Watch out club directors. True Atlantic holding tryouts. No players are safe from poaching. CS involved.
My understanding is that True Atlantic (like the other True National teams) is designed as an 'add on' to a player's current club.
Some kids from Looney's, Hawks and FCA playing here as a 2nd team, for others this is their only team.
If this is their only team, they will not be playing too often. The Atlantic team played in 2 tournaments this year, both being small format national team tournaments, and the Hawks coach will never let the team become a full fledged club team, too many Hawks on the roster. That being said, it is a very good team, but its not that hard to be good when you are aggregating that level of talent. The trend seems to be that tournaments are going to be either biased towards club teams or national teams. For the 2023 level, just look at Naptown vs. Crabfeast, much more of a national team presence at Naptown. Frankly, if I were a club director, unless I have an extremely talented team at a certain age level (2023 Hawks or 91 Crush for example), I'm not sure that I would waste my time playing against the national teams at tournaments like Naptown. I know that it is good for development to play against better talent, but no kid wants to get blown out by a group of national programs all weekend. This is not meant to bash the national team model, my son has played for one, but it is not a great option if it is going to be your only team. As we all know, the most important aspect of lacrosse is quality practice time, other than a last minute pre-tournament practices, you are not getting that at the national level. Your coach could be the best D1 coach out there, but what are you really getting out of 1 or 2 practices.
