My son was on a top 20 team last year (north east based) and got limited minutes. He took a lot of pride in being part of the team, wearing the swag, etc. He wasn't offered the opportunity to stay and was devastated for a few days, but fortunately joined a lower level team he loves. He quickly became a starter, plays on man up team, and has had a great experience. Knowing that he is a valuable contributor on the team has been great for his self esteem instead of the stress of struggling to hang on each week while he waits for his late growth spurt). He’s still developing and getting better albeit not competing at the highest level (now playing teams ranked 50-110 mostly). He looks back now and not making the team last year was a blessing for him. What the prior poster said rings so true from my sons experience. Think long a hard about what is best for your kid. You have to be real about where your kid is and guide them on what is best. They only get these years once and they go fast. Don’t waste them!
This is a nice post for everyone and I agree. Find what works for you but the first thing you need to decide are what are your expectations: High d1 or high d3? Then you generally need to be on a top club AND get playing time to get recruited by those colleges.
If your expectations are d2 or mid low d3 then you can get recruited from any club team so playing time will matter.
The next step after expectations is does your kids talent meet those expectations? If those are not in alignment you are setting yourself up for a lot of pain and extra money.
My kid played on a top 50 AA club and probably had A- talent but not A+ talent. But he had high academic aspirations and was not going to sacrifice academics for simply the sake of saying he played mid-low D1. So he got into a high academic school that plays in the MCLA and he is perfectly happy. Remember that lax is finite, so don’t make short term decisions with long term consequences. That was his path so yiurs will be different; just be brutally honest about your expectations and your kids talent
