Originally Posted by Anonymous
Originally Posted by Anonymous
Here’s a question what do people think the hit rate of players of the current elite rosters ending up committing to a D1 program? My guess is something like:

Something like 8 or so for Madlax/Hawks/FCA.

Around 6 or so for Next Level and Crabs.

3-4 for True

1-2 for BLC and then a few/several others that are currently on lower ranked teams.

People think that is high or low? Aside from a few kids I’d be willing to bet on, hard to tell exactly who they will be, but that is my general sense of the talent level.

Having gone through recruiting with an older son in DC, here is how it has played out. Around 30 kids from Madlax, Next Level, DCE/BLC will commit to a decent D1 program (defining decent broadly). That’s been fairly consistent the last several years though individual club numbers vary. Of those 30, probably 10-12 are not yet playing on one of those 3 teams. Those kids are mostly very strong athletes that aren’t playing club at this point and maybe a few kids that are but puberty super charges them. So realistically it’s maybe 20 kids currently on those teams at most. The top 10 or so athletes spread among those teams currently will have a high success rate. Of the 50-55 other kids on the rosters, around 10 will eventually make it, but beyond the very top studs, it is really hard to predict which kids will pop because puberty and which kids will really hit the weights/wall in middle and high school is hard to predict. So unless you are a very top stud athlete, the odds still aren’t that high even for kids currently on an elite roster.

I think that all makes sense. Somewhere on BOTC there was a recent mention of the impact of COVID, and honestly I think the impact will be to those "not playing club lax yet" kids who either hadn't started playing lax 2 years ago, or are still playing rec for some reason (with rec being somewhat limited the last two years). At some point they have to enter the sport and at some point they have to "level up" to wherever they fit in the AA-AAA-Elite lax world. The on ramp has been difficult at best the last 2 years. But for the 2027s-2029s.......a fair # of kids went to club ball in Fall 2017 or Fall 2018, and saw minimal COVID impact/disruption (except for parents having to drive to lax COVID workout jurisdictions).

In short I think while there will always be legit (and not so legit) lax talent that "shows up" in 8th and 9th grade from out of nowhere, I think with the 2027s-2029s and how COVID impacted the "on ramp" to decent/good club lax, there will be far fewer of these. Those kids are substantially far behind most club players not only in skill but in game IQ, and if they are that great of an athlete, they probably already have a spring sport, no?