IAC Lacrosse

[Anonymous]

Baltimore has its fair share of prep school sports crazy, but I'd agree the DMV is worse and the IAC is worst on the scale. It is a DC thing. Only so many can be politicians or lawyers of note, there isn't much industry in the DMV outside of inglorious government contracting or commercial real estate. That leaves a lot of Indians who'd love to be Chiefs. Lacrosee and ice hockey school stickers on crappy cars is a self esteem builder for as such.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can imagine the Gonzaga people are hoping it doesn't happen. Their program could shrivel and die in two years if it did.

Not a Gonzaga fan, but this is a ridiculous statement. Gonzaga has become a perennial top program nationally, and nothing is going to change that anytime soon. They have the numbers, the players, the coaches, and the price is a factor for many.

Gonzaga didn't rise because Prep went down. Prep went down because Mater Dei kids who play lax were increasingly picking Gonzaga. So if you want to pick a causal relationship, Prep went down because Gonzaga was going up.

I'm not a fan of Gonzaga parents, but their program is not scared of Prep at all. Prep is relying on Catholic families picking them who are lax players. Given the price disparity and state of Gonzaga's program, Prep is in a tougher position that ever before. They have to increasingly rely on foreign boarding students who can pay full price, and those kids are not playing lax.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Baltimore has its fair share of prep school sports crazy, but I'd agree the DMV is worse and the IAC is worst on the scale. It is a DC thing. Only so many can be politicians or lawyers of note, there isn't much industry in the DMV outside of inglorious government contracting or commercial real estate. That leaves a lot of Indians who'd love to be Chiefs. Lacrosee and ice hockey school stickers on crappy cars is a self esteem builder for as such.

Previous Baltimore poster here. Thanks very much, that explains a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It isn't worth it for a school saddled with over $20mm in construction debt and a low endowment to run a sports team like a college with large tuition discounts for several kids per year. Prep grew to 550 students and is still financially struggling despite being twice the cost of a Jesuit education anywhere else. Giblin's way did win a lot of games and did help a few kids per year go to selective colleges for lacrosse. But it didn't serve the school well to lump so much toward that. If Bullis and Landon want to overload in this direction then the healthier thing for Prep to do is remind itself to be an academic school first. Have a looksie at Bullis and Landkn matriculation numbers, then strip out lacrosse. Non athlete hooked kids from those schools don't go to selective colleges. So why run a school to benefit less than 5% of the kids who attended? That's dumb.

And maybe Prep can be great at baseball, tennis, golf, soccer, swimming or wrestling. Last time I checked those sports had 2x to 4x as many colleges with scholarship programs. In the bigger picture lacrosse did nothing to lift Prep during the Giblin years. Academically and financially the school only went worse in the last decade. Building another dorm and bringing back the old coach isn't what the administration is focused on now, or should they be.

You are obviously math-challenged. While most colleges play baseball, tennis, etc, there are thousands of high schools that offer these sports and that supply athletes to them..

Not true of lacrosse. The ratio of high school students playing lacrosse to college roster spots is much higher than baseball, tennis, etc. And many of the colleges that play lacrosse are highly selective and much desired.

Prep isn't an academics first place and never has been. Parents send their boys there for the total experience. Prep serves a community and not a narrow slice of academically-focused and talented. A concept that the Sidwell people could never grasp.

And the student population is less than 500 (480?), not 550.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can imagine the Gonzaga people are hoping it doesn't happen. Their program could shrivel and die in two years if it did.

Not a Gonzaga fan, but this is a ridiculous statement. Gonzaga has become a perennial top program nationally, and nothing is going to change that anytime soon. They have the numbers, the players, the coaches, and the price is a factor for many.

Gonzaga didn't rise because Prep went down. Prep went down because Mater Dei kids who play lax were increasingly picking Gonzaga. So if you want to pick a causal relationship, Prep went down because Gonzaga was going up.

I'm not a fan of Gonzaga parents, but their program is not scared of Prep at all. Prep is relying on Catholic families picking them who are lax players. Given the price disparity and state of Gonzaga's program, Prep is in a tougher position that ever before. They have to increasingly rely on foreign boarding students who can pay full price, and those kids are not playing lax.

Perennial? Hardly. Two or three years isn't "perennial". And it's in a weak conference so there's no natural rivals. In fact their big games are against IAC schools that can choose to schedule them or not.

Expect Mater Dei to dry up as a source of players for all schools. Giblin built the program there too. He would recruit the better athletes there to play lacrosse and not baseball. . And the attraction of Mater Dei has been that it has been "prep for Prep".

Few people will go the Mater Dei route if they want to go to Gonzaga. Any parish school will do for that.

[Anonymous]

Mater Dei has been a feeder to Prep for decades.

With Prep's tuition price tag, they better focus on getting kids into top notch schools otherwise my son can get the same similar experience at Gonzaga or St. Johns which are much cheaper.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mater Dei has been a feeder to Prep for decades.

With Prep's tuition price tag, they better focus on getting kids into top notch schools otherwise my son can get the same similar experience at Gonzaga or St. Johns which are much cheaper.

Mater Dei a Prep feeder school for decades?

Not really. Average number of MD boys to go to GP has been as low as 10 in a year. The other 30 boys go elsewhere. And with no Giblin-driven lacrosse program at MD, that number could easily go lower. In fact, without Giblin at Mater Dei the number of lacrosse players with any significant degree of talent is likely to drop for all high schools that have depended on MD as a source of player5s who can catch and trhow.

And the number of MD grads, who weren't recruited lacrosse players, that got into "top notch schools" is almost zero over the last few decades.

But please, the experience at Gonzaga is not the same as it is at GPrep.

Gonzaga is a different experience. It's bigger, further away, more diverse, more raucous, more City-like with very few multiple sport athletes.

And SJC is almost completely different from both. It's much more like a public school with a very wide range of students attending.

[Anonymous]

Prep booster get a life bro.

What did you ever do with your college degree besides talk about HS sports.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Prep booster get a life bro.

What did you ever do with your college degree besides talk about HS sports.

Sell commercial real estate leases.

[Anonymous]

no dog in the fight here but i know several people in Commercial Real Estate who do extremely well and are very generous in the community and to their local church.

[Anonymous]

My son was out at Prep at the UA tryouts last night. Several Prep players are aware Kevin Giblin has applied for the Prep position.

We shall see if the PP poster is full of shit. If Giblin wasn't forced out or fired, he would be rehired in a heartbeat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son was out at Prep at the UA tryouts last night. Several Prep players are aware Kevin Giblin has applied for the Prep position.

We shall see if the PP poster is full of shit. If Giblin wasn't forced out or fired, he would be rehired in a heartbeat.

Giblin resigned. The president scheduled a meeting to talk him out of it yet another time. The President than cancelled the meeting apparently deciding that it wasn't worth it.

Feathers were ruffled and feelings hurt. So whether GP is interested in going back to Giblin is unknown.

What is known is that without Giblin the Prep lacrosse program cratered.

The school could opt for a young alumnus with a very mediocre high school career and a weaker college one at a school with zero lacrosse accomplishments. Like Gonzaga did.

[Anonymous]

Losing Giblin affects Prep's on-field results, but the bigger factor is the dwindling talent at that school. Their 2017 class is lackluster and they are feeling the effect of the Mater Dei pipeline going to Gonzaga.

[Anonymous]

At the UA tryouts parents were talking about their new coach and how he is an artist on the side...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At the UA tryouts parents were talking about their new coach and how he is an artist on the side...

They won't be crowing about his portraits after they start hearing him drop f-bombs at their sons on a daily basis ...