My son is 8th grade and is a soccer player who played some lacrosse but was never that serious. For some reason playing middle school lit a lax fire in him so I took him to tryouts this summer for 1st time. He tried out for 3 teams and made 2. My advice is to just bring him to as many tryouts as possible. Obviously don't register for all right away because he might make the 1st one so you don't want to waste your money. Eventually if he has any skills at all he will make a team. Seems to me like younger coaches look for kids with top skills now where older coaches who have been around youth sports for a while are willing to take a chance if they see a great athlete they can build into a player. As a parent preach confidence to the kid especially if they have a bad tryout at first or feel overmatched if they tryout for a team with a lot of really good players. At the end of the day all these programs need the money so there will be a team for him.