The recruiting game

Whoops!

One of my favorite times of the year is the beginning of the summer spent coaching VA Elite, a high school club lacrosse team made up of boys from all over the state of Virginia. It is fun to help younger players improve their game and to give back to a game that means so much to me. Naturally, I want to win every game but that is not what VA Elite is about. For me, it is about having an avenue to continue playing lacrosse after the high school season ends and making friends from rival schools.

If it were just that simple.

For most of the kids on the team, the summer is more stressful than fun. They are constantly worried about what coaches are going to see them and how many goals they need to score to get on any coach’s radar. These kids bounce from camp to camp, tournament to tournament and put their mind and bodies through the ringer. Sometimes I wonder if they are doing all of this because they feel like they are supposed to or if they enjoy lacrosse so much that they want to play at the highest reachable level.

Lacrosse is not basketball or football. One is not going to make a career simply by playing lacrosse. I do my best to tell the kids that they need to choose a school with this in mind, “Would you go to this school if you did not play lacrosse? And is this the best school academically for you?”

Every player starts out with hopes of going Division I. Why wouldn’t you? The bad news is that there are a lot of players out there and not a lot of spots. The good news is that Division III lacrosse is good lacrosse and many of the colleges and universities at that level are some of the best schools in the country.

It is time for kids to relax, have fun with the game and let the cards fall where they will. The funniest thing about lacrosse is that you can play the game until you can’t move and the best part doesn’t come until you finish college. You don’t need to be recruited or send a rap injected highlight film to get on a team in Vail, Lake Placid or Ocean City. You just have to be able to recover quickly from the night before.