US Lacrosse Community Forum Forums NORTHEAST LACROSSE BOTC MAIN FORUM (LI, CT, WC) Complaint Department

3v was a great program and like many other programs in any sport, they are losing out to club sports. And there are great board members and coaches, and some that are truly pursuing a personal agenda. 3v gets a lot of heat because they took a hard position on club ball by drawing a line in the sand and saying "if you play for us, you don't play club, we are 3v and we do it better than any club team out there, you don't need to go anywhere". As the father of a 3v player who was given the opportunity to play with one of the top club programs (we chose to go), I can tell you that the top club programs prepare you child to play at the next level light years ahead of a town-based program. Its not just the level of opponents, its also the depth and everyday talent your kid will have to face in practice that makes the biggest difference. 3v is far from a joke, but their unwillingness to seek an amicable solution with the parents whose kids wanted to play high level travel ball (Im trying to be politically correct), was not right. There are so many talented kids in that program and so many great local tournaments in the Spring, that this could have been worked out and the boys that wanted to play club could have done so after the spring pal season and some local tourneys. But everybody got their backs up and said "good go, we don't need you". Well, if we had it to do over again, we would probably take a different approach I venture to guess. In our particular case the board talked parents into staying with promises that were not delivered upon. I don't think they intended to deceive, but people put their faith in them because they were the 3v board, and therefore had to know better than a few parents who felt we were slipping behind due to the top club programs. Pride, stubbornness and a lack of communication and willingness to understand the other guy's side of the issue are what caused the demise of my son's age group (no I wont say it). And all of the sniping, back stabbing and misrepresentation about what people actually said didn't help. So now you have a bunch of parents who pretend to like each other when they seek each other at school games -It should have never have come to this, its silly. Club ball is not for everyone, I know, but it works fine for some. the 3v board needs to get with the times (whether what is happening is good for the sport overall or not) and try to work through this 3v vs. club issue before its too late. Call me an eternal optimist, but there has to be an amicable solution to this - it really is not a very complex problem on the grand scheme of things- right? Go Patriots!