lax culture from an insider

[Anonymous]

I guess the people who posted on the prior 57 pages of comments in this thread don't care about lacrosse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is an "outside club team", exactly?

Still want to know what this is...

[Anonymous]

I wonder what the academic requirements are at places like Duke and Notre Dame (and UVA and Hopkins) for laxers. These kids are committing as 15 years olds without any PSAT's or even many high school grades. When these schools sign these kids, do they care about academics at all? Do these kids have to keep grades up? It's pretty obvious in the Ivies that they do, but at these other "highly academic" schools, I wonder.

[Anonymous]

I totally thought this thread was about a lazy, loosey-goosey, you know, "lax" culture at a school. I was wondering how that got to 58 pages. Apparently I was missing something!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder what the academic requirements are at places like Duke and Notre Dame (and UVA and Hopkins) for laxers. These kids are committing as 15 years olds without any PSAT's or even many high school grades. When these schools sign these kids, do they care about academics at all? Do these kids have to keep grades up? It's pretty obvious in the Ivies that they do, but at these other "highly academic" schools, I wonder.

The good hockey players at my Ivy had horrible board scores -- a group of players roomed together and called their room "The Thousand Club" because all had below 1000 on their combined SAT Math/Verbal. Maybe they had good high school grades -- I assume maybe they did because they had to have something -- but they were highly non-academically oriented once at college. They all got through (and many are now highly successful businesspeople, judging from reunions).

My point is that lowering admissions standards isn't new -- even the tippy top academic institutions do it, they just pick their spots (Ivy League ice hockey vs. SEC football). Once you're in one of these very selective colleges, it is not hard to stay above water if you go to class (or get someone's notes), turn in written work, and show up for your exams. Remember that Duke has basketball, Notre Dame has basketball/football, UVA has ACC basketball -- they all are set up to make accommodations for athletes that by and large probably haven't had the same academic opportunities your average lacrosse player has. Hopkins isn't a big time athletic school in anything but men's lax, but they take the Harvard/Yale ice-hockey approach to their lax program and make it work.

[Anonymous]

Speaking of lacrosse news, Maryland Women won the national championship yesterday. Nice for the locals!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder what the academic requirements are at places like Duke and Notre Dame (and UVA and Hopkins) for laxers. These kids are committing as 15 years olds without any PSAT's or even many high school grades. When these schools sign these kids, do they care about academics at all? Do these kids have to keep grades up? It's pretty obvious in the Ivies that they do, but at these other "highly academic" schools, I wonder.

It has only been in the recent few years that kids were committed to a college verbally this young, and before they have any SAT scores or much of an academic record. The Ivies wait until after Soph year before any hardened up offers go out in general...although this year UPenn shook it up with 9th grade verbals. Earlier in this threat what I wrote is what is understood to be correct...if you don't meet the academic standards outlined when you commit, the offer will be redacted. I have never been led to believe that admissions office or athletic department directors care too much at all about lacrosse or other non-revenue sports enough to waive poor applicants in. Ice hockey is different...some colleges treat that sport like their football...the one big time sport. In lacrosse, the only school that might apply to is Hopkins.

So yes, if the kid floats along and does not make grades he will find himself without the offer he once had...like two Landon laxers found out this year. Some college programs are also starting to selectively recruit less from the "lax bro" prep schools, including the ones local to DC. Not an unfair attack on any one local school...but now is a bad time to be a privileged DC area trust fund kid who plays lacrosse. That is the other thing...more and more these coaches care about recruiting kids who won't get them in the news or fired

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder what the academic requirements are at places like Duke and Notre Dame (and UVA and Hopkins) for laxers. These kids are committing as 15 years olds without any PSAT's or even many high school grades. When these schools sign these kids, do they care about academics at all? Do these kids have to keep grades up? It's pretty obvious in the Ivies that they do, but at these other "highly academic" schools, I wonder.

It has only been in the recent few years that kids were committed to a college verbally this young, and before they have any SAT scores or much of an academic record. The Ivies wait until after Soph year before any hardened up offers go out in general...although this year UPenn shook it up with 9th grade verbals. Earlier in this threat what I wrote is what is understood to be correct...if you don't meet the academic standards outlined when you commit, the offer will be redacted. I have never been led to believe that admissions office or athletic department directors care too much at all about lacrosse or other non-revenue sports enough to waive poor applicants in. Ice hockey is different...some colleges treat that sport like their football...the one big time sport. In lacrosse, the only school that might apply to is Hopkins.

So yes, if the kid floats along and does not make grades he will find himself without the offer he once had...like two Landon laxers found out this year. Some college programs are also starting to selectively recruit less from the "lax bro" prep schools, including the ones local to DC. Not an unfair attack on any one local school...but now is a bad time to be a privileged DC area trust fund kid who plays lacrosse. That is the other thing...more and more these coaches care about recruiting kids who won't get them in the news or fired

I agree this is accurate. One of the byproducts of the ridiculous early commit trend in sports like lacrosse is that they can't always judge academic fit.

[Anonymous]

No pads? Is ladies lax a no contact spirt?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No pads? Is ladies lax a no contact spirt?

They wear eye protection and usually some lighter leather gloves (not the big gauntlet style gloves the men wear). It is non-contact in the same way basketball and soccer are -- pretty physical but no actual bodychecking allowed. There is "stick checking" -- can hit the opposing player's stick with one's own stick to try to knock the ball loose -- but even that is tightly constrained for safety reasons (e.g., must check away from the opposing player's body, cannot "hold" the check down). Think a scalpel rather than an axe.

[Anonymous]

Duke repeated as champs for the men. Interesting to look at their roster -- still very NY heavy, some Baltimore, but also a little more geographic diversity (players from CA, Texas). I might have missed something in my quick glance but I only saw one local DMV private school player on the roster (so, not including Gilman in Baltimore) -- a sophomore who went to Potomac School. I remember in the late 1990s when the Duke roster had tons of Landon players. Things are democratizing fast as lacrosse continues to spread beyond a few East Coast hotbeds -- which is a good thing if you like the sport, even if it means the local prep school products won't get the opportunities they once got.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Duke repeated as champs for the men. Interesting to look at their roster -- still very NY heavy, some Baltimore, but also a little more geographic diversity (players from CA, Texas). I might have missed something in my quick glance but I only saw one local DMV private school player on the roster (so, not including Gilman in Baltimore) -- a sophomore who went to Potomac School. I remember in the late 1990s when the Duke roster had tons of Landon players. Things are democratizing fast as lacrosse continues to spread beyond a few East Coast hotbeds -- which is a good thing if you like the sport, even if it means the local prep school products won't get the opportunities they once got.

The top programs still recruit very heavily in the MD/DC hotbed. There are non-lacrosse reasons why some schools have recruited less or not at all from Landon. Landon players urinating on opponent's lacrosse gear after a championship game loss, the little murder incident in Charlottesville, etc. Some programs just don't want risk or the the baggage.

[Anonymous]

12:02

Jealous much.

Check out Princetons, or Penns or Cornell's lacrosse roster.

landon has more Kids playing in Ivy League lacrosse than any school in the area.

And mark my words they will have a kid committed to Duke very soon.

I will point out though as the sport continues to grow out West in non traditional areas, and more athletes are picking up sticks, it will become more and more difficult for kids from the DC area privates to make an impact at the D1 level.

[Anonymous]

I am not a Landon supporter -- let's get that straight. To keep dredging up the UVA lacrosse murder as somehow emblematic of Landon's lacrosse program is just irresponsible. Landon attracts many good young lacrosse players and has a nice track record of getting those players into top programs. Schools in the Ivy League and other top programs would not take these kids if they thought there was any kind of institutional "problem" at the school. Over the years, lacrosse, like football or any other sport, has "black eyes" from the behaviors of its players. Landon, STA, SSSA, Prep and other programs have lax alumni who have squandered opportunities due to behavioral missteps when at college. It is not a Landon-only issue. Bigger picture: Compared to the rest of college-age young men, I am not ready to agree that lacrosse players have a greater propensity to engage in illegal or even irresponsible conduct. I think there is a rush to paint bad behavior as having a "lax bro" component. That is a problem for the sport as it is for football and basketball as far as I am concerned. Perhaps football and basketball get a pass because stories of misbehavior go back for generations. With the relatively recent popularity of lacrosse (and its perceived "elite" status), I submit that the sport is a fresh target for criticism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am not a Landon supporter -- let's get that straight. To keep dredging up the UVA lacrosse murder as somehow emblematic of Landon's lacrosse program is just irresponsible. Landon attracts many good young lacrosse players and has a nice track record of getting those players into top programs. Schools in the Ivy League and other top programs would not take these kids if they thought there was any kind of institutional "problem" at the school. Over the years, lacrosse, like football or any other sport, has "black eyes" from the behaviors of its players. Landon, STA, SSSA, Prep and other programs have lax alumni who have squandered opportunities due to behavioral missteps when at college. It is not a Landon-only issue. Bigger picture: Compared to the rest of college-age young men, I am not ready to agree that lacrosse players have a greater propensity to engage in illegal or even irresponsible conduct. I think there is a rush to paint bad behavior as having a "lax bro" component. That is a problem for the sport as it is for football and basketball as far as I am concerned. Perhaps football and basketball get a pass because stories of misbehavior go back for generations. With the relatively recent popularity of lacrosse (and its perceived "elite" status), I submit that the sport is a fresh target for criticism.

This makes sense to me. When I was in college in the Northeast the hockey players were the baddest of bad boys. The "tribal" culture of physical team sports, with drinking added (ubiquitous on college campus), results in men's teams and women's teams getting into trouble (although add testosterone to the mix and the men's stuff is often more violent). I would argue that there is a bit of a "party-on dude" culture in lacrosse, and maybe smaller coaching staffs for supervision, that results in institutions like UVA's "Sunday Funday" drunkfest every week. I think maybe in-season football/basketball might be more supervised on stuff like that?