Boys 2028 mess - considerations and solutions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is meant to discuss the state of the DMV boys 2028 club scene and to trade info and and opinions on the various clubs and showcase opportunities.

By my count there 6 current clubs with one or more teams at 28:

1. Next Level
2. Madlax
3. DC Express
4 true
5 Top Caliber
6. Team Va.

In addition there are two potential teams VLC and Black Wolf that may have 28 teams next summer.

Of the current clubs only NL, ML and DCE can claim to offer a team that competes at the elite level. Unfortunately, all of those teams are severely oversubscribed. Additionally, none of those teams appear to be particularly competitive.

My initial question: is there a team that can provide college recruiting support that isn’t oversubscribed?

The banter about dirty play and holdbacks never disappoints, but can we get back to the original point - now that tryouts are going, who is hot, who is not, and what are option for players who are not happy with their team? Any new teams that will make an impact on the landscape?

I have a feeling Next Level and DCE will not change much. What I am curious about is what is going to happen with Madlax? With kids on Next Level and DCE not getting playing time, I am sure they will want to move.

I think Top Caliber, True, and Team Va. will get worse. Their good kids are going to want to play up with Next Level, DCE, and Madlax.

This makes absolutely no sense. DCE and NL (and maybe ML) have too many kids on their roster. But, kids from other programs are going to move over to them? How does that work because right now it belies common sense. And, yes, there is little common sense in the world of youth sports but even this doesn't.

This is why: all the coaches project their hopes onto a new face, this idea that they are getting a star who has outgrown his program, a player who is an amazing athlete but started a little later so that's why he is on a lower ranked team. The players he already has have disappointed at one point or another. The players on his own club's B team are less appealing and anyway the program needs good players on the B team. So yeah it makes sense.

I have been watching kids grow and improve this past year on our “B” team and being told that they will be pulled up to the “A” team. Then nothing… I think the only way these improved “B” team kids can move up is to move off the organization. But, there are only 3 to choose from in the DMV area…. Makes you wonder how many kids are just going to stop playing lacrosse and focus on other sports?

While I understand your frustration I think those kids are actually getting a break. Highschool travel lacrosse really only works out for those handful of kids who are both dead set on playing in college AND actually make it on a college team. Even then you can make an argument that lacrosse was a net negative for those kids who end up at a college that they would not have otherwise gone to or spend thier college years sitting on the bench.

For the vast majority of kids thier summers would be better spent working internships, working out, studying for the SATs learning to drive etc.

Parents and players on “b” teams or who are struggling for field time on “A” teams should think hard about what’s possible, what’s likely and what they’re really giving up chasing a dream. We all have to grow up sometime.

Eh, my kid played club all through high school with zero intention of playing in college. He was even a starter, so playtime was never an issue. He just really loves playing lacrosse. His college now has an A team and a Beer team. He joined the Beer team and still loves it. I’m surprised he even joined that but he said it is low commitment and likes the guys.

I glad he had a good time but it seems like a lot wasted opportunity. Was his club less serious than the majors?

This response is tragicomically revealing. Look inward, pal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the rules change, it is going to be for fewer spots and those aren’t going to go to True players . . .

the rules did change. Rosters are capped and colleges are going to be making huge cuts. gaining a spot as a freshman is about to get very cut throat.

Wait, what? Huge cuts? I looked at 3 schools, UVa, Syracuse and UNC, only UNC will be over, and by 5 if they take no more 25s. They can leak that in 2 years.

Where are all these huge cuts coming from?

There was a settlement within the last 1-2 weeks in an antitrust lawsuit about college athletes getting paid and cutting marketing deals. It starts next year, so the 2026 class will be the guinea pigs. I am surprised that more people are not talking about this, because it is a game changer for anyone who wants to play lacrosse in college. The settlement is being driven by the revenue sports (football/basketball) but the rules apply to all D1 schools in all sports. For mens lacrosse, the rosters will be capped at 48 players, compared to rosters in the 50's or 60's that teams currently carry. The limit on scholarships will increase from 12.6 up to 48. Yes, you read that right, there is no cap other than the roster cap. Girls lacrosse have the same roster cap, but only scholarships for 38. Obviously that won't survive a Title 9 challenge, but it is a moot point because no schools will be able to fund that many scholarships for non-revenue sports. But the big shots of lacrosse (ND, UVA, Duke) will definitely offer more scholarships than the current 12.6, and as they compete for top players, the number will keep creeping up. Schools can also compete by telling recruits the great marketing deals that they would get if they become a star at that school. Lacrosse is not football or basketball, but if your name is Kavanaugh or something similar, you can probably monetize your name/image into the six figures, and the antitrust settlement allows players to do that. This will give big name sports schools a huge recruiting advantage over lesser known schools, and over schools like the Ivies that do not give scholarships and will have a hard time remaining relevant in the top 20 of lacrosse under the new structure. Nobody knows how this will play out. But my personal hunch is that the top 10-15 D1 schools will separate themselves from the pack and become like a mini-PLL that get all the TV coverage big time crowds, and marketing deals, and the bottom 75% of D1, and D2/D3 will revert toward the more traditional student/athlete model. But the quality of play and competition for spots in D2 and D3 teams will increase, because the D1 rosters will be smaller, so a lot of D1 caliber players will go elsewhere. The settlement allows schools to pay players salaries up to a cap of $20 million, which will presumably be spent on football and basketball players. So you can expect the starting QB at a school like USC, Penn State, or Alabama to be paid $1 million or so. It will be interesting to see if good D1 lacrosse schools without a football team (Denver, Georgetown) start paying salaries to their lacrosse players. Whatever happens, this will be a sea change and will play out over the next 5 years or so. my son is a 2026 and working hard on the recruiting process, and honestly I am annoyed at everyone who is supposed to be helping him (HS coach, club coach, club recruiting director) because nobody has told us about this and have not been factoring it into his plan. Hope this helps.

[Anonymous]

The college coaches do not know how to deal with this or even if they will. They have an option to remain status quo. I predict impact to be minimal. IVY offers something unique. good players will still go there. The rosters were going to shrink after COVID anyway and are baked into current numbers. your club coaches have zero impact on this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the rules change, it is going to be for fewer spots and those aren’t going to go to True players . . .

the rules did change. Rosters are capped and colleges are going to be making huge cuts. gaining a spot as a freshman is about to get very cut throat.

Wait, what? Huge cuts? I looked at 3 schools, UVa, Syracuse and UNC, only UNC will be over, and by 5 if they take no more 25s. They can leak that in 2 years.

Where are all these huge cuts coming from?

There was a settlement within the last 1-2 weeks in an antitrust lawsuit about college athletes getting paid and cutting marketing deals. It starts next year, so the 2026 class will be the guinea pigs. I am surprised that more people are not talking about this, because it is a game changer for anyone who wants to play lacrosse in college. The settlement is being driven by the revenue sports (football/basketball) but the rules apply to all D1 schools in all sports. For mens lacrosse, the rosters will be capped at 48 players, compared to rosters in the 50's or 60's that teams currently carry. The limit on scholarships will increase from 12.6 up to 48. Yes, you read that right, there is no cap other than the roster cap. Girls lacrosse have the same roster cap, but only scholarships for 38. Obviously that won't survive a Title 9 challenge, but it is a moot point because no schools will be able to fund that many scholarships for non-revenue sports. But the big shots of lacrosse (ND, UVA, Duke) will definitely offer more scholarships than the current 12.6, and as they compete for top players, the number will keep creeping up. Schools can also compete by telling recruits the great marketing deals that they would get if they become a star at that school. Lacrosse is not football or basketball, but if your name is Kavanaugh or something similar, you can probably monetize your name/image into the six figures, and the antitrust settlement allows players to do that. This will give big name sports schools a huge recruiting advantage over lesser known schools, and over schools like the Ivies that do not give scholarships and will have a hard time remaining relevant in the top 20 of lacrosse under the new structure. Nobody knows how this will play out. But my personal hunch is that the top 10-15 D1 schools will separate themselves from the pack and become like a mini-PLL that get all the TV coverage big time crowds, and marketing deals, and the bottom 75% of D1, and D2/D3 will revert toward the more traditional student/athlete model. But the quality of play and competition for spots in D2 and D3 teams will increase, because the D1 rosters will be smaller, so a lot of D1 caliber players will go elsewhere. The settlement allows schools to pay players salaries up to a cap of $20 million, which will presumably be spent on football and basketball players. So you can expect the starting QB at a school like USC, Penn State, or Alabama to be paid $1 million or so. It will be interesting to see if good D1 lacrosse schools without a football team (Denver, Georgetown) start paying salaries to their lacrosse players. Whatever happens, this will be a sea change and will play out over the next 5 years or so. my son is a 2026 and working hard on the recruiting process, and honestly I am annoyed at everyone who is supposed to be helping him (HS coach, club coach, club recruiting director) because nobody has told us about this and have not been factoring it into his plan. Hope this helps.

Whew. Lot to unpack here.
- This was a preliminary settlement agreement, the judge must agree to carry it to a months long challenge period. Then we'll see.
- No idea why you're annoyed at others. This was filed at 5.00 Friday. And again, it's at this point preliminary. The ADs and football coaches haven't got any idea how this will play out. Details to date are available for anyone to look up on the internet. Not sure what your HS coach is supposed to do in this window to change anything.
- There are no scholarship limits anymore for any sport. Only roster limits. Women don't get 48 rosters. Nothing in Title IX law in the last 40-50 years says there have to be equal numbers for the same sport.
- This settlement was drafted by the NCAA and the P5 conferences (prior to Pac 12 imploding, they're included). Things like roster caps apply to all of them. For men's lacrosse, that's the B10, ACC and Utah.
- Roster caps also apply to any school that wants to pay athletes directly through the athletic department. This is likely top basketball schools opting in like the Big East (lacrosse) and G5 schools that want a piece of the CFP.
- Most all lacrosse schools won't be looking to pay athletes directly. IMO. They can use NIL. So no roster limits.
- There's a downside to giving non-revenue sports additional scholarships at P5s. At least the first ~40-50 ($2.5 million) will count against the money you can pay football and basketball players. Good luck selling the AD and football coach on that. If an athletic department want to spend $7-10 million on scholarships, ok it won't matter because they're over, but this could go any kind of way.
- I looked at 5 P5s. Uva (who is never over 48), UNC, UMD, Syrracuse and PSU. All but UNC are already set up to be under the number post-covid in 2026 (not including portal adds and deletes next year). UNC over by 5. And again, 80% of D1 lax schools, no roster caps. In fact, they can give out 100 full rides if they want.
- I agree there may be an NIL marketing bump for schools that lean into it.
- The P5s already have a huge advantage on non-P5s.

[Anonymous]

what are the expectations of clubs for players in high school? My son will be playing football this fall and our highschool lax team has workouts and league play this fall. I know our club will have some tournaments. Is it normal to to skip club for the fall (aside from the tremendous waste of money)

[Anonymous]

It is too bad that everyone left VLC and True destroyed East Side because fewer options hurt everyone. The beneficiaries have been the DCE and NL B teams, but to what end? The B team experience is not the same, it just isn't. It feels a lot better to be on a primary team, even if similarly ranked, for various reasons.

[Anonymous]

VLC only has themselves to blame. The parents approached management several times about coaching and tournament selection and every time we were rebuffed. No one wanted the team to succeed more than we did. In retrospect, if they would have put us into a couple of appropriate tournaments (like their doing now with the 29s). The team would have stayed together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is too bad that everyone left VLC and True destroyed East Side because fewer options hurt everyone. The beneficiaries have been the DCE and NL B teams, but to what end? The B team experience is not the same, it just isn't. It feels a lot better to be on a primary team, even if similarly ranked, for various reasons.

very good observations. In a perfect world, the best players from the DCE and NL B teams (plus A and B players from MadLax) would combine to form a new team that would be equal or at least close to the NL and DCE teams. At this age, the bottom half of the A rosters and the top half of the B rosters are pretty interchangeable. But in the real world, there is too many forces of intertia keeping players where they are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is too bad that everyone left VLC and True destroyed East Side because fewer options hurt everyone. The beneficiaries have been the DCE and NL B teams, but to what end? The B team experience is not the same, it just isn't. It feels a lot better to be on a primary team, even if similarly ranked, for various reasons.

very good observations. In a perfect world, the best players from the DCE and NL B teams (plus A and B players from MadLax) would combine to form a new team that would be equal or at least close to the NL and DCE teams. At this age, the bottom half of the A rosters and the top half of the B rosters are pretty interchangeable. But in the real world, there is too many forces of intertia keeping players where they are.

Yes, there is no incentive for these clubs to shuffle top of B and bottom of A. Maybe one guy to show that it happens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is too bad that everyone left VLC and True destroyed East Side because fewer options hurt everyone. The beneficiaries have been the DCE and NL B teams, but to what end? The B team experience is not the same, it just isn't. It feels a lot better to be on a primary team, even if similarly ranked, for various reasons.

very good observations. In a perfect world, the best players from the DCE and NL B teams (plus A and B players from MadLax) would combine to form a new team that would be equal or at least close to the NL and DCE teams. At this age, the bottom half of the A rosters and the top half of the B rosters are pretty interchangeable. But in the real world, there is too many forces of intertia keeping players where they are.

Yes, there is no incentive for these clubs to shuffle top of B and bottom of A. Maybe one guy to show that it happens.

I am pretty sure that NL and DCE didn’t shuffle anyone.

[Anonymous]

And what what would become of bottom half of b? They would become bottom half of A? Sorry, it doesn’t work like that

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And what what would become of bottom half of b? They would become bottom half of A? Sorry, it doesn’t work like that

I was speaking of the A teams

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This thread is meant to discuss the state of the DMV boys 2028 club scene and to trade info and and opinions on the various clubs and showcase opportunities.

By my count there 6 current clubs with one or more teams at 28:

1. Next Level
2. Madlax
3. DC Express
4 true
5 Top Caliber
6. Team Va.

In addition there are two potential teams VLC and Black Wolf that may have 28 teams next summer.

Of the current clubs only NL, ML and DCE can claim to offer a team that competes at the elite level. Unfortunately, all of those teams are severely oversubscribed. Additionally, none of those teams appear to be particularly competitive.

My initial question: is there a team that can provide college recruiting support that isn’t oversubscribed?

The banter about dirty play and holdbacks never disappoints, but can we get back to the original point - now that tryouts are going, who is hot, who is not, and what are option for players who are not happy with their team? Any new teams that will make an impact on the landscape?

I have a feeling Next Level and DCE will not change much. What I am curious about is what is going to happen with Madlax? With kids on Next Level and DCE not getting playing time, I am sure they will want to move.

I think Top Caliber, True, and Team Va. will get worse. Their good kids are going to want to play up with Next Level, DCE, and Madlax.

This makes absolutely no sense. DCE and NL (and maybe ML) have too many kids on their roster. But, kids from other programs are going to move over to them? How does that work because right now it belies common sense. And, yes, there is little common sense in the world of youth sports but even this doesn't.

This is why: all the coaches project their hopes onto a new face, this idea that they are getting a star who has outgrown his program, a player who is an amazing athlete but started a little later so that's why he is on a lower ranked team. The players he already has have disappointed at one point or another. The players on his own club's B team are less appealing and anyway the program needs good players on the B team. So yeah it makes sense.

I have been watching kids grow and improve this past year on our “B” team and being told that they will be pulled up to the “A” team. Then nothing… I think the only way these improved “B” team kids can move up is to move off the organization. But, there are only 3 to choose from in the DMV area…. Makes you wonder how many kids are just going to stop playing lacrosse and focus on other sports?

While I understand your frustration I think those kids are actually getting a break. Highschool travel lacrosse really only works out for those handful of kids who are both dead set on playing in college AND actually make it on a college team. Even then you can make an argument that lacrosse was a net negative for those kids who end up at a college that they would not have otherwise gone to or spend thier college years sitting on the bench.

For the vast majority of kids thier summers would be better spent working internships, working out, studying for the SATs learning to drive etc.

Parents and players on “b” teams or who are struggling for field time on “A” teams should think hard about what’s possible, what’s likely and what they’re really giving up chasing a dream. We all have to grow up sometime.

Eh, my kid played club all through high school with zero intention of playing in college. He was even a starter, so playtime was never an issue. He just really loves playing lacrosse. His college now has an A team and a Beer team. He joined the Beer team and still loves it. I’m surprised he even joined that but he said it is low commitment and likes the guys.

I glad he had a good time but it seems like a lot wasted opportunity. Was his club less serious than the majors?

what do you mean “wasted opportunity”? Do you have reading comprehension challenges?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:VLC only has themselves to blame. The parents approached management several times about coaching and tournament selection and every time we were rebuffed. No one wanted the team to succeed more than we did. In retrospect, if they would have put us into a couple of appropriate tournaments (like their doing now with the 29s). The team would have stayed together.

With that sent of crybaby parents? Fat chance.

[Anonymous]

Did they get a 2028 team?