Madlax 2028 should change their slogan from 'Run DMV' to 'Ask Us About How Good We Were in 2nd grade.' And for some of their kids, 2nd grade was like 6 years ago.
As much as people have personal issues with the program, it's impressive how competitive ML has been with a group of kids that has been largely stable since 2nd grade.
But the odds are against any program accurately identifying 15+ kids who will be amazing middle school athletes when they're in 2nd grade, and ML doesn't seem to be able to draw 90+ kids to tryouts like Hawks. Maybe that's MD vs. VA or maybe it's reputational, but at some point a shallower talent pool seems bound to catch up to ML unless they can figure out how to bring kids in at positions of need.
