So a post-mortem from school girls to answer the question about coaches being there. The answer was yes, a lot. Most of the top schools not named BC and Maryland were there. Gary Gait and his crew, both of Northwestern's assistants as examples. I would say most schools had at least one representative there. The fields at Yale were terrible, but the lax was competitive and definitely the coaches were there.
agreed on the fields- terrible and a bit embarrassing I would think for the organizers. any thoughts on recruiting for these 2019's? my daughter is getting a bunch of emails from coaches (some with the unsubscribe button on the bottom and some not). I know other girls are getting the same thing. is the rule change going to drive cash to the college coaches and the summer camps??
Yes on driving cash to coaches through camps and clinics. My thoughts on 2019 recruits (take them for what they r which is one person's view) ... A lot of the spots at top schools (top 25?) were filled before the rule went into place, but not all. There are plenty of spots at other D1 schools and D2 and of course D3 really hasn't started yet. I thought the camps and clinics were the best opportunity for my daughter to display what she could do and for the coaches to get to know her personality etc. I also thought it gave my daughter at least a few days on campuses to see if it was the kind of place she might like. But we limited the camps and clinics to schools we thought were both lax fits and academic/social fits. For us that was a little easier because we had had other athletes and non-athletes go to college already and so had a decent sense of the process and the eventual matches. Be realistic, create a short list, and take control of the process instead of a more shotgun approach in my opinion. Then the camps are great. Even though the coaches can no longer respond back until September 1, have your daughter email schedules, updates, videos, grades etc to her top places. And make sure when she goes to the camps, that she is placed in the top group there, where the committed girls and serious recruits are grouped. Otherwise the camps can be not very helpful.
