US Lacrosse Community Forum Forums NORTHEAST LACROSSE BOTC MAIN FORUM (LI, CT, WC) Boys 2016 Fall 2012/Spring 2013

If Johnny is good, Johnny is good! The year difference @ 18/19
wont be as drastic as it is @ 13/14. Do what is best for your child. You will find crazy parents everywhere, you can not change them!

You guys are idiots. Only a handful of MD kids get held back.

My son was a 17 freshman at acc hosting a jr recruit from md. No kidding the kid was turning 19 before my son turned 18!

Team 91 Orange and their high powered offense scored 1 goal in a LOSS in a tournament game against fl$ at the Hofstra tournament 2 weeks ago.....So much for the bragging parents

My kid is not on the team but, that was a combination of their A and B teams. I think they only had 4 or 5 kids from the A team and a 10th grader. The rest were from the B team.

Oh no!!!! Not the "they didn't have their entire team excuse"!

It was the 2016 WHITE team that played last week at Hofstra. 4 orange team kids filled in for them. The Orange team was NOT there. If fl$ can't beat the 91 White team then they are in BIG trouble come the summer.

Summer Ball rule number #1

teams that win cheat with older kids and kids not on their "real roster" - teams that lose did not have half the "regular" team

Fall, Winter and Spring rule #1

see Summer Ball rule #1

Best comment I've seen in a long time on these boards!

It was a JV tourney that stated no kids with varsity experience where allowed in the bracket. Of course, team $91 broke that rule at a tourney run by one of their coaches. Classy move!

And you should of stated...4 kids form the orange team and a 10th grader.

Better spend more money soon and fast tog et your boys exposure. According to IL, Hopkins already picked up a Verbal for a 2016 kid from Pennsylvania

One less spot for 91, Express 2016s etc...

http://insidelacrosse.com/news/2012...mits-johns-hopkins-2015-notre-dame-2014s

This is a travesty - hasn't even completed 1st semester of freshman year

Some early recruiting lessons:

"It's awfully difficult to evaluate what a kid's going to be like seven years from now," Pietramala says. "I'm in there saying: 'How big is mom? How big is dad? How tall is grandpa?' "

Lesson - Keep your short, dumpy wife/husband as far away from Petro and other D1 coaches as possible! Instead, hire a 6ft 2in slim model for the day and parade him/her around the Jake Reed camp - your kid will be verbaled by the time you get home.

Seriously, this is what it's come to. Talk about being at the mercy of a less than a perfect system. Yikes.

Forget about academic transcripts. Next you'll be submitting your kid's genome map.

Verbals are worth less than the paper it is printed on...er...or worth nothing.

Watch the video. it is quite amusing..

Word of advice when making video - make sure the viewer can't figure out what your kid's dominant hand is in the first 20 sec. I fear for the future of JHU lax.

A 2nd 2016 child has committed a Defenseman from Conestoga

When do you think the 1st Long Island 2016 will commit?

What happens when these early commits don't make their varsity teams and don't even start on JV in the most competitive towns?

Or...just as good as your word

Then mommy and daddy stomp their feet and demand that the coaches give their little prodigy still in diapers special treatment - or the AD and superintendent will hear from them for wrecking the inflated reputation of their little darlins. The problem is that in towns such as GC, WI, 'Set, WM etc and Chaminade, St Ants are all loaded with talent in the grades above these diaper phenoms. How do you explain that to Petro, Breschi, Starsia and all the rest of the egregious early recruiting offenders?

Awkward! But, I think/hope all of the HS coaches in the towns and schools you mentioned have the backbone and reputation to not give in to that kind of pressure. The tie will always go to the upperclassman in a school setting. If the younger kid is simply better then so be it. But, this could be a big headache for HS coaches if it looks like they caved to any parent pressure and could be a growing problem going forward. The HS coaches are likely to feel jerked around by a recruiting process that has run amuk and is way beyond their control.

Are you suggesting that Haverford and Conestoga do not have a comparable talent base to the schools you listed in the grades ahead of 2016?

Laxpower ranked Haverford 3, Conestoga 5 in 2012 which is a drop off from 2011 when Haverford was 1 and Conestoga 3

Think this was done without "talent in the grades above these diaper phenoms"

I doubt this will be a problem. The HS coaches know that if they succumb to even one parent's pressure the word will get out and they will be quickly overwhelmed with other psycho parents. Best to put up the wall and just say no, you have to wait your turn no matter what Petro thinks! Unless of course the kid is simply better than all of the upper classmen.

Boy is this a sticky subject on some HS teams.In our town the early verbals lead to issues. Parents were complaining little Johnny committed to Division 1 school X,but so did other kids quite a few,coach was pulling his hair out trying to put out fires with some over zealous parents, The end result,equal playing time,which resulted in not as many wins as should have had. That lead to another round of belly aching ...you cant plaes everyone!

Slippery slope for sure. What about the early verbal in a grade that is benefitting from the early recruiting trend versus the 2014s where it wasn't so accelerated. You could have upper classmen who have not yet committed that are clearly better than the younger early committs but because of the early recruiting phenomenon you'll have D1 commits riding the pine behind upper classmen that are not yet committed. This will be happening all over the place for sure.

Trust that the HS coaches will be able to understand and seperate the differences in the recruiting landscape among classes and not cloud his judgement that an early D1 commit in a younger grade (eg. 2016) is not necessarily better than a non-comiitted upper classman.

The truth is many of these young commited players are better than many upper classmen. Look at GC...They are a power house program and they played a couple of freshmen last year while other programs that based playing time on seniority did not fare well at all. H.S. should be like college...Play the best players period. Playing time should be earned, not awarded because you have seniority.

Absolutely. But if the uncommitted upper classman is better than the committed underclassman then the kid will have to ride the pine and explain it to petro.

Couldnt agree with you more. Play the best. But lets remember this is the age of everyone gets a trophy.

Call me old fashioned but to me the high school level is not all about winning - its about creating life lessons and great memories for as many kids as possible. Leave the win at all costs to the clubs, colleges and pros.

And Im sure "Petro" would understand, he's not an idiot, the man knows lacrosse. Im sure he knows what he is doing & if he reccruited a 2016 kid already that is their business, good luck to them. The kid just may be that good!

I'm aware of two - they just haven't been announced and won't be for a while.

Interesting news about the kid who just de-committed from UMD and is heading to Dartmouth. Clearly, Dartmouth needed to see additional indications of academic potential than what was ok for UMD. This could be a new trend - kids who were not academically eligible for the IVYs in 9th or 10th but became so in 11th or 12th and jumpiing ship for a better piece of paper.

If by "better piece of paper", you mean scholarship dollars, remember that the Ivy League does not have athletic scholarships. (You did know that, didn't you?) If you are talking about the overall quality of the academics, we agree.

Think he was talking about the diploma.

Of course - better academic piece of paper. Will be interesting to see if the de-commit trend rises as an outgrowth of the accelerated recruiting trend and if so, will it have any affect on the accelerated recruiting trend - slow it down, speed it up, no affect? Also, since colleges recruit by class, what does a school like UMD do to fill the holes in their oldest high school classes when HS seniors jump? Most anybody else they might have had on their radar are likely to already be committed elsewhere by the time this happens. Will they over-recruit each class expecting to have a few de-commit? Will they more aggressively poach kids that they had on their radar but for some reason committed elsewhere?

You bring up an interesting point.
Committing works both ways. It assumes both parties adhere to the agreement. When you have the student de-commit due to a "better" offer, and don't get me wrong I am not judging, then I would assume if this trend accelerates, then colleges would also be allowed to de-commit if someone "better" becomes available.
Once the veil of trust is broken on verbal commitments, all bets are off and the process will be upended.

I disagree. I think there is much more reputational downside to colleges decommitting than individual players and therefore I don't think you'll see the colleges doing it. Nobody will ever remember that a specific recruit de-committed but if a college coach begins a serial pattern (like a playboy) of de-committing in favor of "more attractive" recruits, there is no way that this won't hurt his long term recruiting success. In fact, this may become a key criteria for recruits in chosing a school.

The recent turn in the discussion is extremely interesting and appropriate for the Boys 2016 class to discuss.

First, it is absolutely the case that there is downside to a college coach rescinding a verbal commitment without demonstrated cause - the recruiting community is exceptionally small and more than a single rescinding of an offer spreads like wildfire in the community. This is one reason why even new coaches coming into an institution will honor previous commitments made by an exiting coach.

Second, BOTC has a concern that these very early (first half Freshman year) commitments will give a false sense of security to a student-athlete that he or she has explored all of the avenues needed to be happy at a college when in fact, the student-athlete might have only scratched the surface at age 14 or 15. Our expectation would be that there will be an accelerating number of student-athlete decommits as time rolls forward.

For those following the [lacrosse]'s Sporting Goods Tournament in Florida, the following games are scheduled in the U/15 group play bracket.

U/15 Bracket - Pool Play

Saturday : Team Long Island vs. Georgia Blackhawks (Georgia)
Saturday : Team Long Island vs. PrimeTime Power Penguins (Massachusetts)

Saturday : New Island Nemesis (NJ) vs. Crossfire U/15 (Georgia)
Saturday : New Island Nemesis (NJ) vs. Florida Elite (Florida)