Any MadLax parents here?

[Anonymous]

DS is on a different club team. I am thinking of having him try out for MadLax.

I am specifically interested in the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade teams. What is MadLax like for middle school kids?

Yes, I am aware of that incident from 5 years ago where the MaxLax owner got in a dispute with a parent. What I want to know is what is the program like now? Good coaching, good experience for the kids?

[Anonymous]

I can only speak to high school. There are good coaches - many from local privates and I'm sure there are some that aren't so great. There is an extra fee of $1200 on top of seasonal fees and tournament fees and uniform fee - it is very expensive compared to other clubs and unless your kid is on the Capital team in HS (there are kids from NC coming up so competition is stiff) it really isn't worth it. There are other good clubs out there for middle schoolers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: There are other good clubs out there for middle schoolers.

Thanks - can you name some in northern Virginia?

[Anonymous]

There are 3 local HS club teams with any success. It good get get your spot early ... middle school.

VLC, owner is an ahole
Madlax, owner is an ahole
Black wolf, owner is pedophile

Choose your poison.

[Anonymous]

Watch the 2022 madlax team play this weekend. Good team good coach. But the funny thing is Team will do anything to win fogo kid got caught twice with illegal sticks. Attack also got caught with illegal stick. It's win at all cost with madlax. Parents are all total Aholes.

[Anonymous]

Blackwolf is the only one where our DS was coached by the owner. He is abusive to kids who don't have balls. I would have your DS attend a camp session first and observe his style. Madlax - look online to see who coaches are for your kid's age and the next 2 years above that. Not sure about VLC coaches but hear they are solid from others.

[Roar]

Agree with all above. Eyes open. DS played for MadLax in Middle school. Kids learn a lot at practice. Better on and off ball defenders, sliding and on offense running set plays, two man game and isolation on extra man up situations. The tournaments, MadLax plays only the great kids, unless a blowout game. We prepared DS for this prior to game.

Stay away from 2 of the 3 types of parents. Former lax dad who wants his DS to relive his glory days of playing 3rd string at W&L. Divorced Mom & Dad who channel all their energy into getting kid into (Enter IAC school here) followed by D1 offers. Understand if your kid is better than theirs, they will glare at you because, "how dare you take the golden boy's playing time or coaching."

Or parents who simply go for the tailgating. LOVE these parents.

Travel lax creates "lax bros." They will gain any edge on their stick and often bring attitude to their youth league games. I ref 50 games a year from HS Varsity all the way town to the new U12 status. I call these kids "sticker kids" because their helmets have their madlax, vlc, triple edge markings. Stick checks often produce illegal sticks where we impound them at the table for the rest of the game.

Keep in mind your kid will play under 3 different rule sets next season. Travel plays NCAA rules. High Schools play Federation Rules and if your son's an 8th grader or lower, his Youth team will play US Lacrosse youth rules. For example, Saturday a "sticker kid" swung a beautiful wrap check and dislodged the ball from the stick. We threw a flag. Parents went nuts yelling, "he got all stick." "Sir, in youth lacrosse the 1 handed swing is illegal, even if a great check." I'm sure he went to go look it up for confirmation.

Your DS will learn a lot in Travel Lax practices. If he's really good, he'll play. Otherwise you're there to pad the program coffers. Plan fun things to do around the tournaments and your kid will enjoy it more. We played a tournament outside north Philly so we spend the day off at Dorney Park. My kid still talks about the water slides, and not the lax tournament.

[Anonymous]

As a parent of a former HS lax and league player in Northern Va I would say, don't let your kid play the sport. If we had to do it again, we would have never let our son play. Some of the parents were really extreme aholes and a lot of the kids were troublemakers. The HS coaches tolerated a lot of bad behavior and bad grades. It was a waste of time and money and our sons grades suffered until we pulled him out of the sport in HS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Watch the 2022 madlax team play this weekend. Good team good coach. But the funny thing is Team will do anything to win fogo kid got caught twice with illegal sticks. Attack also got caught with illegal stick. It's win at all cost with madlax. Parents are all total Aholes.

It rubs off on the kids too, they get to be laxbro aholes. I don't think cheating is a good value to teach your kids.

[Anonymous]

Roar wrote:Agree with all above. Eyes open. DS played for MadLax in Middle school. Kids learn a lot at practice. Better on and off ball defenders, sliding and on offense running set plays, two man game and isolation on extra man up situations. The tournaments, MadLax plays only the great kids, unless a blowout game. We prepared DS for this prior to game.

Stay away from 2 of the 3 types of parents. Former lax dad who wants his DS to relive his glory days of playing 3rd string at W&L. Divorced Mom & Dad who channel all their energy into getting kid into (Enter IAC school here) followed by D1 offers. Understand if your kid is better than theirs, they will glare at you because, "how dare you take the golden boy's playing time or coaching."

Or parents who simply go for the tailgating. LOVE these parents.

Travel lax creates "lax bros." They will gain any edge on their stick and often bring attitude to their youth league games. I ref 50 games a year from HS Varsity all the way town to the new U12 status. I call these kids "sticker kids" because their helmets have their madlax, vlc, triple edge markings. Stick checks often produce illegal sticks where we impound them at the table for the rest of the game.

Keep in mind your kid will play under 3 different rule sets next season. Travel plays NCAA rules. High Schools play Federation Rules and if your son's an 8th grader or lower, his Youth team will play US Lacrosse youth rules. For example, Saturday a "sticker kid" swung a beautiful wrap check and dislodged the ball from the stick. We threw a flag. Parents went nuts yelling, "he got all stick." "Sir, in youth lacrosse the 1 handed swing is illegal, even if a great check." I'm sure he went to go look it up for confirmation.

Your DS will learn a lot in Travel Lax practices. If he's really good, he'll play. Otherwise you're there to pad the program coffers. Plan fun things to do around the tournaments and your kid will enjoy it more. We played a tournament outside north Philly so we spend the day off at Dorney Park. My kid still talks about the water slides, and not the lax tournament.

Great information here. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Thankfully we have not run into too many a**hole parents and DS plays at a private not in the IAC or WCAC (but plays against some in fall/spring) which is where we see the most of parents 1 & 2. Roar has it right.

I will say that at the high school level at MadLax, players often do not come to practice which means most are running and gunning and not always playing cohesively as a team at tournaments. They get most of their skills at school since most field a fall team, lift in winter and practice from mid winter through spring. Our DS can't attend because there's usually some sort of conflict with school or fall school league etc. However, if your DS can attend practices before HS, they will definitely get better.

[Anonymous]

What about next level, why isn’t that mentioned in the list of travel teams?

[Anonymous]

Next Level is quite good too but OP was asking about No VA club teams. We know quite a few committed players who play for NL. I also hear about DC Express but know nothing about them.

[Anonymous]

For next years 6th (2025s), 7th (2024s), and 8th (2023s) teams, Madlax Cap 2023 is less good than the typical Madlax team (Next Level, Club Blue, and BLC are all better -- VLC 2023 about the same as Madlax 2023), Madlax 2024 is good (though probably BLC is at least as good or better, VLC is way weaker), Madlax 2025 is on about the same level with both Next Level and BLC.

This all could shift next year depending on player movement. (Have kids on a couple 2023-2025 teams so have developed a lot of random knowledge of this age group of which is totally useless except for questions like this).

Not a Madlax family, but the invective against the Madlax owner, coaches, players, and parents are all somewhat overstated in my experience. They run a quality, but not perfect program. The owner is very passionate in good and bad ways, but he's mostly focused on the elementary age teams these days where his kids play. Madlax is a little more expensive, but all the main clubs are expensive. If they are close to your house and your kid is good enough to start for their top team (capital), it totally makes sense. Also Madlax probably have the best recruiting track record in the area, so if your kid is a top level star, also makes a lot of sense.

If you are willing to drive for practices to lower MoCo, BLC (which becomes DC Express for the upper middle and high school teams) and Next Level are similar options. NL is probably the most parent friendly of the local teams.

Blackwolf also becomes an option in high school, but they don't field middle school teams. Don't have any personal experience with them yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a parent of a former HS lax and league player in Northern Va I would say, don't let your kid play the sport. If we had to do it again, we would have never let our son play. Some of the parents were really extreme aholes and a lot of the kids were troublemakers. The HS coaches tolerated a lot of bad behavior and bad grades. It was a waste of time and money and our sons grades suffered until we pulled him out of the sport in HS.

+1 agree with you statement wholeheartedly. Lacrosse parents are the worst. They see every game as the game to end all games. They all think their kid is getting recruited for D1 lacrosse. Worst years of my life sitting next to these parents and listening to them rant and rave at refs and coaches.