Just over two years ago, in October 2010, Syosset goaltender Ryan Feit became the first sophomore to verbally commit to a collegiate lacrosse program when he announced his intentions to attend Johns Hopkins. Feit, now a senior, made his commitment official during Fall Signing Week Nov. 14-21 by putting pen to paper on a National Letter of Intent.
Now, a high school freshman has verbally committed, and once again, his destination is Johns Hopkins.
The player, Forry Smith, lives in the Philadelphia region, beyond the borders of the nation’s No. 1 hotbed for lacrosse, the New York/New Jersey/Connecticut tristate region. So his verbal commitment, made early last week, took a few days before news of it finally trickled out through social media.
Smith is a 6-foot-2, 175-pound attackman who attends national power Haverford School, which is located 10 miles west pf Philly. He is an athletic player with exceptional skills and size, especially given his age.
For more, be sure to check Smith’s highlight reel, as well as these articles from InsideLacrosse.com and the Baltimore Sun.
Have a recruiting commitment to report? Email us at info@laxlessons.com.
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Posted In: Pennsylvania lacrosse, Philadelphia lacrosse, Recruiting Rundown
I feel like it is only a matter of time before the NCAA bans this nonsense completely. Honestly, it can’t be soon enough either. I know this kid will probably be amazing in high school, but how does this encourage him to get better? how does this help him academically? How does this help his team? How does this impact his teammates?
Can’t believe this will become a trend like Ryan Feit started when he committed as a soph 2 years ago. Why? For starters, if a player is THAT good he can wait. The colleges will have to wait. This sounds like a case of a player and family outside the tristate area a bit naive to the process. Can’t be a LI kid would ever commit as frosh. In fact, I know a few who are sophs now who are waiting till junior year.
It’s funny how you act like Philly is nothing compared to the tri-state area. Its by far a bigger and better hotbed than both Connecticut and new jersey, and just as equally good as LI.
Philly owns all, nuff said.
I find it hilarious that you would make such a statement and it shows how little you know regarding the current state of the high school/club game. Philly area has now cemented themselves as a “hot bed” and people associated with a program the caliber of Haverford certainly are not naive to the process of college recruiting. I am in agreement that it’s too early to be committing/recruiting this young man but the other statement is crazy at best.
So your saying that people within the haverford school community are the only ones in the philly area that are good at lacrosse?
Try malvern prep, episcopal academy, la salle, st. joe’s prep, and conestoga too
Really, in the current state if the high school/ club game I’m pretty sure Philly teams are leading right now. Club wise the Dukes LC and Mesa Fresh are two primer teams right now. Regarding the high school game, La Salle is anticipated to be the #1 team in the nation this year.
of*
From what i here kids parents are doctors and he wants to be a doctor to.Still thinks its just to early no matter what story is.
“Wow/Observer”,
Agree and have always been against this practice–now for a freshman! Outrageous and Petremala should be embarrassed for being part of this, particularly regarding a freshman. The NCAA has been looking at this practice for a while and still can’t pull the trigger to change it??
“always around says”,
Yeah Hopkins has a world renown medical school but (a) absolutely no guarantee that the kid may eventually want to be a doctor and (b) that Hopkins will admit him into their medical school!
This is actually a big gamble for Hopkins to continually do this. Some of these young uns either won’t qualify academically or won’t develop as expected as players and they will have to part ways and then start to get a reputation for not honoring scholarship commitments. Poorly played gamble by Pietramala
First off I want to congragulate the young man on his accomplishment. It takes a lot of work to do that especially as a freshman. I completely agre with everyone on this though. The early recruiting needs to come to an end and Petremala should be extremely embarrassed. If this doesn’t jump out at the NCAA then I don’t know what will. The NCAA should of done something about early recruiting when Hopkins got the sophomore commit. This needs to end right now. But still, congrats to the young man.
I agree with you that this kid has accomplished something by having enough potential at 14 yrs old to be recognized by Hopkins.-kudos to him.
But saying ” it takes a lot of work” gets to the point we all agree on that this practice is wrong —because it really DIDN’T taken a lot of work as he hasn’t even played his freshman yr!! To me a kid that has played 3 yrs of varsity lax including summers has done a hell of ” a lot of work” in lax—whether he gets recruited or not.
Can’t blame the kid–this is on Petro’s back.
The overly sensitive reactions by the Philly fanatics (pun intended) really bring to mind a couple of things. First, the express “Doth protest too much.” Also, you really do expose yourselves as novices on the lacrosse landscape with your comments. Best of luck in growing the sport in the Philadelphia area beyond the two prep schools it is now played at down there. Lol
And you do know that all these “philly phnatics” are the same person right?
phanatics*
Lax in Philly is essentially a few private schools and one or more decent HS programs. That’s it. They have a long way to go before they should even being talked about by NY/NJ/CT lax ppl. That’s why they are so heated now.
yea but you cant deny that the schools that do play down here are quite good, and that philly does produce good players even some that play on bad high school teams
Im sorry BC lax, do u live in PA? No im pretty sure you dont. Lax down is here is a huge as it is in maryland, connecticut, ny, etc. You cant say its not a hotbed just by typing it on a computer. If tons of college coaches scout kids from this area on a daily basis then it must be a hot bed. I dont understand why the traditional areas such as NY and Maryland not accepted PA as a hotbed state, we’ve proven ourselves over the past few years and i think we deserve a little recognition, but all the other states do is tell us we’re not good enough to them.
Yea man this is all one person, the people here in philly are nothing like this and actually are not new at all to the lacrosse landscape, your obviously just jealous that we’re better than your state.
Jersey lax > Philly lax
CT lax >> Philly lax
Upstate NY lax >>> Philly lax
Long Island lax >>>> Philly lax
Tristate lax >>>>> Philly lax
Five star domination babeeeee
say what you want, we will always be better than jersey, but i find it funny considering philly won the underclass tourney this year, all philly club teams won major tournaments, and etc. You cant determine whether or not its a hotbed by arguing on the computer, so you should see philly teams play first, then judge
Yo Adrian! (Quoting most famous person to come out of Cheese Steak Central!) Just heard that another Philly freshman has committed! That’s right a kid Jack Reilly from Conestoga defenseman verballed to UVa. This is crazy!
Yea it is crazy, i guess no freshman where your from are good enough to be sought after unlike the philly kids. You might wanna think next time before you speak say that philly isnt a hotbed.
Ummm no. This actually shows that Philly people need to learn how the recruiting process works because they are so new to the game. Maybe we can take up a collection and have a tristate clinic for them on recruiting?? There is NO need to commit as a frosh. Never ever. You just won’t see anyone from the tristate naive enough to do it.
The only good state within the tri state is LI, Connecticut is decent and jersey is a joke, we’re not new to the recruiting process at all, maybe you should check out phillylacrosse.com and see how far back we go to recruiting. And i’m pretty sure that the tri-state club team ist even that good, philly teams such as the dukes beat them every summer
As someone wrote earlier there are only 2 good programs in Philly – Haverford and Conestoga. That’s where these 2 freshmen are from. But yeh they definately need to learn you don’t need to commit as freshmen. That’s OK we can give them lessons from the tristate lol
The only powerhouse state in the tri state is NY, otherwise PA teams finished better in the national rankings this year than both CT and NJ according to these rankings. PA had 4 teams on there deserving of those rankings, CT had two teams on there, and NJ had 1 team on there. This proves that the PA teams are as good if not better than a majority of the tri state teams rankings-wise.
forgot to post the link:
http://laxmagazine.com/high_school/boys/2011-12/lacrosse_magazine_national_high_school_boys_top_25
And don’t make fun of cheese steaks, they’re delicious.
Did Ground Chuck really just refer to Long Island as a state? Yeah, hard not to take him real seriously!
Alright fine you got me…..
Actually, truth be told, a lot of people in New York consider Long Island to be its own state!
Alright i feel less dumb now, but i cant believe the state of Maryland, particularly in Baltimore, was not mentioned once in this whole argument.
If this were 1962 and not 2012 we would have to mention Baltimore. But it’s not. We chased those delusional blowhards off this board long ago.
Haha, i thought baltimore was in the same category as the tri-state?
lacrosse wise*
Last time Baltimore lacrosse was at level of tristate, Eisenhower was still in office. It still has solid college lacrosse but only because most of the players on those teams – Hop, Loyola, Maryland – are from NY NJ CT.
Why are you so obsessed with Eisenhower and the 1960’s?
I agree with the Philadelphia guys. Over the past few years Philly has proven themselves, and this past summer was a breakout summer for them especially when the Philly all stars beat the USA U-19 team after only having a 1 hour practice the day before or when Philly won the under-armour underclassmen games. The Tri-State folks say that Philly is not good enough and is too new to the recruiting game even though Philly is not at all, lacrosse has been played in PA as long as it’s been played in NY or Maryland, and players have always been recruited to good school’s, but from my observation the recruiting has skyrocketed over the past years. For the Tri-State, they’re most likely just afraid that there is talent and there are other hotbed’s outside oftheir little trio of NY,NJ,or Connecticut, that could possibly be better than them and are just too scared to admit it.
I feel that the best of both Philly and Baltimore should team up and take on you chumps from the tri state to show you that you guys god-like at lacrosse, oh wait they already did in the under armour senior north south game when the south won the past two years in a row, guess NY NJ and CT aren’t as great as they think they are afrerall
All kidding aside, Philly is a growing pocket for lacrosse nationally not unlike a Denver or Texas. It certainly can surpass Baltimore in no time at all.
But in terms of number of players, programs, Long Island alone far surpasses Philly by light years. Factor in upstate NY, NJ and Conn and it’s clear no nation let alone city or even state can ever surpass what is, was and always will be the #1 lax hotspot – NY CT. NJ.
Love the spunk and competitiveness of the Philly folks, especially when compared to the dated, delusional Baltimore crew which knows its time has come. And gone.
Almost like a big brother encouraging a little brother trying to prove himself, I would love to see Philly overtake Baltimore in role of second fiddle behind tristate region in national landscape sooner rather than later.
The underdog Philly fans are priceless. So cute at that age!
We’re here to please sir
Curious if both frosh commits from Philly were ‘hardships’ as they both attend prep and may be of sophomore age in their freshman years. Doesn’t matter in the big picture, because the process is completely out of whack. But you see it in CT prep, so may be the case here as well.
Leave it to Petro to be first to make this kind of move. Can’t fault kids for wanting commit to a great school, I guess their grades will need to be up to par as well – yeah right…
Yeah the practice is ridiculous on so many counts. Do think grades would have to be there for a Hopkins type school–at least the minimum for their “athletic admits”–maybe would need to do a PG yr if not up to par.
Also puts a ton of pressure on these kids to “prove themselves” after not having played a single varsity game! By the time of senior yr aside from grades could have lack of elite ability, injury, interest issues, etc–a real mess.
La Salle at Garden City, March 30th. La Salle seems like a go anywhere kind of team, believe they went up to West Genny in ’08 or thereabouts
can we all at least agree that baseball is stupid?
It’s things like these that make recruiting for kids harder.
You guys got it wrong.
NY/NJ/CT > DC/Baltimore/VA > PA > California > Florida