Back of THE CAGE Forums NORTHEAST LACROSSE BOTC MAIN FORUM Early Recruiting

The kids are getting a great education right. That should be the important thing.

It not early recruiting that is the problem-it is bad recruiting.
If they make early recruiting illegal it will be a advantage for the power schools. why would parents want early recruiting eliminated?
It would give the advantage to the schools even more than it is now.
The whole system is rigged in favor of the coach.
The big schools will put out feelers for top players under the table it happens all the time in other sports.

New to this so please pardon my I gnorance but could could someone school me on verbal commitments? I realize they are just that and there's no binding contract but what if a young athlete changes their mind in a year or two? Are they blacklisted? Do schools ever rescind offers and are there stipulations such as GPA, SAT scores?
Last question, are there any good sites or resources that can help someone navigate this process that you can point me to?

Kids can change their minds at any time until the sign a national letter of intent (NLI) in there senior year and you only sign an NLI if you are receiving athletic aid so no NLI for Ivy League, Military Academy's or D3. I kid that de-commits from a verbal usually does so with a new offer of a verbal commit from another school. Generally the verbal is between the coach and the player so some schools de commit if the coaches leave the school but that would probably be the younger players so the new coach can bring in his own recruits but every case is unique. A coach will generally tell the younger players that they must get X GPA and X SAT to be accepted and the verbal is contingent on but not guaranteed with admission. Coaches will generally not break a verbal commitment because they have a reputation to worry about and if they people start saying the have not honored commitments they would have a hard time getting them in the future. I have heard of coaches telling a kid that they have committed to another kid at the same position and tell the kid they will still honor the verbal but the kid might want to look for a different situation.

This is all my opinion from going through it a few times but every school and every case is different.

So at what point in the process does athletic aid get discussed? Do these verbals ever come with xxx dollars as part of the offer or is every case different?

Yes. The verbal agreement will include x percent scholarship. Of course at Ivies it's different. At Ivies there are no athletic scholarships and technically you are committing to the "Admissions Process" at an Ivy. Also, you could have a verbal commitment w a coach with no athletic money. They are offering u a spot, but no dollars.

Agree with this. At the time the coach offers a spot, they will give the scholarship dollars if they are offering dollars (if so typically 20-50% of all in cost) and the ACT/SAT minimum requirements, GPA requirement, and at the at the more academically challenging institutions, policy towards AP/Honors expectations.

Not a fan of Xanders at all, but to be fair these teams losing to some of these lesser known teams is more of sign of parity and the growth of the sport than it is an indictment of early recruiting. More kids are playing the sport than ever and there are plenty of talented athletes out there for the taking by these programs. On the other side of it, Denver and Notre Dame are two of the most notorious early recruiters as well as late poachers and its a good bet that both of those teams will be around come final four weekend. Seems to me Virginia is in trouble and I think that has to do with coaching, Hopkins has a young team and Duke and UNC had a lot of turnover on their rosters. Early season losses are one thing, but lets see who is there in May, Im guessing it will be the usual suspects.

Parity is the popular word in college lacrosse these days. Early recruiting seems to be a factor.

From an IL article 3/11/16:

"Simultaneously the recruiting timetable has shifted. Virginia, Hopkins, Maryland and North Carolina are the most aggressive early recruiters. Their coaches evaluate eighth and ninth graders, and have been offering to freshmen and sophomores. The strategy is unproven. It's equal to investing in start-ups instead of Fortune 500 companies."

"You know a lot more about a kid who commits before his senior year than a kid who commits before his sophomore year," Flanagan said. "Coaches loaded up on sophomore commits and missed on the kids who were slower to develop."

You actually made the best argument possible against early recruiting. If this game has grown to nationally played, AND there is talent on all corners of the US, AND it is impossible to canvas the US to diligence all of them in a 6-12 month window starting when they are in 8th grade, AND are ignoring the basic undisputable fact that boys have a lot of volatility in their physical, social and academic growth in their early to mid teens YOU'D PLAINLY AND SIMPLY BE OUT OF YOUR MIND TO RECRUIT AND BE DONE WITH IT WITH MIDDLE SCHOOL AND HIGH SCHOOL UNDERCLASSMEN.

If you are making the argument that lacrosse has recently arrived as a real national sport for youth and high school play, then next look at what other more established sports have come to. There are reasons why the more developed sports don't broadly recruit early. Sure there is the outlier example here and there of some 8th grade prodigy in football or basketball or soccer who gets attention of colleges and it makes the news. But not dozens or hundreds. Big time programs in established sports are not making their bets until during or after junior year.

It comes down to gambling. When do you want to bet? When you have no information or when you have the most information?

Ty Xanders is a carnival barker. I find it incredible there are tens of thousands of people on twitter who could care one bit about his act.

I do agree that early recruiting is a factor, but how big of an impact it is having remains to be seen. When is the last time a team outside the Top 10 made it to final four weekend? The National Championships have been dominated by the programs that early recruit, so until we see a program that doesnt recruit early crack the final four I dont think we can definitively say early recruiting is hurting these programs. I think more than hurting the programs, early recruiting is hurting the kids. These programs are stockpiling kids 15-20 a class with the hope that a few of them actually pan out. The rest are relegated to the bench or practice players. Its up to the parents to make sure their kid is going to a program where he has the best chance to be successful, not one mommy and daddy can brag about at parties.

GREAT ACCURATE INFO ABOVE

Per Ty Xanders

The first 2020 boy will be announcing his commitment on social media this afternoon. Yes, an eighth grader. Let the floodgates open...

crush kid

how old is he?