You are right about ringers being added at Madlax for some (not all) tournaments and I can tell you it's very frustrating and the parents detest it. Not shockingly, the adds never impact the owner's sons (28 and 24) who shouldn't be playing as much as they do anyway....nor does it impact a couple of the other age groups who have dad coaches (27 or 29) whose kids should also not be seeing as much playing time. The happiest team/parent group in the ML family is the 25 age group. Great coach, good kids, etc fwiw.

I know the two DCE kids coming to ML and they should play most of the game because they are legit players.... but the parents need to be prepared for ringer-daddy-ball-like situations. I know this sorta stuff happens everywhere, but it's very prominent at ML and could blow up the team(s) downrange. One of the most talented age groups at ML was the 27 age group. They added a bunch of players a few years back and the coach insisted on playing his son who shouldn't even be on the A team. The original team had been around for a long time and the parents got sick of it and many of them bolted to other clubs. Now I would put the 27 ML team in the slightly-better-than-average cohort. The same thing happened to the 24 team which was arguably one of the best club teams ever during their 7th and 8th grade year. Some top players got sick of the daddy ball and left for NL. This situation is well documented on BOTC and now most of those players are stars at the HS level and will almost certainly be recruited to top colleges in the early September round.

The training and tourney schedule at Madlax are very good so maybe that's it.....but when it comes to playing time and the recruitment years you better be prepared to be disappointed because you gotta earn it always as there is no loyalty even to the kids who have been there since age 5/6 and, ultimately, the latter is going to fall to the kid/parents to get the job done.