US Lacrosse Community Forum Forums NORTHEAST LACROSSE BOTC MAIN FORUM (LI, CT, WC) Boys 2019-9th Grade Fall 2015 Summer 2016

Kids do not get left back in public school, simply does not happen. You can do whatever you want in private because you're PAYING!

Kids are not getting left back. Parents are sending their kids to a private school in 7th or 8th grade and then have them come back to public or private school the next year in the same grade. Being left back has a bad connotation so they came up with a new word for it "re-classification."

Now you have people in other parts of the country - including the kids of major club directors - who are doing it completely differently. They are letting their 11th grader who is a 2017 play with the the 2018's while still staying in 11th grade. The director then tells college coaches that they should be recruiting the player as a 2018 and if they take them as a 2018 then the kid will do a PG year after HS. This is really happening - it's ridiculous.

Kids are not getting left back. Parents are sending their kids to a private school in 7th or 8th grade and then have them come back to public or private school the next year in the same grade. Being left back has a bad connotation so they came up with a new word for it "re-classification."

Now you have people in other parts of the country - including the kids of major club directors - who are doing it completely differently. They are letting their 11th grader who is a 2017 play with the the 2018's while still staying in 11th grade. The director then tells college coaches that they should be recruiting the player as a 2018 and if they take them as a 2018 then the kid will do a PG year after HS. This is really happening - it's ridiculous.

Anyone have an idea about the NLF event in Florida will it be all about express & 91 or about the best kids out there.

Anyone see that Sweetlax just had the 4th kid from their 2019 team commit to Maryland? Terps now have 7 2019 verbals but 4 come from the same club.

I guess I'm a skeptic but I'm just wondering what leads to this situation. All 4 of these young men thought that of the 60+ D1 college programs that this was the perfect fit for them? And of all the 2019's that Maryland has evaluated from all of the countries top clubs these 4 were the most prized?

Interested to hear others opinions on this, just seems odd to me.

Sweetlax will take kids from other clubs and add them to their tournament rosters. Two of the 2019 commits play for Blackwolf, FCA and Sweetlax. I guess when they commit, they commit as Sweetlax players.

That Sweetlax team is very good. It is a National team. They beat Crush easily last summer. You will see several more from that team commit soon. Although Sweetlax is Rochester based they recruit top kids from all over to play. The director is a good guy who is very friendly with the coaches of top programs. Other clubs are threatened by them because you will see some very good kids leave their current club for them, so they badmouth Sweetlax. There must be a reason a kid would leave their current team. Too much drama perhaps?

No one is threatened. Good coach and good team. Last summer they continued to play after many clubs were done for the summer so kids who still wanted to play played for them. The kids must enjoy the experience as they tend to list Sweetlax and not the other programs that they play for.

Another Sweetlax 2019 commits today to Hopkins

They have 7 now, next closest? Do any LI clubs have any?

Only 2 of the claimed 7 commits only play club ball for Sweetlax. The other play for True, FCA, Blackwolf.

They have 7 now, next closest? Do any LI clubs have any?

I hear what you are saying about committing before you know, but do Jr's and Seniors really know. NO, not all of them know. Some of these kids going to these prospect camps know what they think they want. Some of these underclassmen are focused and do know. Many of these students, 9th graders, would be just as focused scholastically without sports.

Can you tell me how many freshman have an idea of where they want to go to college. I'd think more than you know!

and as far as parents being smart about the process. You know many of these schools that are committing these players are good institutions. Many have a vast array of subjects to choose from. Other are more concentrated and these tend be the elite school. Either way I do not see the harm.

NO! Parents like the idea of their kid going to a good school, getting a good job, and moving out of their basement.

It just so happens, great schools have lacrosse programs and parents see it as an opportunity to get into a better school otherwise unobtainable.

There is virtually no opportunity to make a comfortable living playing lacrosse. But, there are great networks from these great schools in very lucrative industries.

NO! Parents like the idea of their kid going to a good school, getting a good job, and moving out of their basement.

It just so happens, great schools have lacrosse programs and parents see it as an opportunity to get into a better school otherwise unobtainable.

There is virtually no opportunity to make a comfortable living playing lacrosse. But, there are great networks from these great schools in very lucrative industries.

Unfortunately, your friends son is the total exception. I heard this past w/e a 2018 was offered significant $ to a ACC school last year but wanted to continue to weigh options - when he finally decided this fall to commit to that ACC school his offer was much less - they were not happy ... not 100% sure if true but they made it clear that they wish they had accepted the offer last year - no sure why they would fib about it.... this is not just about crazy parents with huge egos - this is about how recruiting is conducted now .... read the Havard AD post on early recruiting - not just lax...

Pannell was a late bloomer. He had the skill just wasn't big in those early years. And look at him now. Good let these colleges take all the big kids. And that's what a lot of these elite travel programs do to. Take a kid for size. It's unfortunate but it's the way of the world. I know some kids who are late bloomers at this age and once they grow I guarantee these boys will be hands down better. They play handicapped right now because of their size but are tough kids. That just makes them hungrier to succeed.

This will be long winded but hopefully valuable to some family considering making a college early commit decision in the next weeks/months


there is nothing wrong with a 9th grader giving a verbal commitment with a 20%- 30% athletic scholarship offer to a great school. Why do you care if he does? How exactly does it harm the kid or the game?

So what if he never even steps on the field in college, he is on a D-1 team with all the privileges that come with being a d-1 athlete...

think academic advisers and tutors that are not available to the average freshman non athlete. think paying less for the same education than those non athletes. think being part of a team and transitioning from high school to college as part of a culture that requires work ethic and accountability

think of his first interview after college in his chosen field and being able to say, I played d-1. total commitment to a team while maintaining a great gpa. I hire a few new kids every year and the d-1 athletes (whether or not it is lax, whether or not they ever step on the field) always have an advantage over the non athletes because i know that any kid that can maintain good grades while working full time (yes-d-1 athletics are full time jobs) are more likely than not to be workers. doesn't work out 100% of the time, but the odds are in my favor to hire the d-1 athlete kid over the kid that got through with the exact same gpa but no athletics...

for all those saying late bloomers will eventually rule the day-good for those kids, i wish them and their families nothing but the best. but please be realistic, the top 20 programs, with the most dollars to spend on lax scholarships (most d-1 lax programs are not fully funded, those that are fully funded have only 12.5 scholarships to parse out among 45-60 kids-the math doesn't lie) are mostly fully committed by fall of soph year. It means that the late bloomer needs to be an incredible stud just to get a spot on that team, and forget scholarship money in year one. yes, maybe that kid will get dollars in year two, I hope so for him. But it means that the late bloomer's family is paying ($60k school at 30% scholarship = $18k) $18k more than the early commit kid in year one...

So, think of early recruiting this way-

your kid is not a lax player nor does he know what he wants to do with the rest of his life, but nonetheless, JHU, Penn state, Ohio state, Michigan, Virginia, unc, duke..., offered your kid the ability to get a special discount of 20%-30% reduction in year one price tag with an assurance that he will get into that school as long as he maintains a gpa of xxx with SATS of xxx. He likes all of those schools as do you as they are all top 50 academic institutions according the us news and world report.

he doesn't have to stress over the application process or worry about making his HS extra curricular and community service hours look better than everyone else that also wants to go to that school. He get a special pass to get in as long as he gets the grades, sounds like a pretty good deal doesn't it? If he goes to JHU and wakes up after a year and hates it, he transfers, happens all the time to athletes and non athletes alike. not the end of the world


let's please also remember the college coaches are the ones asking kids to commit. they come offering scholarship dollars and free meal plans and woo them by bringing them to big time college football games and introducing the kids and their parents to the privileged world of d-1 athletics.

Do you all think you are smarter than these coaches? Do you think you are a better judge of talent? Please understand, i mean no disrespect to the kids that aren't fully mature. they will grow when they grow and we all want them to be successful in whatever they choose.

But please stop calling the kids that committed early crazy or saying that they are
somehow ruining the game. they are offered an early spot at a great school and a special discount (still need to get the grades and still no guarantees until you sign the national letter of intent).

My fam has been to all the schools i listed above (2018 early commit) and the range of athletic and academic dollars varied from school to school. My kid liked all the schools, as did the rest of our clan. We chose based upon some of the key criteria below, with different levels of value depending on how important the specific criteria was to our situation -no snarky comments please, this is meant to help some other 2019 fam that is making a decision soon.

-perceived fit academically with an idea towards a major, but he really doesn't know what he wants to do to make a living. He had interest from ivy, but it is important to understand your kid. not everyone-even if they have a 98 gpa, is going to be able to handle the academic pressure at an ivy...to each his own.

--academic support and tutors-not all the schools are equal in this regard, if you have any doubt whether your kid will need this support, make sure you know exactly what is offered. In our experience, the big football schools had the most service relating to this aspect. I was surprised that a few of the schools had very little free support

-perceived fit socially-felt like it was the right size institution for my kid

--size of the campus

--living arrangements-does your fam like those dorms, will he get tripled, how far are dorms from practice facility, from class rooms, from town...

-academic ranking nationally

-coach and team culture (this one was really tough, we liked all the coaches, some more than others, but will that coach still be at that school in three years?) Is my kid a piece of meet because the coach's number one priority is winning a national championship? For this one, and several of the other criteria, i think it is important to talk to some of the current players and their parents. you would be surprised at how open people are--both good and bad

--money offered for athletic scholarship- note every coach told us, yes there is no legal contract, athletic scholarships are year to year, but we guarantee you you will get no less than this percentage all four years. we are smart enough to know that athletic dollars are year to year. do coaches lie? i am sure some do and i am sure some don't. ask the parents of a current player that is not the team stud. they will tell you the truth

--money offered for academics-assuming he maintains gpa of xxx, he will get this amount in academic dollars. note, these academic dollars are more valuable than athletic dollars, not necessarily in terms of percentage, but in terms of the annual renewal. 3.0 in college gpa each year and the academic dollars renew...some schools had no academic dollars for which my kid would qualify

--alumni network--it just means that potentially, you will be more likely to land a job after graduation based upon a strong alumni network, that is the theory anyway

--financial aid- we didn't spend any time on this because my fam can't qualify for aid, while that in and of itself sucks, it means we are lucky in the big picture

I hope this helps someone...