Great post. I would like to add that you definitely have to be extremely proactive when it comes to this process. My son is getting interest from several D1's and every one of them has talked to my son about "owning" the process. Send out your video, go to the prospect days, call and email the coaches with updates, have your club coach and high school coach follow up, etc. The club lax circuit can certainly be a money pit if you dont spend your time and money wisely. Be patient and most importantly be realistic. I dont subscribe to the "if hes a good player theyll find him" mantra. There are plenty of kids that get passed by because they were waiting for a coach to find them. If your son wants to play at the next level, he has to make it happen.
Originally Posted by Anonymous
Agree with just about everything you said and will add a few more observations.
I think not only do you need to be on a good team, but you need to be on a good team (preferably one that has one team per age group) that proactively advocates its players to coaches in advance of tournaments where the team will be playing. The attention span of coaches at recruiting events seems to be about 10 seconds, and unless a kid makes an all star game, or is playing in one of the small team events, the summer club season can be a real crap shoot.
My son played on a very mediocre team that happened to get into top quality tournaments such as Crab Feast, Legacy, and the Philly Invitational and to your point almost no coaches were watching them despite have a handful of legitimate DI prospects. What was most surprising is even when they were playing adjacent some strong teams such as 91 Extreme, Laxachusetts, Mesa Fresh, and others there were not a lot of coaches even watching those games. So my takeaway is you can't necessarily rely on the team circuit to get you much exposure.
I put a lot less credence on the mantra that if you are good they will find you, but as you pointed out prospect days are one way to get noticed even if you are not on a great team. That's what worked for my son, and now he has serious interest from several schools and it was all from individual stuff.
