I need some advice... I have a 7th grade son playing on an Elite level team in HOCO.
He is a pretty good player. In his career, he has primarily played midfield but also has played some attack. He seems to be pretty talented at facing off.
Objectively, he is probably the 3rd or 4th best faceoff middie in the Elite division. He is not playing a pure FOGO role on his club team but the coach prefers to lean on him for faceoffs over the other two options. This diminishes his role offensively as he doesn't have as much gas left in the tank on many possessions.
We send our kids to public high schools with solid but not great lacrosse programs.
I think he has enough ability to play just about any offensive position in high school. I also think he has a solid chance to be able to play at a decent D3 college if he desires.
I feel like the learning curve to be a good FOGO is not that steep... high school coach recruits a dominant wrestler and in two years this kid is solid simply because of hand speed, athleticism and experience with using body leverage.
On the other hand, it's hard to grab a top attack or offensive mid spot without years of experience working on stick skills, game IQ etc...
QUESTION... If I want to maximize his options in college, should I encourage him to move away from Faceoff Mid and towards Offensive Mid / Attack?
I think it depends on the kid’s speed. If your kid has elite speed, then there is no question in my mind that playing midfield is the easiest way to get recruited because teams need a ton of midfielders both offense and defense with speed.
If your kid does not have elite speed, then I would say getting recruited as FOGO is probably the better bet. FOGO though is hard to tell who is good until high school. That is, the elite FOGOs at 7th grade don’t translate reliably to elite high school players as say really fast middies do.
In general, the flow chart for recruiting looks like this:
Is your kid one of the 10-20 fastest kids in HoCo elite? Yes, have them play midfield unless their stick skills are top level or they are really small. If the latter, consider attack.
Does your kid have above average size and above average, but not elite speed? Consider moving them to pole (if stick skills are mid) and attack (if stick skills are top notch and they can take a beating)
Does your kid have average speed and average size for HoCo elite? goalie and Fogo are probably the best and maybe only options for college.
Does you kid have below average speed? Just have fun unless you are a goalie. No chance of being recruited unless really really huge or one of those rare attackman like Matt Rambo that can make this work. These players exist but are very very rare.
