BOTC - US Lacrosse Community Forum Forums LACROSSE LIBRARY COLLEGE RESOURCES Colleges, Coaches, Recruitment : 2013-2014

D1, 2, & 3 schools go to all the same camps. Your best bet is finding out what colleges your son wants to attend and find out when they are doing there own clinics which most schools do now. You will save thousands and tons of time. He will also have the direct attention of that schools coaches.

Remember that college coaches want to recruit student-athletes that actually have an interest in their institution. Therefore, this poster has given the right advice : check the attending college coaches listing at each camp with your student-athlete's Top Ten Academic and Top Ten Athletic school lists. This will help direct your efforts, avoid thrashing between schools, and sharpen your spending during the recruiting cycle.

BOTC provides this reminder of the remaining Board testing dates for the 2013/2014 academic calendar year.

SAT Test Dates
January 25, 2014
March 8, 2014
May 3, 2014
June 7, 2014

ACT Test Dates
December 14, 2013
February 8, 2014
April 12, 2014
June 14, 2014

Originally posted on our BOTC Boys 2017 Fall 2013/Summer 2014 Discussion Thread, BOTC feels that the message here is compelling for all age groups and genders.

I am a parent of a 2017 player, and I am as disgusted frustrated as many others on this early recruiting process. Lacrosse is an expensive sport, and club dues for most of us run $2K to $5K per annum before any apparel or travel expenses to tournaments. I have heard some horror stories of club does running over $10K a year and really have no idea if that is true...maybe another poster could take that one. Add a private school tuition and it is a lot more. It should be sufficient to play for a good club and play competitive high school.

I am impressed and a bit jealous that on LI you have so many top flight public school teams and a very competitive league unlike anywhere else for public schools.

But everyone has the additional problem of too much is never enough with the showcases. As a parent, I could easily fill a dozen weekends with camps and showcases and club owners and coaches are tied to encouraging this to the kids to get noticed. A dozen more things at another $400 to $700 for 1.5 to 3 days of lacrosse to get noticed. If your kid is a Turtle or an LI Express or a Crab, is this really needed? Just me asking if there is anything empirical to validate the showcase business model. For a California kid, I get it that they would flock to these constantly. Is it worth it for a LI or MIAA school kid do that?

I took our son to our first two "prospect" days at universities in the recent weeks and have to say this does it for me without anyone's advice. For $200 or so a try, you can go to a school you are targeting for prospect day and at that day there will be a range of coaches from other schools that are D1 non power ranked to D3. That makes sense to me that the NCAA coaches know that a coach from a D3 school is not taking dinner bread from a UVa or a UPenn, so let the kids perform all day long in front of the audience they and the families want with the full attention of the coaches all day long. We have all been at showcases where the coaches have no choice but to move their lawn chairs around at each halftime to see every team or player, and then it becomes a sordid lottery whether or not your kid is on the field or is in a competitive game when the coaches they want to impress are watching. At one Fall tournament my son's team went up 6-0 quickly and the coaches filed out quickly and that is understandable...hard to evaluate kids beating up on a lesser team.

I think these prospect days are a big game changer. Already we have been in touch with two of our top choices and the coaches have each corresponded with us directly about the recruiting process. That is more than we had three weeks ago waiting on the club owner to arbitrate what players he wanted to showcase which sadly involves a lot of politics and nonsense that fills this thread up with repeat complaints. Long live prospect days.

The New [lacrosse] Times has an article in Sunday's edition covering the recruiting of players before their High School careers begin. While focused on soccer, there are many references to lacrosse including the conflict between the IMLCA and the NCAA.

This is an excellent article which echoes many of the themes expressed and discussed here on the BOTC College Forum.

Committing to Play for a College, Then Starting 9th Grade

Some key quotes from the article follow.

• “The most frustrating piece is that we haven’t been able to get any traction with the N.C.A.A.,” said Dom Starsia, the men’s lacrosse coach at Virginia. “There’s a sense that the N.C.A.A. doesn’t want to address this topic at all.”
• At a meeting of women’s lacrosse coaches in December, nearly every group session was dedicated to complaints about how quickly the trend was moving and discussions about how it might be reversed. In 2012, the Intercollegiate Men’s Lacrosse Coaches Association proposed rule changes to the N.C.A.A. to curtail early recruiting. But the N.C.A.A. declined to take them up, pointing to a moratorium on new recruiting rules.
• The early recruiting system has given significant power to club coaches, who serve as gatekeepers and agents for their players.

So with the recruiting getting earlier and earlier, is anyone taking the standardized test any earlier.

What are the possibilities of a student playing 2 sports in college? I am sure it is frowned upon at the highest levels due to the "off season" requirements but what about at other levels? Also, how does it affect scholarship money, if any?

A girl from St Ants who is now freshman at UNC is doing just that with soccer and lax!

Which test are preferred the ACT or SATs - does anyone take both. Form my experience back in the 80's the west coast school wanted ACT and East coast SAT's

The landscape for standardized tests has changed since the 1980s with both exams taken and accepted equally across the United States.

There are some students that excel with the four part ACT over the SAT I format. Similarly, there are students who excel in Reading/Mathematics over Science/Social Studies placing the SAT I exam in their wheelhouse. Therefore, BOTC along with many institutions recommend sitting for each exam at least once.

Remember to check the admission requirements on your target institutions. Some of the variations you will find include:

• SAT I or ACT alone
• ACT with Writing
• SAT I with Two SAT II Subject Exams

Also, be sure that you know the deadline for the admissions office on these exams. Some institutions will not accept December or January exams during their admission's cycle.

Thanks very helpful.

On January 30th, an article was circulated in a major publication citing that recruitment from traditional hotbed locations had dropped with the entering collegiate Class of 2017.



While New [lacrosse], Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusettes, Connecticut and Washington DC account for 57.9% of the current Division I players, the incoming class only sees 54.8% of players from these same region.

Is this a cause for concern? Well, if you are from Long Island, you cannot help but to notice the drop from 13.9% to 12.0% removing nearly 1/7th of the total. Could we be at the tipping point of the shift in regional representation?

On the flip side, New Jersey has seen growth in the same volume, percertage-wise.

Long Islanders and New Jersey residents should be very aware of this year's trend.

The sport is growing. It's the USA!!!!! Anyone can be anything they want if they work at it. I would not worry Long Island. Stop being paranoid !!! California and Texas have huge population and can work outside all year round. Was just a matter of time!!! Just wait till inner city kids start finding ways to afford lacrosse equipment. That's when the worrying should officially begin!!!

My daughter is interested in lax at William and
Mary-and possibly schools similar to this -
this looks like a school that is geared more towards
Academics than athletics - any idea how the
Recruiting process works at a school like this?
We have looked at the website that's as far as we
Have gotten - thank u for any insight!!!

William and Mary is absolutely an academically focused institution, noted for their classroom rather than athletic field teams. There will likely be nothing unique about the W&M recruiting cycle compared with other institutions.

There are several ways to gain some insight to their recruiting plans. The obvious solution would be to speak with the recruiting coach or anyone on the coaching staff (Fratzke, Mathews, or Teeters). The problem you will face is that this is the first year at W&M for all three of these coaches so remember that they have not even gone through their own first recruiting cycle as yet. (The head coach accepted the position in July 2013 with assistants named in August and September.)

In a case like this, your daughter is strongly encouraged to contact girls on the roster from the local area (NY, NJ, or your local area) who might be willing to share details - while most easily done during an on-site visit, your daughter might be able to strike up a discussion over Facebook or similar.

Thank you didn't think of somehow contacting
The girls on the roster - we are very early on this
Process - she is only in 8th grade but plays
For club that girls are recruited in 9th as well
As in her high school -I don't think a school
Like William and Mary recruits that early
I would think ??

BOTC did some recent searches regarding lacrosse scholarship averages on an NCAA Division and institutional basis. While we have not validated every line in this report for obvious reasons, we did want to share this information that discusses scholarship totals. With only 196 scholarship based NCAA Division I and Division II institutions, this report slices information in a very unique manner.

Scholarship Statistics - Men's and Women's Lacrosse

Cage great link! I think most parents are unaware or uninformed about the actual amounts of aid available or being offered for D1 men's lacrosse. On average the "early commit" is getting about 20% athletic funding. Only the rare few are getting even 50% athletic money or more. Bottom line stay in the honors track and get the 4.0 it will get you a better chance at scholarship money than lax will any day. Also you don't need to be the "stud" to get the academic money! This is a good thing to share with the youth forums.

Regarding the questionnaires that each college requests, we are doing them for all colleges my daughter is interested in. Additionally, we are doing a few more for "reach schools"

Is it a good idea to get the kids name into these additional college data bases? It's a lot of work, hopefully worth it???

Whats up at Adelphi!
I don't buy it!

I don't buy it either!!!
Why walk away from a National Championship Team, There has to be more to this,

WHERE DID THE COACH GO ?

Home to New Jersey to watch his kids play

RIGHT>>>>>>OK...... I believe that,

IDK, it is a lot of work with not a lot of return. What the questionnaires get you is a ton of invitations to camps and clinics. Any coach that is really interested is going to see you in tournaments, they're not trollling their questionnaire respondents. That's my feeling, anyway.

What I don't understand is why not attend the camps and clinics? This is how football is recruited, again I understand there is not a huge club circuit in football bar the 7v7 which is non existent on LI , but the camps are where the offers are made.

The kids I know who got recruited early, D1 schools for lacrosse, did the camps and clinics of the schools they wanted. Takes the power away from the club scene, and why not?

One kid I know, not even on anything but school team, only went to the camps from 7th grade on. Had an older sibling playing D1 and so I suppose knew better than to drop thousands on travel but gave to camps/clinics instead.

I think if you go the camp route you have to have very specific target schools. Camps often overlap dates, not to mention the cost of the camp and getting there. Camps are also money makers for the coaches, so they'll tell you anything to get you there.

IDK what the truth is, but we just had meetings with two top ACC schools that saw my son at showcases, one invited him to school camp. It was very small very legit, and include there current recruits. Coaches made it very clear that they are limiting the time on the tournament circut in favor of Showcase/Camps and their own Prospect day. Others say it going all towards prospect days. Who knows?

In my experience with my daughter , I can tell you that I made many mistakes, but none bigger than relying on tournaments for her main recruiting exposure. She is now committed and I asked her college coach about this very topic. The coach told me that they use Tournaments to see how players play in game situations, and to see how parents react on the sideline, but it's at camps and clinics where they get a real feeling for a players true talent, coach ability, and to see how they interact with the college team already in place. Her travel club is all almost all committed and 90% of them got that way from camps, not at tournament.