BOTC - US Lacrosse Community Forum Forums NORTHEAST LACROSSE BOTC MAIN FORUM (LI, CT, WC) What's Your View? Tryouts Transparency

This is our first "What's Your View?" column of the 2013/2014 season and what better topic to kick-off the seasonal year than a critical look at the tryouts process.

BOTC launched our Tryouts Forum in 2011 and during that first season, we struggled to simply have every club disclose their tryout fees and the standard who, what, where, and when information in their tryout flyers.

In 2012, BOTC asked clubs to disclose as much as possible regarding seasonal fees and detail the features which each student-athlete would receive.

This year, some clubs have raised the bar even further with early disclosure of their coaching staff and the age groups that they will cover.

So, BOTC wants to know : What's Your View?

Are you getting all of the information you need to make an informed decision? What additional detail would help your decision making when it comes to choosing tryouts to attend?

Let us know.

I would like to see proposed tournament schedules for the next year, even including fall/winter. Some organizations (I think legacy,millon) have already started doing that. Having all optional items/dates listed as well could help one find the best fit for their child and schedule.

This is a good idea but I imagine it would be a lot easier to do for teams that stay local for their tournaments as opposed to those that travel out of state. The out of state tournament landscape is changing all of the time, with certain tournaments falling out of favor more and more each year (e.g. Tri-State) and others gaining in popularity each year. This is difficult to predict at the time of tryouts especially if a club is looking for the most competitive tournaments. I pretty much assume my June and July are shot at this point. Two recurring themes seemed to pop up on this site relative to tryouts: coaching staff beyond the top or A team; and tryout fees for, some reason. The clubs that posted their entire staff seemed to receive the most positive responses as opposed to those who did not. There is one other item which I think is important to mention for people considering the move to travel lacrosse - hotel and associated travel fees. This has been the biggest killer for us the past two years and can easily exceed the tuition by a factor of two, once all is tallied. I dont think it is the responsibility of the clubs to point this out on their tryout flyers, of course but it is a subject that sort of gets lost in the wash of the whole tuition fee discussion.

Actually, the Legacy Club does that. They have a packet online and one they gave to the parents on Saturday that outlines everything.

That packet is on their site....

As a parent and coach of one of the club teams I think it is important to know all the facts before signing with any club. Listed below are some questions you should ask before putting down a deposit.
1- Cost. Know what you get for this cost.
2- Winter/Spring season. Are they offering this and if so how much will this cost.
3- Coach. I can go on forever about this subject. Bottom line. I have seen some real good coaches in some of the smaller clubs and I have seen some bad coaches in the larger clubs. Know who is coaching your child before you put down that deposit. BTW- If they can't tell you who is coaching your child's team by now, they don't have one yet. Stay away.
4- Coaches philosophy on playing time. Some parents don't care about playing time as long as little Johnny makes the team. You see this w/ the stronger clubs. How is your kid going to get better if he doesn't play. Not to mention his self esteem.
5- How many kids on a team ? 24 kids or more they are taking your money and playing time will be reduced.
6- How many kids on the team at your child's position ? Know this. If they have more then 6 defenseman, 6 attackman, 2 goalies or 9 middies on any one team then playing time will be reduced to less then 1/2 a game p/ kid. That's not a lot of playing time for $1400.
7- Practice location and days they will practice. Important if you have multiple kids.

If you know the answer to these questions you can make an intelligent decision and you will be less likely to be disappointed at the end of the season. Hope this helps.

Thank you.... excellent post, I think at best you can get a tentative subject to change schedule, it can not be written in stone at this point, they may want to see what kind of team they have first and what is the best fit (great team may want to play up or go to elite tourneys or weaker then expected and they may want to go to more competition appropriate tourneys) - The single most important thing to me would be the number of players on the team and the number of players at my sons position, I would love to know that ahead of time.

I would like a list of the parents... stay away from the crazy ones...

The landscape of youth lacrosse is changing because we now have all these former College players, HS coaches, 80’s stars who are looking to coach with opportunities to make good money and still be involved in the game. As more of these opportunities come about there will be more choices to negotiate on their fees, which in turn drives up the cost of teams. Also as the tournaments rates rise to realize more profits (which some go back to these clubs anyway), the overall cost of the teams would inherently increase. So, if we stay on the trajectory this sport will slowing die in this market, as it will eventually put more people without the means to have their son/daughters or multiple kids with skills play with a higher level of talent and exposure to good coaching on these teams. Lacrosse will become what golf is where it’s a “rich mans” sport. There is too much talent on LI to allow that to happen to maintain this sports heritage here.

The question I have, all these coaches, former great players and leaders of these clubs; how did you get to where you are in youth lacrosse and did your parents have to invest in comparison thousands of dollars per year to have you play and get to a top level? I know mine didn’t and my point on this topic, if we are talking about transparency; all these clubs saying the right words on focusing on the kids, building their IQ, etc. Yes these will do this if they make, play and pay for that team but is that truly their transparent intention.

Yes, its business and yes they have to make money, and yes it cost allot to put the time in etc., however these teams/clubs have increased some 30-50% in the last 2-3 years. No business increases that much and your paychecks aren’t increasing that fast, so for how long can we keep LI competitive if we are cannibalizing ourselves with for profit first, value and teaching second.

The sad part, there is no alternative and challenge each club to look within to state their purpose. Tryouts, $$60-$200 – that is all profit with no insight into the % chance of making the club from the previous year’s team – are they looking to persuade people from trying out or just make more money? YoY 20% team increase with the same service, not major changes to offerings, for what? Did you need to pay the coaches more? The tournament costs aren’t out at the time of pricing out the teams cost so why the increase?

Problem is we pay for this because we as parents have the false perception that if we don’t out kids will fall behind and we have no other options. Some of the greatest players who are listed on many of the teams websites as coaches played other sports over the summer and their skills as a lacrosse player would be on comparison to todays as good if not better. So do we need to have 8-14 year olds involved in $1500 teams, well parents of today are conditioned to think so but I would challenge them to ask all these big time coaches if they played for the Express’ the world in summer of 1987 (you might be surprised they didn’t exist but that player still went onto Syracuse on scholarship)

Practice locations! Welcome to my 1.5 hour one-way (in traffic) to practice last season...

How about this - after paying $$$ for the tryouts and your child makes that team - the organization puts that money towards your annual fee to help reduce the "sticker shock" to play for that team.

Income
20 players @ $1200 each $24,000
Expenses
4 Tournaments at $1000 $4,000
Jerseys @ $75 each (*20) $1,500
Equipment @ $300 each $6,000
Swag @ $100 each $2,000
Coaches (2 @ $2K) $4,000
Profit $9,500

Obviously these are general numbers, but I think the clubs could afford to use the try-out fee as a deposit.

If you think that paid coaches are receiving $2,000 for an entire seasonal year, you are woefully mistaken.

Second, unless you are playing on the street in front of your home, someone is paying for permits and field time.

BOTC could go on-and-on with expenses that you have missed in this equation however this does go to demonstrate just how uninformed some parents are when it comes to having a grip on the underlying costs of operating a club.

If you think that paid coaches are receiving $2,000 for an entire seasonal year, you are woefully mistaken.

Second, unless you are playing on the street in front of your home, someone is paying for permits and field time.

BOTC could go on-and-on with expenses that you have missed in this equation however this does go to demonstrate just how uninformed some parents are when it comes to having a grip on the underlying costs of operating a club.

If you think that paid coaches are receiving $2,000 for an entire seasonal year, you are woefully mistaken.

Second, unless you are playing on the street in front of your home, someone is paying for permits and field time.

BOTC could go on-and-on with expenses that you have missed in this equation however this does go to demonstrate just how uninformed some parents are when it comes to having a grip on the underlying costs of operating a club.

I don't understand. So many begrudge somebody for starting a business or what they charge for running a business. These are (mostly) for profit entities.

Remember that this thread was originally started to cover Tryouts Transparency; making sure that parents are getting sufficient disclosure and, if not, what can be improved for next year's tryout season.

Let's offer another idea. Several clubs this season have started to offer pre-tryout clinics (usually free) to allow parents and players to sample a program before plunking down money for a formal tryout.

Would more of these meet-and-greet clinics help parents and players map out their tryout season? Are these sessions proving useful to parents wanting to know the coaches in a new program?

What's Your View?