This thread is comical at best, disturbing at a minimum. If you don't have the core talent, nothing else matters in most sports, except Lacrosse - especially in this area. The sport isn't widely played nationally (although growing) and will never be a big revenue sport. The fact that you compare schools doesn't matter. Do you remember Evan Royster (PSU, Westfield grad and played a few years in the NFL)? He picked up a lacrosse stick in 10th grade to stay active in the spring and Hopkins offered him a scholarship after one year. Thank god he realized that his future was in football, not Lax. I know a kid who was top 5 in the country coming out of High School and accepted a 25% scholarship to play for a top 5 program. You parents spending thousand annually on your kids need to chill and realize that if the kid wants it, he will work towards it, regardless of the sport.

Parent of a former D1 scholarship child who never pushed him

If they keep up their current approach, they won't leave the IAC voluntarily. They will just be thrown out using the same logic that Bullis used when it led the charge for Prep football to be expelled. So much for your strange idea that the other IAC schools won't back down from an athletic challenge.

The other schools just aren't going to start chasing athletic glory using the same techniques (e.g. Mass transfers of football players in).

And Bullis will never be a Prep or Landon or STA "Rival". The school just isn't viewed as an equal. As has been said many, many times, Bullis is the public school you pay for

Well said. Bullis will be kicked out soon if they continue to keep up their current approach.

Every school in the IAC has their hands in the recruiting ring, I am not denying this. Bullis however operates on an entirely different level. This year alone, their lacrosse team added in a very high profile transfer from STAB and another kid from Sidwell. There football team has brought in at least 6 new faces for the football season (maybe even more). It will be interesting to see how many stay enrolled in the school after football season ends. Yes folks, Bullis brings in kids for a semester.

Falls Road has fully embraced a win at all costs mentality and the IAC will do something about them very soon.

Anonymous wrote:Your kid can pick up a stick and just not join a team until 7th or 8th grade. Saves on the burn out and the wallet. Watch games and see how the game is played. There isn't a need to shell out $2000 a year on a 3rd grader when an athletic seventh grader can be at the same level of play by 8th grade as the kid who has been playing club ball since 3rd.

Exactly.

But people are unlikely to understand this as all these clubs and camps show.

Want to develop a good lacrosse player? Start with a lot of basketball.

Your kid can pick up a stick and just not join a team until 7th or 8th grade. Saves on the burn out and the wallet. Watch games and see how the game is played. There isn't a need to shell out $2000 a year on a 3rd grader when an athletic seventh grader can be at the same level of play by 8th grade as the kid who has been playing club ball since 3rd.

Anonymous wrote:
Disagree about view that starting early isn't important. Yes, you can take a good athlete and "convert" him into a lacrosse player in middle or high school. But most who fit into this category just don't have the same stick skills and lax IQ as those who started in 3rd/4th grade. They might start for their high school team, but by and large they play for unskilled public school teams. I know that in my son's club team, the best players all started in elementary school. And most ended up in private schools also. If you look at the website of my son's club, on the college commit page, the majority of commits are those who've had a stick in their hand since the time they learned to walk, if not beforehand.

Well, You may be right.

I'm afraid I have a lot experience that points to the contrary.

And it's all based on the IAC, not "unskilled public school teams".

GP has sent any number of kids on to be DI All Americans and even play professionally who never picked up a lacrosse stick until high school.

They had another kid who started playing lax in 7th grade and was the NCAA leader in Assists as a Jr in college and his college's all- time total points leader. That demonstrates pretty good stick skills, I think. If a good athlete with good hand-eye coordination starts at 12 or 13 by the time he gets to high school he'll be in good shape.

Stick skills learned at the age of 10 or 11 aren't going to hurt them. But if their overall athleticism (speed, strength, size, toughness, competitive will to win) doesn't keep pace, all the stick skills in the world aren't going to help them.

A wall, a ball and a lacrosse stick all all you need to get really good. A bunch of third graders running around sweating in their pads and helmets is to me, pretty much a waste of time. And not a lot of fun. But the parents do get a swell LAX sticker for the back of the Suburban.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Question for private school lax parents with older kids, if you had to do it over with a kid just getting to club level lax (e.g. 3rd grade) what club would you choose for the younger grades and why?

Consider opting out of this madness. It's probably a huge waste of time and money for most people.

Good athletes with good hand-eye coordination can pick up a lacrosse stick for the first time in seventh grade and become excellent high school and college players. I've seen it countless times. The techniques of the game aren't that hard to master.

Success in high school and college level will be determined more by genetics than by hours of practice and games in Grades 3 through 6.

Bigger, faster, stronger, tougher kids with highly-competitive natures will be the high school starters and stars. Frequently these characteristics are inherited, not learned.

The big star on my son's 8th grade team rarely got into a game in high school. The other kids had just physically passed him by.

Couldn't have said it better.

And yet few will accept these sage words of wisdom and experience.

Chasing dreams of top college acceptances, high school glory or even just wanting to see their kid not get left out, they will spend vasts amounts of time and resources.

The people and schools that run these camps and club teams are selling the dream and raking in the cash. Their gross and net margins are incredible.

What is so surprising is that these are normally intelligent people. But when it comes to their progeny they seem to be unable to be realistic.

The growth of the sport is going to mean a huge change in the opportunities the sport provides in the future. It used to be there were 30 or 40 US high schools or Prep schools that provided all the talent. Syracuse built a dynasty by recruiting kids from local West Genesee High School and a few Long Island schools. (And that frozen burgh they got the Powell Brothers from). Now the Syracuse roster has kids from all over the US on it.

Agree with a lot of what you are saying. Lots of delusional parents spending eye popping amounts of money and time, chasing the college recruitment dream.
Agree that clubs and camps are raking in the cash. Makes it doubly worse that so many of the club owners are real ass-hats, besides being greedy.
Agree that the growth of the sport means more recruiting across the US rather than being concentrated on the hotbed areas.

Disagree about view that starting early isn't important. Yes, you can take a good athlete and "convert" him into a lacrosse player in middle or high school. But most who fit into this category just don't have the same stick skills and lax IQ as those who started in 3rd/4th grade. They might start for their high school team, but by and large they play for unskilled public school teams. I know that in my son's club team, the best players all started in elementary school. And most ended up in private schools also. If you look at the website of my son's club, on the college commit page, the majority of commits are those who've had a stick in their hand since the time they learned to walk, if not beforehand.

Preps athletic dominance in the IAC is threatened by Bullis. Plain and simple!

I'm amused that the Prep booster keeps hurling insults at Bullis. So delusional.

Why don't we let Jeff decide? Last I heard he was the administrator.

What if I told you that you don't have to read this thread?

+1 And, I was the poster who begged Jeff to bring the thread back. What was I thinking? So sorry...

Yes, Lord!!!

DELETE THIS THREAD

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Question for private school lax parents with older kids, if you had to do it over with a kid just getting to club level lax (e.g. 3rd grade) what club would you choose for the younger grades and why?

Consider opting out of this madness. It's probably a huge waste of time and money for most people.

Good athletes with good hand-eye coordination can pick up a lacrosse stick for the first time in seventh grade and become excellent high school and college players. I've seen it countless times. The techniques of the game aren't that hard to master.

Success in high school and college level will be determined more by genetics than by hours of practice and games in Grades 3 through 6.

Bigger, faster, stronger, tougher kids with highly-competitive natures will be the high school starters and stars. Frequently these characteristics are inherited, not learned.

The big star on my son's 8th grade team rarely got into a game in high school. The other kids had just physically passed him by.

Couldn't have said it better.

And yet few will accept these sage words of wisdom and experience.

Chasing dreams of top college acceptances, high school glory or even just wanting to see their kid not get left out, they will spend vasts amounts of time and resources.

The people and schools that run these camps and club teams are selling the dream and raking in the cash. Their gross and net margins are incredible.

What is so surprising is that these are normally intelligent people. But when it comes to their progeny they seem to be unable to be realistic.

The growth of the sport is going to mean a huge change in the opportunities the sport provides in the future. It used to be there were 30 or 40 US high schools or Prep schools that provided all the talent. Syracuse built a dynasty by recruiting kids from local West Genesee High School and a few Long Island schools. (And that frozen burgh they got the Powell Brothers from). Now the Syracuse roster has kids from all over the US on it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Question for private school lax parents with older kids, if you had to do it over with a kid just getting to club level lax (e.g. 3rd grade) what club would you choose for the younger grades and why?

Consider opting out of this madness. It's probably a huge waste of time and money for most people.

Good athletes with good hand-eye coordination can pick up a lacrosse stick for the first time in seventh grade and become excellent high school and college players. I've seen it countless times. The techniques of the game aren't that hard to master.

Success in high school and college level will be determined more by genetics than by hours of practice and games in Grades 3 through 6.

Bigger, faster, stronger, tougher kids with highly-competitive natures will be the high school starters and stars. Frequently these characteristics are inherited, not learned.

The big star on my son's 8th grade team rarely got into a game in high school. The other kids had just physically passed him by.

Couldn't have said it better.