Originally Posted by Anonymous
I don't note this to poke anything negative at families or kids, but the context does beg for a few more details. My son is also a 2017, he did not commit early. He had some opportunities but not ones that were at schools on his very narrow dream list, or they were weaker academic colleges we as parents just blocked off. He is a good enough student and player to go the NECSAC route. Our family does get lightly approached as well about the possibility of being a preferred walk on (a roster spot recruit with no money) by a few now including, to my surprise, one on his very short list from 9th grade.

His very short list in 9th grade had three schools, all of which were fabulous lacrosse programs at good academic colleges, but now his preferences with a blank piece of paper are none of the three.

The 2017 class was the first one where early 9th graders committed in large numbers. But early recruiting was hardly pioneered in his class. There are current college sophs who committed as rising sophs in large numbers. I would argue this trend has reached onto the field and we are getting early data on the early recruiting now.

Hopkins = nailed it with the class that is now sophs, they appear to have found a few freshmen who can play. Their HS early commits in our hotbed area I'd say are some hit and many miss. One Final Four last year after 8 years of no Final Fours.

UNC = kind of a mess. They rode the Sankey / Bitter show (which was last year's college seniors who were from an era before 9th or early 10th grade ER in large #s) with ok results. They are not strong this year and look like a program that will be in build mode for the next 1-2 years. No Final Fours in last decade. I have seen all of the early recruits in our area and most in other areas to UNC and as a whole it is a very underwhelming group. Breschi knows he needs to poach like crazy in the next few years to survive and he is doing it in a big way.

UVA = absolulte dumpster fire to quote Quint Kessenich. Half the kids on the team are considering quitting (my son is very close friends with two first year players and we know one of their families very well). The current players and families seem happy enough with UVA as a school, but there is a pall hanging over the program and it is hard to imagine the coach won't leave after this year. I have seen UVA recruits in our area and around and it has a star or two in each class, but then a lot of mistakes after that.

I think people should suspend belief over "what can't happen" or "what never happened" considering there hasn't been an era like the one starting now where programs can implode fast by recruiting and managing the program poorly for a few years...then it starts to show up.


You make total sense, it all comes down to this: nothing is for sure until they sign the NLI and then it is only guaranteed for a year. If you child "commits" with this in mind, then they won't be totally surprised if something changes. I would say, you ALWAYS need to have a back-up plan. Will early "commitments" work for some kids, yes, will they not work out for others, yes.