At what point is it not about politics and connections? When will some of you realize that you are not able to objectively evaluate your daughters athleticism or lacrosse ability? Since my oldest went through the process I have been hearing the same nonsense... 'it's the friends and family network", "her father is connected", "it's all political", "Daddy Coach", "pay to play", "she got the look because of her father" "her Coach / Director did nothing to help" etc... We are now talking about recruiting, we are talking about college coaches (top division I coaches in particular) and the athletes they recruit. Do you really believe that it's all political? Do you really believe that a coach can consistently field a competitive team by offering spots to the friends and family network or to politically connected players? It's bad enough when you complain about politics at the 6th grade level and who makes the YJ "A" Team, it gets worse when you complain about how political Under Armour Underclass / American Select is or how the Inside Lacrosse rankings are political but now we are talking about college recruiting and you still want to push the narrative that it's all about who you know. Give me a break, if your daughter gets on the field and plays in front of a coach at a tournament, camp, clinic, showcase or whatever and the coach is not interested it's not political, it's because the coach does not believe that your daughter can help the coaches program compete or the coach has other players ranked higher on their list.
The best college programs do an excellent job at identifying and recruiting the best players. How do I know this? I know it because they consistently win, they consistently outperform the rest of the programs and they do it because they have better players. Sorry, but Maryland gets better players than Marist, Carolina gets better players than Cornell, Boston College gets better players than Boston University etc... that's just reality, it's not about connections or politics it's about talent. BTW, it doesn't take a college coach very long to identify the players that they like, they can tell in a few minutes if the kid can play but remember, there are other players out there and the coach might believe the other players are stronger. The recruiting process will let you know just where your daughter stands in relation to other players. It's not about politics, connections, pay to play etc... it's about the athlete and her ability.
