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Posted In: Hudson Valley, Lacrosse Insider, Recruiting Rundown, Section 1
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Kid has not even put his feet on the field for a varsity game and has just started high school academics!! This “he”s never played a high school game but let’s lock the kid up anyway” practice by lax powers, particularly UNC, Hopkins and others is outrageous and should be stopped by the NCAA.
I saw this kid play in the Varsity division at the UNC team camp and he was outstanding. A very tough competitor. If I was coaching at UNC I would lock him up too.It is a smart move if you want to win at that level. So I think the practice of UNC and Hopkins is actually beneficial as it takes a lot of pressure off the kid. If someone offered my kid a deal in 9th grade I would jump on it.
First Westchester player to ever verbal as a freshman in any sport! That’s impressive.
Elite D1 Response To My Early Recruiting Concern
–Received before last season
–Only received courtesy of one response (sent emails to 5 schools)
“We understand your concern about 15-16 year old high school sophomores or juniors, making early commitments to attend a University. It is a young age to make that decision. Coach and our various other sport coaches, would rather not recruit student-athletes until later, but at this time, that is not the norm in recruiting. This has become a more common occurrence in all sports over the past 5-8 years.
This year, Coach has already had 10 sophomores visit our campus on unofficial visits, which means they choose to come and pay their own expenses…of those 10, seven have already been offered scholarships by other schools. There is another high school sophomore who is coming for an unofficial visit and he has already had 4 scholarship offers. This pattern is also true in other men’s and women’s sports and much of it is driven by the parents and kids. They are indicating that they want to visit early and solidify their college choice early. They can certainly choose to wait until later to make a commitment, but most parents are not encouraging them to wait.
To alter this recruiting practice, it will take NCAA legislation designating an age that students can commit to a college, so that it is a rule for everyone. It would not be practical for an institution or conference to do it unilaterally, if you want to have successful teams.
Thank you for sharing your concern with us”.