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

In previous "What's Your View?" columns, BOTC has discussed tryout fees and player passes. Both of these previous threads are building blocks as we try along with US Lacrosse to consider a league structure that is sustainable in the region.

What elements are important to you in a league environment? Let us offer some ideas for consideration.

• Should competitions intermix both Nassau and Suffolk teams?
• Should the five burroughs be included in the structure?
• While we will need competition levels, should travel be restricted for lower bracket teams?
• How many games should be part of a season?
• When should games be held - day of week, times, and at what point in the year?
• How often should teams be realigned?
• What is a reasonable per player fee for league participation?

BOTC looks forward to considered responses from our readers. This should be a very interesting discussion topic with many aspects to consider.

LI Travel Soccer is a good starting point.

Need players passes to ensure properly insured and aged kids and that teams play with the same team week afetr week especially if you are going to move kids up and based on team records.

In the early years teams should just play in their home county so you keep those fringe / intramural players involved and don't scare them away.

When they get to 6th or 7th grade then you can combine the total island JUST for the top divisions. bottome divisons teams should always play close to home.

8 or 9 games should do and then move teams up the following spring based on last springs results. It won't be perfect but it will stop the 10-0 one week followed by the 0-10 the next.

I think soccer plays Saturday until 7th 8th or grade so Lacrosse should stay on Sundays and move to Saturdays when soccer switches?. If Lacrosse continues to grow like soccer they will need to start playing on a second day because eventually they will run out of field time and space. If i tried to give you my baseball conflicts too it would never work!

This seems like a huge uphill battle.

Lax is a spring sport in school and I believe most people are of the mind set that Club lacrosse should not interfere. If I am correct in that assumption than the league can be in the Fall or Summer.

I think the Fall is out due to Football and Soccer.

I think the Summer is out because the Tournament circuit is too well established. Especially for the HS player because most are geared to be Showcase for college recruiting.

I don't know how soccer developed, but it seems the economic structure of Lacrosse on LI has usurped the ability to go to a league. I also think the current college recruiting "pathway" will make people leery of changing to a league format.

Forget the league and structure, all that is really needed is a governing body for current leagues and tournaments to operate under, to control or register individual players.

That sounds easy but it reality would be way more difficult to put in place. The reason it works in soccer is that there is an overall governing body, then a regional and local governing body, all chartered to do the same thing. That is a significant amount of regulation. For it to work you can't do it halfway. There would be a lot of leagues that frankly would not see any benefit and therefore next to impossible to While it would be nice to have players registered, the overall concerted effort to do that would be huge.
The only possible exception to this would be US lacrosse. Since most of the leagues and almost all of the tournaments have moved to use US lacrosse's insurance benefit, there is a clear connection with US lacrosse number in which as part of the sign up each player could receive a player pass. Not perfect and bad intentioned people could work around but for the most part that could work.

Depending on your goals, I am not sure that Travel soccer is the model that you want to follow. There are very different results. The things that attract players to lacrosse are that lacrosse is different. Participation level with lacrosse grows as time moves along. With soccer it is the opposite. Towns can start off with 3 or 4 teams, but when they hit high school they may only have one. What kids like about lacrosse in the early stages is that it is only one season and it is just about playing the game.

With soccer, the kids love that they have the same team all year. With the exception of a few players most love the social aspects of soccer. Their is a clear identity. Over time, for many kids that wears thin.
In the early years a lot of kids given the choice to pick one sport would pick soccer especially on the girls side. The focus at the younger level should be on player development and less about the score. Nobody cares or remembers what a 9 or 10 year old did or for that matter a 12 year old team. This is where there is an opportunity missed, everyone is focused in on getting to the maximum competition level at the earliest age possible. If you ask kids in college their opinion you would get very different answers on their views.

I think the sage was speaking more along the lines of the P.A.L. sort of league that could incorporate nassau and suffolk , and maybe the 5 boors. If we go along that thought, a governing body would have to be established and get in contact with each town to coordinate some sort os system along the lines of the state high school system. Teams play each other in smaller areas , winners play winners of other areas close by culminating in some sort of all island tourney to decide a champion.

As far as ruling out a season for soccer , forget about it . Soccer plays all year , and I'm sure the governing body for soccer will not start or end a season for lacrosse . so why should lacrosse do it for soccer. My opinion is there are millions of soccer players all over the country. Every state has hundreds of soccer leagues, Lacrosse is a long Island thing , were really good at it. the way i see it your kid can be a drop in the ocean playing soccer , or a drop in the bucket playing lacrosse. Forget soccer let the moms in Iowa produce soccer stars lets stick to lacrosse on Long Island Were good at it

LI is a good place to be playing lax along with a few others. Lacrosse is the fastest growing sport in the US. It is springing up all over and enjoying great popularity right now. Most all the major tournaments (not showcases) use us lacrosse rules regulations and guidelines, but not all. I think some of the tournaments bend the rules to fit. Most LI tournaments aren't even close to following and completely make up rules to suit themselves. Even PAL rules don't really align with us lacrosse. I ve even seen rules change game by game and ref by ref within the same tournament. It's an absolute mess right now and the sport badly needs a governing body and consistant rules to follow, in addition to player registration.

I agree about forgetting the league structure, at least for now. US Lacrosse is the logical choice to institute player registration. Local Chapters are already in place and most Club Teams require a US Lacrosse membership for insurance purposes anyway. The new Youth Rules do require a Birth Certificate for each player to be on file for US Lacrosse sponsored events. It does not seem that difficult to have US Lacrosse sponsored tournament registrations go through the membership database to be verified.

The question becomes will Club Teams support US Lacrosse sponsored Tournaments? Will the existing circuit of tournaments volunteer to abide by US Lacrosse rules or will competitors that are US Lacrosse sponsored have to lure Club Teams away?

This all seems very possible up to 8th grade.

Is there any HS player that plays on a Club Team who is not interested in playing (at whatever level) in college? Everyone I have ever encountered always thinks that lacrosse will benefit the players search for college. Some do not always play, but the goal is that lacrosse will "juice up" the college application in some capacity.

Has lacrosse reached the point of having the numbers to support both competitive and recreational Club Teams through HS age? It is very possible that I am ignorant, but I don't see it.

Rec leagues thru HS is THIN if it even exists at all. Maybe in the next few years at the boys level, FORGET the girl side. If a girl is not on a club travel team before 8th grade there are slim pickings if she likes to play after the school season ends. Not everyone is Div 1 eligible/talent. We learned the hard way.

I agree, you are all in or left out. Super clubs like 91 and YJ's or nothing.