Do miaa coaches actually watch games or care about what kids do in HoCo?
How are they able to determine what middle schoolers they actually want?
A smart MIAA coach who isn't recruiting the best players on his feeder teams simply isn't doing his job.
Right but that’s mainly CHC, BL and STM/AS right? With FCA, Crabs and Hawks.
My son plays on a AAA team. Realistically we are looking at some of the bottom third (recently anyway) A conference schools to see if he would actually have a chance to see the field.
Not interested in being the 49th man at BL or McD. But trying to see how to get him a chance at maybe a school with a smaller roster.
A fair amount of MIAA players are of the AAA variety. There are only so many elite level players out there to divided into 10+ teams, plus some of the elite players go to public schools. I would guess that most of the players on JC and MSJ are is AA and AAA. Also, some of the AAA players will grow and train to become very good college players.
Don't forget a lot of the kids playing in HoCo league also feed IAC and WCAC schools so it's more like 20 teams they may go to. If you figure 8 elite HoCo teams with maybe 15 elite level kids each - that's 120 kids for 20 teams or an average of 6 for each. Plenty of room for AAA and AA kids to make teams and get playing time. They should be top 2 or 3 kids on their AA/AAA teams to have a reasonable shot though.
Lots of variables here:
First, take a deep breath. If your son likes playing the sport, is seeing the field at an Elite, AAA or top half AA team, and finds school relatively easy, he's on a good path to play in HS and probably beyond because the lax "product" overall across the country is hot [Censored] compared to even, say, Sidewinders or Cannons. And yes, there are only so many "elite" kids and roughly 1/3 of those are really AAA athletes on elite teams.
Don't know about VA but in MD about 20% of elite players and 50% of AAA/AA players will attend public HS. There is plenty of room on private ROSTERS for your kid if he performs at tryouts.
Now......moving between Varsity - JV - F/S rosters, and securing playing time at an MIAA-A program is not really a meritocracy, and if a coach tells you it is, that's just false. The math becomes unpredictable until your son has been in the system 1-2 years and you figure out, "Oh these 5 kids are making varsity regardless" and "Oh the varsity HC is the program director of X club, so the tiebreaker is the kids' club team."
Or as the dads of the Short Kings keep complaining, you learn (hopefully before the 1st check clears) "Oh the coach has never rostered a DEF under 5'11" in 10 years, or a FOGO who runs slower than a 4.8 40." Man, if you are cutting checks for private school and you didn't know those facts ahead of time and adjust accordingly, that's on you. Same thing if your kid is a "Great FOGO" but also the coach's son and the principal's son are both FOGOs. What do you think the outcome will be. Be in the know. Prepare your kid.
And yeah, these things happen at public HS as well. Maybe not quite as out in the open though.
