BOTC - US Lacrosse Community Forum Forums LACROSSE LIBRARY COLLEGE RESOURCES College, Coaches, Recruitment : 2012-2013

The summer season is quickly coming to a close and August represents our traditional opening of the new year's "College, Coaches, and Recruitment" discussion thread.

To help support families and their student-athletes, BOTC is proud to be opening our third year of the Lacrosse College Forum!

BOTC remains open to all questions about the college process as they relate to academics, lacrosse, or both. Our 2012-2013 recruiting season is now officially underway.

Previous Season Reference Threads

College, Coaches, Recruitment : 2011-2012

College, Coaches, Recruitment : 2010-2011

US Lacrosse Issues Position Statement on Recruiting

BOTC asks whether there is actually any teeth in this announcement from US Lacrosse regarding their recruiting calendar?

BALTIMORE, Oct. 18, 2012 - The US Lacrosse Board of Directors today approved the following statement on the complex nature of the collegiate recruiting process for high school student-athletes. The statement was developed by the national volunteer and staff leadership of US Lacrosse, in consultation with members of the coaching community, and it reads as follows:

US Lacrosse shares the concern of many lacrosse players, parents and coaches that the college recruiting process is not structured or timed in the best interests of high school student-athletes. The current landscape of recruiting events and club programs - some of which operate throughout the calendar year - has encouraged an increasing number of young student-athletes to forego a well-rounded high school experience based on unrealistic expectations and misperceptions about playing college lacrosse.

Parents are being led to believe that college coaches focus on recruiting only those children who play year-round lacrosse and who attend multiple, expensive recruiting events throughout the year. While some recruiting programs and events offer positive experiences for student-athletes, others - particularly those that conflict with the school calendar or occur outside of the traditional lacrosse season - threaten the well-being of student-athletes with incidents of injury and burnout. This intense recruiting culture also has eroded the work-life balance of coaches and parents.

US Lacrosse will continue to work with high school programs, clubs, tournament directors, the Intercollegiate Men's Lacrosse Coaches Association (IMLCA) and the Intercollegiate Women's Lacrosse Coaches Association (IWLCA) to provide the information, resources and leadership necessary to enable high school student-athletes and their parents to make the best decisions about their lacrosse experience.

US Lacrosse also encourages men's and women's collegiate lacrosse coaches to exert their considerable influence to lead reform of the NCAA recruiting calendar, limit the age at which student-athletes begin the recruiting process, and agree not to attend or participate in recruiting events that infringe on the academic calendar of student-athletes.

Replayed from the Main Message Board, this discussion covers the value of Verbal Commitments and the frequency of withdrawals of those offers.

No, it does not happen all the time - as a matter of fact, a rescinded verbal agreement is so rare that new coaches coming into a program will honor commitments made by the prior coaching staff.

Rarely will grades result in an issue with most mid-tier Division I programs. Often times, the grade transcript will be prequalified even during sophomore year. The grades combined with the expected course load (AP, Honors) will yield a fairly accurate academic picture. Board scores can throw the process off course, but generally there is some flexibility among the mid-tier schools on this point.

That said, top academic schools (Top 40 according to US News and World Reports) will require more stringent academic standards and those guidelines will be substantially less flexible for all but the very top recruits in a given year.

BOTC would welcome the name of the institution which withdrew their verbal agreement with your daughter. We suspect that there was more involved that just a grade situation and would therefore welcome slightly more information.

Additional discussion about the value of Verbal Commitments and, in this case, the advantages gained by the student-athlete following a Verbal Commitment offered by an institution's lacrosse program.

Actually, a verbal commitment places more power into the student-athlete's hands than the institution's hands. Universities do not want to gain a reputation for offering spots which are then pulled - it gives the athletic program a black-eye for future recruiting seasons.

Upon a verbal commitment however, the player is free to still campaign with other programs for a better offer without fear of longer term damage. Now, one can argue the ethics of potentially holding more than one verbal agreement, but there is certainly nothing against that position according to the NCAA recruiting gudelines.

CageSage, do the recruiting rules/restrictions change for D1 programs once a recruit verbally commits to a school? Are contact restrictions eased between the school and the recruit who has verbally committed to that school?

Let's first be crystal clear about the term verbal commitment as defined on Page 22 by the NCAA in their document :

NCAA College Bound Student Athlete Guide - 2012/2013 (3.5MB, PDF Format)

Verbal commitment : This phrase is used to describe a collegebound student-athlete's commitment to a school before he or she signs (or is able to sign) a National Letter of Intent. A collegebound student-athlete can announce a verbal commitment at any time. While verbal commitments have become very popular for both college-bound student-athletes and coaches, this "commitment" is NOT binding on either the college-bound student-athlete or the college or university. Only the signing of the National Letter of Intent accompanied by a financial aid agreement is binding on both parties.

When you carefully examime the document, there is no legal standing assigned to a Verbal Commitment. Therefore, all of the standard NCAA Recruiting Rules and Restrictions remain in effect even after a verbal commitment.

Important Recruiting Rules Changes Issued by NCAA

The NCAA recruiting rules have been modified approximately 20 different points in the recruiting cycle effective August 1st, 2013. There are several internet articles that are attempting to synthesize these changes. Some reference articles are provided below. Remember, these items are literally appearing in the last 24 hours.

8 Ways NCAA Recruiting Rules Have Changed And How They’ll Affect You

Division I streamlines rulebook at NCAA Web Site

Highlighted areas seem to be the initial points which would have the greatest impact in lacrosse recruitment.

The Board of Directors adopted the following proposals, effective Aug. 1:

•2-1, which will establish the commitments that guide the underlying operating bylaws. This includes a commitment to fair competition, which “acknowledges that variability will exist among members in advantages, including facilities, geographic location and resources and that such variability should not be justification for future legislation.” It also includes a commitment to diversity and inclusion.

•11-2, which will eliminate the rules defining recruiting coordination functions that must be performed only by a head or assistant coach.

•11-3-B, which will prohibit the live scouting of future opponents except in limited circumstances.

•11-4, which will remove limits on the number of coaches who can recruit off-campus at any one time, the so-called “baton rule.”

•12-1, which will establish a uniform definition of actual and necessary expenses.

•12-2, which will allow the calculation of actual and necessary expenses to be based on the total over a calendar year instead of an event-by-event basis for both prospective and enrolled student-athletes.

•12-3, which will allow a student-athlete to receive $300 more than actual and necessary expenses, provided the expenses come from an otherwise permissible source.

•12-4, which will permit individuals to receive actual and necessary competition-related expenses from outside sponsors, so long as the person is not an agent, booster or representative of a professional sports organization.

•12-5, which will allow student-athletes in sports other than tennis to receive up to actual and necessary competition-related expenses based on performance from an amateur team or event sponsor.

•12-6, which will allow student-athletes and prospects to receive actual and necessary expenses for training, coaching, health insurance and the likefrom a governmental entity.

•13-1, which will allow schools to treat prospects like student-athletes for purposes of applying recruiting regulations once a National Letter of Intent or signed offer of admission or financial aid is received.

•13-3, which will eliminate restrictions on methods and modes of communication during recruiting.

•13-4, which will eliminate the requirement that institutions provide materials such as the banned-drug list and Academic Progress Rate data to recruits.

•13-5-A, which will eliminate restrictions on sending printed recruiting materials to recruits. Conferences still will be prohibited from sending printed recruiting materials.

•13-7, which will eliminate restrictions on publicity once a prospective student-athlete has signed a National Letter of Intent or written offer of financial aid or admission.

•13-8, which will deregulate camps and clinics employment rules related to both recruits and current student-athletes. Senior football prospects will be allowed to participate in camps and clinics.

•14-1, which will eliminate academic regulations that are covered elsewhere and directly supported by institutional academic policy.

•16-1, which will allow institutions, conferences or the NCAA national office to provide an award to student-athletes any time after initial full-time enrollment.

•16-2, which will allow conferences, an institution, the U.S. Olympic Committee, a national governing body or the awarding agency to provide actual and necessary expenses for a student-athlete to receive a non-institutional award or recognition for athletics or academic accomplishments. Expenses can also be provided for parents/legal guardians, a spouse or other relatives.

•16-3, which will allow institutions, conferences or the NCAA to pay for other academic support, career counseling or personal development services that support the success of the student-athlete.

•16-4, which will allow institutions, conferences or the NCAA to pay for medical and related expenses for a student-athlete.

•16-5, which, except in limited circumstances, will change all Bylaw 16 references to a student-athlete’s spouse, parents, family members or children to “family member,” establish a specific definition of “family member,” and permit specified benefits to such individuals.

•16-6, which will allow institutions to provide reasonable entertainment in conjunction with competition or practice.

•16-7, which will allow schools to provide actual and necessary expenses to student-athletes representing the institution in practice and competition (including expenses for activities/travel that are incidental to practice or competition) as well as in noncompetitive events such as goodwill tours and media appearances.

•16-8, which will allow student-athletes to receive actual and necessary expenses and “reasonable benefits” associated with a national team practice and competition and also will allow institutions to pay for any number of national team tryouts and championship events.

Some additional editorial content on the new rules follows.

From George While, Founder, Recruiting Sports Network

Speaking as a former coach of a smaller intercollegiate athletic program, I sincerely hope culture change happens, because there are consequences in the new rules that affect the balance between larger and smaller schools .... coaches will now be permitted unlimited communication with recruits (including not only phone calls, but also via text messages and social media platforms). While this provides more access and interaction between coach and prospective student-athlete, it will place more demands on assistant and head coaches' time. Particularly in the case of assistant coaches, they will be more limited in their ability to devote time to true coaching related and player development areas thereby limiting both their athletes' and coaches' development.

The potential recruits will most likely become inundated with communication from schools, potentially causing academic distractions at a time when the NCAA has tightened up rules for eligibility for this current freshman high school class.

This development may, in fact, be a rare residual benefit for mid-majors and below as this earlier access to recruits will lead to more early commitments to BCS-level schools. Accordingly, lower-tier programs will have access to late-bloomers and under-the-radar prospects (if I was a mid to low major coach, I would hold off and recruit these leftovers).

Sage, does this mean freshman (or any age for that matter) girls laxers will now be able to be contacted by coaches via text and phone and not have to go around the rule and contact club reps prior to junior year?

That is the interpretation being offered by some sources that are analyzing the new recruiting rules. BOTC expects that the NCAA will be publishing a revised Student-Athlete handbook shortly which will specifically discuss this and the other revision points from the January 19th meetings.

Have the doors been completely thrown open on the contact side? It certainly reads that way based on the 25-points that have been approved.

Does anyone think this rule change will impact the club/player relationship. What I mean is as it stands now the player and her family is dependent on the club for all communication FROM the College coach and the program prior to junior year. Does the change make an already crazy club atmosphere more intense as kids are contacted directly and at any age.
Your thoughts?

Our impression is that too many club parents and student-athletes depend on the club or organization to handle their college recruitment process. Lacrosse families would do well to seize back control of their recruiting cycles and map a strategy that works for the individual player, leveraging the club.

Interestingly, the soccer world has seen parents and players largely in control of their own recruiting through their individual teams at tournaments and the "Development Academy" concept is looking to wrest more placement control away from the parents and student-athletes. The result is that you have these two youth sports moving from opposite ends of the spectrum towards some middle point.

Direct college coach contact with players removes all of the previous "game playing" where conversations were being conducted through coaching conduits. Effectively, this has the potential to place the early commitment process back into the open.

The downside here is that players and their families could become overwhelmed by a steady drumbeat of coaching contacts; worse, students and their families could be lured into academic environments which do not necessarily align with their long term interests. We think that the family that remains organized with their Top 10 Academic and Top 10 Athletic school listings will avoid this trap.

Does this change threaten the club coaching role? BOTC does not think so as the club coach can still offer valuable input in helping a student-athlete land a roster spot. Where this does "weaken" the club coach is that he or show will no longer be the exclusive voice in speaking with the college coach.

Other thoughts and comments on this topic are welcomed.

Applicants from the 2013/2014 school year will face the first major revision in the College Common Application in a decade. The essay section has been changed, expanded, and sharpened in order to give students a better opportunity to express themselves while responding to the prepared prompts.

The 2013/2014 Common Application essay section will require a response to one of these five topics. The response must be less than 650 words and the application will not accept a response of less than 250 words.

• Some students have a background or story that is so central to their identity that they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
• Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what lessons did you learn?
• Reflect on a time when you challenged a belief or idea. What prompted you to act? Would you make the same decision again?
• Describe a place or environment where you are perfectly content. What do you do or experience there, and why is it meaningful to you?
• Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked your transition from childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or family.

Is there any reputable recruiting site where a 9th grader should register for college contact? I keep getting stuff from companies that charge a big fee and my parents can't afford it. I currently play varsity and play on a travel team in the summer. Thank you for your help.

BOTC has been working with Global Lacrosse on their BTB Global Lacrosse Recruiting option. This is a new sponsorship with BOTC and we launched their campaigns within the last week. Click on the BTB Global Lacrosse logo in the Sponsor's Panel above or simply click here to be taken to the registration site.

In addition to signing up for that site, find some colleges you are interested in and email the coaches there and let them know who you are and things like that. Try to go to the individual tournaments/camps those are the best way to expose yourself to college coaches. Ask your coach(s) to write a letter for you that you can share with a coach if they ask to speak to a coach. Those are all things that cost nothing but time to do!

Question regarding available scholarships in D1 women's lacrosse:

D1 programs have maximum of 12 scholarships. Assuming the school is fully funded with 12 out of state tuition amount, does it make a difference whether the recruit is in-state or out of state? For example, college "A" is a public school in Maryland with cost for in-state recruit at $25,000 per year and out of state recruit at $50,000 per year. In calculating how many scholarships available, does the school have $600,000 to divide up among the players anyway they want to? I guess what I'm asking is... does it matter whether the recruit is in-state or out of state (for fully funded public schools)? Hope I didn't confuse you too much.

Excellent question. The NCAA Compliance committee does not calculate scholarships in terms of dollars (as we are parents will). The NCAA literally considers the fractions of scholarships regardless of the value.

In your example with a $25,000 in-state and $50,000 out-of-state tuition, the following five examples are identical from an NCAA Compliance perspective :

(a) Two in-state students receiving 0.25 each.
(b) One in-state and one out-of-state student each receiving 0.25.
(c) Two out-of-state students receiving 0.25 each.
(d) One in-state student receiving 0.50.
(e) One out-of-state student receiving 0.50.

In all five cases, 0.50 is spent towards the limit of 12.0 NCAA Division I women's lacrosse scholarships. [Remember, the current number is 12.6 for NCAA Division I men's lacrosse. The NCAA Division II limit is 10.8 for men and 9.9 for women.]

This is where the athletic department works very carefully with the financial aid office in order to most appropriately fund undergraduate student-athlete scholarships in the most cost effective (and compliance effective) manner.

The topic has a second layer which more technically describes the scholarship process : some sports are considered headcount sports while others are considered equivalency sports.

• "Head-count" sports, in which the NCAA limits the total number of individuals that can receive athletic scholarships, but allows each player to receive up to a full scholarship.
• "Equivalency" sports, in which the NCAA limits the total financial aid that a school can offer in a given sport to the equivalent of a set number of full scholarships. Roster limitations may or may not apply, depending on the sport.

Men's and women's lacrosse, both equivalency sports, are measure in total "counted" scholarships.

In 2012, 451 institutions sponsored varsity Lacrosse. Combining schools with both men's and women's programs, there are currently 101 NCAA Division I schools (59 Men, 93 Women), 79 NCAA Division II schools (47 Men, 67 Women), and 230 NCAA Division III programs (188 Men, 205 Women).

From a pure numbers perspective, parents and student-athletes alike will find the following information to be very valuable.

College Lacrosse and Scholarship Opportunities

The Chances of a High School Lacrosse Player, Playing Lacrosse in College is 11.7%

better odds in fencing,,,

The following are the chances of high school girls competing at the college level by sport:
High School College % competing
School Sponsored Sport Girls Women in College *
Archery 677 29 4.3%
Badminton 12,150 128 1.1%
Basketball 436,100 27,566 6.3%
Beach / Sand Volleyball n/a 245 n/m
Bowling 25,980 1,056 4.1%
Cross Country 212,262 18,245 8.6%
Cycling n/a 52 n/m
Equestrian 1,430 2,124 n/m
Fencing 1,771 674 38.1%
Field Hockey 60,607 5,632 9.3%
Golf 71,086 6,135 8.6%
Gymnastics 19,119 1,561 8.2%
Ice Hockey 8,833 2,007 22.7%
Lacrosse 74,993 8,784 11.7%
Rifle 1,418 189 13.3%
Rodeo 118 840 n/m
Rowing 6,261 7,192 n/m
Rugby n/a 147 n/m
Sailing n/a 644 n/m
Sand Volleyball n/a 63 n/m
Skiing 9,314 509 5.5%
Snowboarding 310 19 6.1%
Soccer 371,393 35,490 9.6%
Softball 381,116 29,670 7.8%
Squash n/a 397 n/m
Swimming & Diving 160,456 13,078 8.2%
Synchronized Swimming 575 65 11.3%
Tennis 218,093 10,737 4.9%
Track & Field (excl x-country) 529,200 45,529 8.6%
Volleyball 418,903 25,165 6.0%
Water Polo 18,749 1,829 9.8%
Wrestling 8,235 243 3.0%
Total Athletes Participating 3,067,100 245,981 8.0%
Cheerleading & Drill Teams ** 137,089 n/a
Other Sports 3,344 181
Totals: 2011-2012 school Year 3,207,533 246,162

Got it. Thanks for taking the time to explain!

BOTC is not sure that the High School participation counts and collegiate participation counts are the right prism through which one should view the chances of playing in college. While it says that college count is 11.7% of the High School count, the likelihood is that the better lacrosse players who are part of the Northeast club scene will have a much better than 1-in-9 chance of playing college lacrosse.

If you return to the link that BOTC posted, you will see that your figure of 8,784 collegiate women's players exactly matches our data.

The problem here is that the 8,784 players includes everything : NCAA Division I, Division II, Division III, NAIA, NJCAA, and unaffiliated divisions. So, if one is just looking at NCAA numbers, you find the following :

NCAA Division I : 2,536
NCAA Division II : 1,546
NCAA Division III: 4,192

Our point here is that only 4,082 of the 8,784 are scholarship eligible.

When you go one step further, you find that there are only 1,116 total women's NCAA Division I scholarships for everyone and 663 NCAA Division II scholarships available.

That makes 1,776 scholarships in total being spread across 4,082 players. If everything was equal and fully funded, that would mean that the average player is competing for 43%. However as we know, elder classmen will receive increasing awards in general which means entry students are receiving substantially less.

The bottom line is that the numbers should not be looking at all High School players compared to the collegiate numbers. Instead, look at the number of Division I/II positions related to scholarship aspirations.

CageSage:

was wondering if most d1 public schools have the ability to give in-state status to recruits who are out-of-state. In many cases, there is a significant difference in tuition $ between in-state and out-of-state students.

When the NCAA Compliance calculations are done, the actual scholarship dollars awarded for equivilency sports (such as lacrosse) are not the criteria. Instead, the total number of scholarships are counted. Hence, there is no difference from an NCAA Compliance reporting perspective whether the scholarship is awarded as in-state or out-of-state.

What is interesting about this discussion is that some states say that students who spend more than 26 weeks in-state for their college studies (as any student would with two 15 week semesters) are considered residents of that state (Massachusetts is famous for this) and therefore subject to civic duties such as jury duty. None the less, the in-state vs. out-of-state debate is not an NCAA Regulatory issue.

I understand it's not an NCAA regulatory issue, but was wondering if it was common practice for schools to allow out-of-state recruits/students to be given in-state status. Don't know if each school can make that determination or since they are a "state" school, is it determined by a governing body in that state? I'm thinking if lacrosse coaches can get their school to give them in-state status for ou-of-state recruits, they may be able to get more recruits interested in their school due to lower cost. Otherwise, the cost of attending an out-of-state public schools can be as much as some of the private schools.

You are thinking in terms of MONEY, not scholarship counts. From an NCAA perspective, a 0.25 scholarship for $10,000 and a 0.25 scholarship for $2,500 are EXACTLY the same - 25%. The cash value has no meaning.

If you are then talking about how the remaining 75% is funded (hence in-state making it cheaper for the family paying the bill), wouldn't it be the case that every out-of-state student could then be considered "in-state"? This has to do with the primary bill payer's residence and a variety of legal issues tied to that. Certainly, this is not in-scope for the athletic department.

As for the cost of a state school for out-of-state students, the best examples of paying increased pricing would be Penn State, University of Michigan, and the University of Virginia.

FWIW, IME schools can give their out-of-state students out-of-state tuition waivers, meaning that the student now pays the in-state tuition. My daughter got this, it was tied to her academic standing, and the coach liked it since it didn't come from his athletic bucket of money. My assumption is any public school could offer this but whether they do or not beats me. Try googling the school with "out-of-state waiver" and see what pops up.

The start of August is the traditional transition period as rising grade levels become official grade level members. This mean that we say farewell to our Class of 2013 High School Senior class members and wish them well with their collegiate studies.

This is also the time when we roll the College Forum forward here on BOTC; we close the old year's discussion and open a new year of action. BOTC welcomes the new Class of 2017 High School freshmen in addition to our new sophomores, juniors, and seniors.

We now are closing the College, Coaches, Recruitment : 2012-2013 thread.