US Lacrosse Community Forum Forums MID-ATLANTIC LACROSSE MARYLAND FORUM Boys High School

All of this is smoke, results are all that matters: LB hasn't been a perennial lacrosse power since Steele Stanwick took them to 2 straight titles fifteen years ago. The Dons did win at title in 2013 from the 6th seed in a Cinderella story but haven't finished above 4th since then. Why did they fall back to the back? Its quite simple: They acknowledged too late that the world was actually round not flat. In other words, their then AD and HC failed (whether they tried or not depends on whom you ask) to recruit a critical mass of good enough lacrosse players to compete at the highest level on a regular basis. Then they compounded this mistake by failing to advocate to top college coaches for their better players. Regarding the recruitment topic, both the then AD openly voiced his opposition to then in infancy stage club movement. They compounded this "the world is flat" opinion by failing to match other schools, which began giving partial scholar athlete financial aid awards to 3-6 multi sport athletes per year. So imagine this: you're the parents of an eighth grader who has several acceptance letters some of which may have partial scholarships attached to them. Then you do a little research among some older parents in the lacrosse community and you find Coach X and ABC High School does a much better job marketing his players for scholarship offers and it makes the decision relatively easy assuming your son has comparable academic opportunities. Fast forward to Coach Rubeor, who is a very good recruiter, coach and college admissions advocate: He's a loyal Don Diego who wants to rebuild the Program but isn't given the tools to do so. No partial scholar athletic awards even for top notch academic kids who would be major contributors in multiple sports (2 or 3 for 1 like a Ryan Conrad). Then you have meddling parents who expect you to win consistently when the administration has tied your hands behind your back on the recruiting front. These same parents/Board members go to the Principal who starts meddling with your coaching staff decisions and you say adios, life is too short. Whether this departure happened to coincide with some life event that forced you to move, the fact of the matter was you were coaching at another institution shortly thereafter. Then the Principal hires an old friend from BL who was a decent AC at BL but who never got the LB Administration to buy into the required recruiting changes necessary to rebuild the Loyola program. His W/L progress was tepid at best hence the "unhappy parent" contingent had a voice and forced his departure. The new coach is a long time former AC at Malvern who didn't get the HC job at Malvern when it opened up. His father's family is in the HOF of LB athletic families. Contrary to some of the comments posted on this forum, his dad was a great DC at LB as well as at JHU. He then took WAC to a national championship in D3. Thereafter he was a good but not great HC at JHU whereafter he moved to the HC coaching job at his alma mater, UNC. I wouldn't say that's the background of a horrible coach but maybe of one of didn't keep up the everchanging HC job requirements in this modern age. The $64k question for the LB program is will Coach Haus be given the tools to recruit the best kids in the greater BW area so he can develop them with his staff?