Biggest issue with holdback culture in my opinion is that it pushes on age kids out of the sport and perpetuates the same families whose fathers and grandfathers played (and are way more likely to holdback) at the center of the sport. Game will never grow that way. Telling that the top recruits each year are disproportionately sons of former players and coaches. On age system with more local teams would clearly be much better for the game. But none of that will ever happen and lacrosse will remain a niche sport that gets a 1/3 of the ratings of NCAA softball. But will work it well for the war stories of the future generations of Millons, Spallinas, and Petros.
The holdback issue in youth lacrosse is singlehandedly crippling the professional league and any future the sport has.
It can't be that the only driver for these kids to play lacrosse is to help them get into college.
My sons MS team had over 200 kids try out for the MS Football team. I'm certain that only a handful of them have any thoughts of playing football in college.
I hope that was sarcasm. The average public school 12 year old will tell you that his intended career is professional athlete, YouTube celebrity, video game developer or rapper. To be fair........the average private school 12 year old wants the very same things but has been conditioned to lie to adults and will say "a doctor probably" or "entrepeneur."
Sarcasm? You're telling me the average 12yr old knows he wants to play football in college?
My point was that the average 12 year old doesn't know anything about anything including "thoughts of playing football in college" which about 2% of middle school football players will actually achieve.
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