout, on the other hand, served a special spot that was high level, but recreational. It's hard to come by around here. But that franchise just fell apart by spring of this year due to neglect. I have a bitter aftertaste because of the disastrous decisions made for some of the teams regarding leagues and the fielding of the teams.
I hope Bethesda has enough quality momentum to keep going, but things are so lop-sided with politics and favoritism in the older teams that Breslin has his work cut out for him. I hope he isn't too nice to cut through that BS. Especially in the higher grades, it's just not possible to make legitimate teams when everyone is there because they are buddies in school or they've played together since they were 7. It's like hiring only friends and family members to work for your company. It's cute for a little while, and then it is nothing but a nightmare. In this case the nightmare is the entrenchment of bad skills in the form of crony-style play. No one gets better but 5 or 10 kids on each team get to feel a false sense of awesomeness.

Then again, I hear this exact scenario is happening across a bunch of leagues in the middle school age group right now. It's a bit of a plague.

[Anonymous]

Agreed. Breslin's a super nice guy, but he's at the mercy of too many outside forces. Winners is his pet project but it is a charity thing. A couple of talented kids have found a path into places like Madlax. The rest are learning fabulous skills and getting a great experience. Breakout, on the other hand, served a special spot that was high level, but recreational. It's hard to come by around here. But that franchise just fell apart by spring of this year due to neglect. I have a bitter aftertaste because of the disastrous decisions made for some of the teams regarding leagues and the fielding of the teams.
I hope Bethesda has enough quality momentum to keep going, but things are so lop-sided with politics and favoritism in the older teams that Breslin has his work cut out for him. I hope he isn't too nice to cut through that BS. Especially in the higher grades, it's just not possible to make legitimate teams when everyone is there because they are buddies in school or they've played together since they were 7. It's like hiring only friends and family members to work for your company. It's cute for a little while, and then it is nothing but a nightmare. In this case the nightmare is the entrenchment of bad skills in the form of crony-style play. No one gets better but 5 or 10 kids on each team get to feel a false sense of awesomeness.

Then again, I hear this exact scenario is happening across a bunch of leagues in the middle school age group right now. It's a bit of a plague.

+1

[Anonymous]

+1,000
That is a perfect summary of the general malaise surrounding most local clubs. Club Blue of you live in this zip code and go to this Jesuit school, Bethesda if you are buddies with the dad who played at Maryland in 1972 when it wasn't even a NCA sport, used to be a Next Level if your kid is enrolled in middle school at Landon or Heights, VLC if you are Great Falls rec league kid from age 7 up, etc etc. It is a hard balance, and good luck to Breslin trying to break it up...to my knowledge nobody has succeeded in doing that. The rough thing is if he is a success, that's the last stop because the bros will make Breslin a pariah for it.

[Anonymous]

This goes a long way toward explaining how Cabell Maddox became even more successful after the PR debacle a few years ago. All he cares about is getting the best players and getting paid. The great moral hazard that binds us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Starting to wonder why it seems like too much to hope for that these lacrosse prep and club guys could be decent people, mentors and role models.

There are many great mentors and role models for kids in lacrosse.

Breslin from Breakout and now Bethesda is one. Of course maybe his niceness is the reason why he's never been able to put together super competitive teams and his best players routinely got plucked away by VLC and Madlax. Hope be fares better with Bethesda.

Agreed. Breslin's a super nice guy, but he's at the mercy of too many outside forces. Winners is his pet project but it is a charity thing. A couple of talented kids have found a path into places like Madlax. The rest are learning fabulous skills and getting a great experience. Breakout, on the other hand, served a special spot that was high level, but recreational. It's hard to come by around here. But that franchise just fell apart by spring of this year due to neglect. I have a bitter aftertaste because of the disastrous decisions made for some of the teams regarding leagues and the fielding of the teams.
I hope Bethesda has enough quality momentum to keep going, but things are so lop-sided with politics and favoritism in the older teams that Breslin has his work cut out for him. I hope he isn't too nice to cut through that BS. Especially in the higher grades, it's just not possible to make legitimate teams when everyone is there because they are buddies in school or they've played together since they were 7. It's like hiring only friends and family members to work for your company. It's cute for a little while, and then it is nothing but a nightmare. In this case the nightmare is the entrenchment of bad skills in the form of crony-style play. No one gets better but 5 or 10 kids on each team get to feel a false sense of awesomeness.

Then again, I hear this exact scenario is happening across a bunch of leagues in the middle school age group right now. It's a bit of a plague.

This was exactly our experience with Bethesda in going through their tryout process. It was so obvious they had already picked the team. The coaches were really rude during tryouts. Not our experience with other clubs. Bethesda's tryout was to "say" they had a tryout a make money. Nothing more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This goes a long way toward explaining how Cabell Maddox became even more successful after the PR debacle a few years ago. All he cares about is getting the best players and getting paid. The great moral hazard that binds us.

He is casting as wide a net as ever, but also losing players as fast as ever as well. His club depends on getting the youngest kids as early as possible and keeping the families hostage until they finally get tired of his BS and overpriced offerings. But that strength is diminishing as more youth kids go to Crabs, BW and VLC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This goes a long way toward explaining how Cabell Maddox became even more successful after the PR debacle a few years ago. All he cares about is getting the best players and getting paid. The great moral hazard that binds us.

He is casting as wide a net as ever, but also losing players as fast as ever as well. His club depends on getting the youngest kids as early as possible and keeping the families hostage until they finally get tired of his BS and overpriced offerings. But that strength is diminishing as more youth kids go to Crabs, BW and VLC.

Is there someone on VLC's payroll who keeps posting this? Quite honestly I am revolted by Cabell Maddox, but his youth teams are running other clubs over. I don't admire anything Madlax stands for to celebrate 8th graders picking a college, but that result does seem to be happening at Madlax. If you have a list of "elite" local clubs like Crabs/VLC or Blackwolf who are run by saints doing the lord's work, be sure and let us know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This goes a long way toward explaining how Cabell Maddox became even more successful after the PR debacle a few years ago. All he cares about is getting the best players and getting paid. The great moral hazard that binds us.

He is casting as wide a net as ever, but also losing players as fast as ever as well. His club depends on getting the youngest kids as early as possible and keeping the families hostage until they finally get tired of his BS and overpriced offerings. But that strength is diminishing as more youth kids go to Crabs, BW and VLC.

Is there someone on VLC's payroll who keeps posting this? Quite honestly I am revolted by Cabell Maddox, but his youth teams are running other clubs over. I don't admire anything Madlax stands for to celebrate 8th graders picking a college, but that result does seem to be happening at Madlax. If you have a list of "elite" local clubs like Crabs/VLC or Blackwolf who are run by saints doing the lord's work, be sure and let us know.

I really would not include VLC in that sentence. Run by decent guys, who aren't counting on the VLC paycheck to pay the mortgage.

[Anonymous]

You're a bit confused. VLC is run by Ryan McClernan who is not employed outside of the Crabs franchise who is counting club cash flow to pay his mortgage. The coaches and service providers to Crabs are a conduit to placing players with colleges to keep the cash flow moving. Pretty sure you're not getting a charitable donation voucher for the club fees. Hard to believe you'd come back with that topper comment. Wait, no. Easy to believe.