Early Recruiting

Another facet to the sport of lacrosse that many people may not be aware of is the impact that early recruiting is having on the collegiate game and club landscape. Until a recent rule change, there was no rule that stopped a player from reaching out to a coach to begin conversations about recruiting and coming to play at their respective college. For the top players in the nation, these conversations would begin in as early as eighth grade. When some of these top players would showcase their skills at different tournaments and events during the summer in front of college coaches, these coaches would feel pressured to try and obtain this player as early as possible. If you think this sounds crazy don’t worry, it is just as crazy as it sounds.

Obviously, there are many problems with these conversations for a coach and a player. The first is that most teenagers in ninth and tenth grade do not even know what they want for dinner that night. To then try and make them decide on a college that they won’t be attending for another 4 years is not a smart way to go about your future education. In many cases, these early recruits end up changing what college they are verbally committed to in the first place. Another problem with this method is that the abilities of a player can change drastically from the time they are in eighth grade to when they arrive on campus for college.

New Rule Change Makes Coaches Disappear

What you are seeing now in college lacrosse as a result of early recruiting is that the playing field is much more even. The first reason is because all of the ‘late bloomers’ that improve their skills closer to their senior year of high school do not have many options on where they can get recruited to play because most coaches have used up all their slots on early recruits. Also, many of these early recruits do not pan out to be as good as the coaches had predicted. This results in some of the less popular teams to have great teams while some of the big-name schools like Maryland, Syracuse, Duke, and Notre Dame are stuck with players that did not develop into the top-level talent that their coaches had hoped. All in all, early recruiting was a huge problem in the sport of lacrosse until a recent rule change. This rule change banned all contact between a coach and a player until September 1stof their Junior year of high school. The result is a much healthier landscape for the sport and any kid that hopes to extend their career into college.