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Recruiting 101
Recruiting 101
September 01, 1997
Some tips and pointers while going through the process
It’s a beautiful Memorial Day weekend, and the moment you have been waiting for has arrived: you are surrounded by thirty thousand lacrosse fans waiting for the opening face-off of the Final Four.
You sit among thousands of young players from across the country, and you’re all wondering the same thing: What will it take for me to make it onto that field?
Lacrosse offers wonderful opportunity to high school athletes. On top of the exhilaration that NCAA competition provides, lacrosse can help with college admissions and, in some cases, it can help with tuition. Finding the right school is one of the most important projects facing any high school player, and proper preparation is essential to a successful search.
The athletic recruiting process is one of many ways to get a feel for what’s out there, and while it can be overwhelming at times, recruiting is worth handling right.
Following are some tips on recruiting, and also a look at the process as experienced by Jude Collins, who excelled on the college lacrosse field and currently holds recruiting seminars for Advantage Lacrosse, in Virginia.
STAGES OF THE GAME: Jude Collins didn’t start playing lacrosse until he was a freshman in high school. A gifted soccer player and exceptional athlete, he realized shortly after his introduction to the game that lacrosse was the sport he wanted to play in college. Collins knew that he had started playing later than some of his teammates, so he committed himself to improving and maturing as a player.
1. Visibility. You don’t have to go to West Genesee or Ward Melville to be recruited to play lacrosse. Talent is spreading, and coaches know it. Camps are a great way to meet college coaches and players. There are a million camps out there, and each one has a specific focus. Some will stress development of fundamentals, while others will focus on playing games, with little formal instruction. There are even camps which specifically cater to athletes looking for exposure; many coaches show up to watch sessions, and some even have recruiting round tables in the evening. Use camp as an opportunity to grow. Show enthusiasm, and ask questions. Try to learn from your coaches what aspects of your game need improvement.
Jude Collins went to high school in Northern Virginia and was worried about the exposure he would receive playing lacrosse outside of the traditional “hot beds.” Early on, he began to write letters to the schools that he thought might suit him. Some responded, and to his disappointment, others did not.
Collins had an interest in the military, so he went to West Point lacrosse camp during the summer of his junior year. He treated the camp like it was a week long try-out, and was very serious about his play. Collins met players from the University of North Carolina, and at their suggestion he wrote a letter to the UNC coach.
2. Register with Clearinghouse. If you’re on the fence academically, waste no time getting things in order with the NCAA.
3. Becoming a Recruit. The time will come when letters start showing up in your mailbox and phone calls begin to interrupt your evenings. The coaches who are interested in you will begin to feel you out, trying to learn about your grades and your interests. At this stage in the game, everyone involved is usually trying to keep their options as open as possible (coaches start by contacting a lot of players, and most players are noncommittal, early on). Some of these coaches will have a genuine interest in you, while others may have just seen your name on an all-star roster or All-County listing. Don’t be afraid to inquire as to where they saw you play and what they know about you. How much they know about you can be a gauge as to how serious they are about you coming to their school. Interested coaches will try to set up a time to come and visit at your school or even at your home. Eventually, they will propose that you come to visit them at their school.
4. The Official Trip. The NCAA allows you to take five official paid visits. If the offers are made and your schedule can handle it, try to take all five. Sometimes coaches can be very persistent about the visit, offering you a free plane ticket and football seats on the fifty yard line. Do not let yourself get corralled into visiting a school that you know you aren’t interested in. While sometimes coaches will barrage you with offers, other times none of this will happen. If you haven’t been contacted by a school that you’re particularly fond of, don’t be afraid to take the initiative to call or write the coach. There are plenty of explanations why certain players are overlooked. Schools often concentrate their recruiting on a certain geographic area of the country. Or depending on the year, coaches may only be looking to fill specific positions.
At this stage in the game, Collins narrowed his choices to Army, Navy, UNC, and Duke. From November to February of his senior year, Collins visited all four of these schools.
5. What to accomplish on the visit. The purpose of the recruiting trip is to give you an opportunity to get a “feel” for the school and for the team, before making your final decision. While these visits can make for some of the most exciting weekends of your high school years, don’t go in with the objective of seeing how late you can stay out or how much you can party. People usually learn the most about their surroundings by sitting back and passively taking it all in.
Additionally, don’t head off on your recruiting trip with the intentions of impressing anybody. You’ve been invited to visit for a reason. There is little that you can do to better your standing with a coach or his players while on the trip, and more times than not only damage can be done. More than one recruit has hurt his chances when people at the school realize that he won’t be much good on the lacrosse field, when he can’t even fit his head into the helmet.
Oftentimes a coach will bring his top recruits to visit on the same weekend, so it can be a great opportunity to meet the other guys with whom you will likely be sharing the communal rigors of your freshman season. These people often become your closest friends, and the recruiting trip is a good time to feel out your peers.
Learn more about the coach. Ask him about how he sees you fitting into the program. Ask him about your weaknesses as a player, and what aspect of your game will need to be improved for success at the next level. This will indicate your commitment to growing as a player, as well as your interest in his program. If a coach wants to know what other schools you’re considering, level with him. The coaching world is small in lacrosse, and there’s a good chance that he already knows.
“Everybody told me how much fun recruiting trips were, and looking back, I went on my first couple visits with nothing but expectations of having a good time,” said Collins. “They were all a lot of fun, but I should have been paying closer attention to all of the aspects of college life, not just the social life.”
At the end of his weekend at UNC, Collins met the lacrosse coach for lunch, and they discussed his visit.
“He was real open with me, and he told me just where I fit into the scheme of things. And he also was straight forward about asking how serious I was about Carolina.”
6. After the visit. Sometimes things simply fall into place. You may just know where you want to be, or there may only be one coach who is after you.
Other times the most difficult part of recruiting can be turning down a coach, especially one who has brought you to his school for a visit. Just remember that all coaches have much more experience at this than you, and every year even the top coaches get turned down. They understand your dilemmas better than you may think.
As long as you are honest with a coach about your decision, there will be no hard feelings. Nine times out of ten you will continue to run into these people down the line, so it’s always best not to play games with them.
7. Laying it on the line. There is no way for your brain to process all of the factors that will impact your final decision. For some it helps to put everything down on paper.
Do you want to constantly push yourself as an athlete, or are you turned off by the idea of a full-time commitment? Do you want a shot at a ring? Do you want to be able to play another sport? Are you looking for disciplined coaching and a structured program, or do you want to be let loose to run and gun?
Keep in mind that head and assistant coaches change schools all the time. You are choosing a college, not a coach.
As far as criteria for the decision, the athletic factors are just the tip of the iceberg. Academically, there are even more considerations. Not to mention cost, social atmosphere, and location.
Sometimes the paper and the lists seem to get in the way. Abandoning the logical arguments and using your insight to make the final decision is a perfectly reasonable method, as long as it isn’t done out of laziness. Always at least make an attempt at figuring things out methodically, with every possible factor under consideration.
Take your time, make your decision, and once the decision is made, HAVE NO REGRETS. Worrying about whether or not you made the right decision is just going to take away energy that could be spent gearing up for next year.
When it became time for Collins to make a decision, he laid out all of his thoughts on the table. He made lists. He tried to picture himself walking around each campus, and he imagined how happy he’d be at each school if he weren’t playing lacrosse.
Out of the four schools, Collins finally realized he didn’t want the military lifestyle, which ruled out Army and Navy. Duke lost interest, and North Carolina was still very appealing. He had a great visit, he could picture himself there as a student and an athlete, and he felt good with his decision.
“It wasn’t easy telling the two military academies that I wasn’t coming, because I had showed such a strong interest in them early on,” said Collins. “I could tell that they were disappointed, but they were also understanding.”
Collins went on to a career at North Carolina, where he was a three time All-American, earning First Team honors as a senior.
The recruiting process can be overwhelming, and deciding upon a college can be the most important decision that a high school senior has had yet to make. Just look at athletic recruiting as an aid in making that decision. Look at it as an opportunity.
It is OK to be confused and anxious. You are going to be constantly drilled from peers, parents, teachers, and coaches with the question: “So, what’re you thinking?” Don’t feel like you must have an answer for everybody.
If at any point you feel like you’re being pressured, and events begin to become a burden, take a step back and figure out why-- and then factor that into your decision, because the bottom line is that the whole recruiting process is an exciting opportunity and, above all else should always be fun.
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