Thanks to GC virtually forbidding kids from playing for club teams outside the select town team , the program is suffering a downtrade, maybe temporary, but we shall see. In the past kids played PAL on one of 4 equally talented teams. In addition, some kids played on summer tryout club teams. This approach provided a pretty good feeder system for the h.s. team, the results are in black and white. Now part of the deal seems to be an implicit deal that you must play for asst. coaches in summer or have no chance to play as a h.s. kid. freshmen get promoted to varsity etc.
Self Dealing and conflicts of interest like this are what is ruining lacrosse. The best kids should play regardless of where they play or who they play for. HS sports should be about one thing and one thing only - the kids.
This is a real problem for GC, losing more kids than ever before to other high school options. Also creates a less cohesive environment as kids and families are pitched against one another as well as the program.
No I don't live there. However, in most cases your are dealing with parents of very substantial means. If they feel the deck is being stacked against their children, they will reshuffle it. I'm sure the privates here on LI as well as the Boarding schools to the North will be happy to accommodate good students. Students who are also great Lacrosse players, that happen to come from families with deep pockets. Bye, bye, public school coach...
The private school route is no guarantee of more playing time and in fact is a much tougher route given that the private schools have talent from all over the county and the boarding schools are drawing great talent from all over the country. Go ahead, give it a try but you are risking a lot of after tax money for a much tougher road to the field. I've seen kids that are committed to high D1s ride the bench at private schools.
