ࡱ> ^`]q`  WbjbjqPqP .f::N 82 N !2v (  $Sh w ww AAAw|  AwAA l j $ 80!@,k!>k!lk!l4 ZA> X !wwww$   MINNESOTA, A LACROSSE HOTBED? A Minnesota fathers perspective on the college recruiting process. Written by Mike Forsyth, father of Dan Forsyth a 2005 freshman lacrosse player attending Stonybrook University in Long Island NY on an athletic scholarship. Traditionally, Minnesota has not been a hotbed for recruiting college lacrosse players to play at the NCAA Division I, II and III levels. Growth in the sport has increased steadily over the past few years at all levels, but most players who go on to play college lacrosse do so at schools that offer lacrosse as a club sport. Many of these schools are in Minnesota. They offer a very competitive level of lacrosse and have a number of excellent homegrown players on their rosters. However, less than a handful of Minnesota high school players have been recruited to play lacrosse at NCAA-sanctioned colleges and universities. The relatively limited experience of the players has made it difficult to compete with the east coast players who typically have lacrosse sticks in their hand at a very young age. This situation has been progressively changing. More Minnesota kids are playing lacrosse at early ages. There are also more coaches at the youth and high school levels that can successfully teach lacrosse skills necessary for players to compete at the NCAA Division I-III levels. The foundation is there. We now need to find ways to showcase our Minnesota talent and help aspiring college players promote themselves and get the most benefit that they can from the recruiting process. My perspective on this comes from involvement with my son, a Minnesota high school lacrosse player who has recently gone through the college recruiting process. Neither of us were adequately prepared for the process and essentially stumbled our way through it. There werent any Minnesota resources we could find to help us understand how to successfully navigate the process. Having just gone through it, however, we have picked up some observations that we would like to share, with the hope that they may improve a players chance to get identified by recruiters and increase his understanding of how to deal with the recruiting process. Learning from the recruiting process The serious recruiting process begins when coaches are able to start contacting players beginning July 1st following their junior year. The first things that they will want to see are ACT/SAT scores and a school transcript. These are the initial indicators on whether a player will qualify academically at the school. Make sure you take the tests no later than the spring of your junior year. Either test is acceptable, but the SAT score is seems to be more popular with the east coast schools. Another academic requirement for NCAA recruits is registration with the NCAA National Clearinghouse. This costs $30 and authorizes the NCAA to verify your academic standing to ensure that you have the minimum qualifications to attend college. Registration can be completed on the Internet at  HYPERLINK "http://www.ncaaclearinghouse.com" www.ncaaclearinghouse.com. PROFILE & VIDEOA great way to market yourself is to put together a college profile and a recruiting video. The profile should be one or two pages and describe you fully to the coaches you will be sending it to. Think of it as a resume you are creating to apply for a student-athlete position at a college. It should have sections for your personal data, academics, athletics and extra-curricular activities. Include names and contact information for your high school counselor, coaches and other key individuals that a recruiter might want to contact. You can include a picture or two of yourself as well. We ran across a sample profile on the Internet and used it for a model. The video should be in the range of 5-10 minutes. Create the video with clips that show your skills in all areas. The coaches want to see how you handle yourself in all aspects of the game. For example, a midfielders clips should include shooting, passing, catching, defending and battling for ground balls. Also, include face-offs if you have that role. Try to include some action that highlights your speed, strength and overall athleticism. I would recommend using action shots from games where you are playing among other good players. If you use footage where you are clearly dominant over the other players, the college coaches will recognize this and will likely be less impressed with your highlights. As an example, there was a clip in my sons video where he burst past a defender and got into an uncontested shooting position about 15 yards in front of the goal. He took the shot and scored. We thought this looked pretty impressive until one of the college coaches watched it. His comment was, you will seldom get the chance to have an open shot like that and any Division I goalie would have stopped it anyway. The point here is to build your video with action from games that involved a high level of competition. Make sure the clips are long enough to provide the full context of the action. For example, record a few seconds of what you are doing right before you score the goal, not just the shot itself. You should also start the tape by doing a short video introduction and explain what games the clips are from. The video and profile can be sent to the coaches at all the schools you are interested in attending. Also, keep some copies on hand and ready to send out if you get contacted by other schools that have an interest in you. RECRUIT CAMPS & SHOWCASESThere are no NCAA-sanctioned lacrosse programs in Minnesota and the lacrosse coaches from these programs have not typically come to Minnesota to recruit players. The obvious implication is that players need take advantage of opportunities to go to where the coaches are. There are several recruiting camps sponsored each year that draw many of these coaches who rely on them to find, and evaluate, potential recruits. Last summer, Blake Schools Head Coach, Hank Marotske, took the initiative to form a team that he took to the Notre Dame Midwest Challenge recruiting camp. His team included a few of his Blake players, along with some other top players from several Minnesota high school teams. The team did very well in competition and college coaches who attended the camp subsequently contacted some of the players. Hank is looking to repeat and expand on this for the upcoming summer. He is soliciting the current high school coaches to identify high-potential juniors and sophomores for teams that will compete in several camps. Players should also know that some of the camps allow individuals to register and be placed on a team made up of other players in the same situation. The past two summers, I took several Minnesota players to the Delaware Battle of the Hotbeds camps. We didnt have a full team, so the players were assigned to a team made up of other independents. The camp provided coaches for the team and it was a great experience for the boys to get to know these other coaches and players. Since lacrosse is a spring sport, these summer recruiting camps are most important for players who have just completed their junior year. St. Johns University Head Coach, Mark Hellenack, is currently organizing U17 and U15 teams to compete in the annual U17 Invitational Lacrosse Tournament in Vail, Colorado. This is great opportunity for high-potential underclassmen to be able to benchmark their skills with many other top-level players across the country. There will also be college coaches at the tournament who want to track some of these younger prospects. Mark has also set up a recruiting database where players can store information about themselves and have it made available to college coaches. A couple of other thoughts on the recruiting campswhen you know that you will be attending a camp, send a note, along with your personal profile, to the head coach at any colleges you are interested in to let them know that you will be there. It can help improve the chances that they will check you out. Also, these recruiting camps can be a great place to get footage for your recruiting video. The camps usually include anywhere from 7-15 games in a 3-4 day period and provide the opportunity to collect a lot of action shots in a short period of time in a competition with other top-level players. COACHES CONTACTDuring the recruiting process, coaches are likely to contact many more players than they expect to sign for a particular recruiting class. The type of contact you receive is a good indicator of level of current interest the coach has in you. Generic recruiting letters are sent to many high school players and usually request that you fill out a recruiting form with information about yourself and send it back to the school. They probably got your name and address from a list of camp attendees or from a list provided by the league you play in. The next level is a personal letter sent to you from a college coach indicates that the coach probably knows something about you as a player. The personal letter is often handwritten or at least includes the coachs handwritten signature. When you get the generic or personal letters, you should respond to them. Here is a chance to also send them your personal profile and recruiting video. Hopefully, that will generate more interest in you and more active recruiting from the coach. If you get identified as one of a colleges top prospects, you will likely be contacted directly by the coach, in person or via phone calls. If you are getting strong interest from a coach, you will probably also be offered a chance to take an official visit. OFFICIAL VISITSAn official visit is where the school will pay the expenses for a player to visit the school for up to a 48-hour period. NCAA rules allow a maximum of five official visits per recruit. If you are fortunate to have more than five schools actively recruiting you, then you will need to think about which five schools you want to include in your officials visits. You can take as many unofficial visits as you want, but they are at your expense. Official visits can be offered whether or not there is any scholarship money involved. The visit is a great opportunity for the coach to promote the school and lacrosse program and for the prospect to decide if it is the right fit for him. The typical visit will include a meeting with an admissions person, a tour of the school and a meeting or some time spent with the coaching staff. The recruit will have a player host and room with him during the visit. The visit may also include attending a school sporting event or getting the chance to watch the lacrosse team practice, depending on the timing of your visit. When you are on the visit, try to get the most out of it. Ask the coaches and players a lot of questions about the lacrosse program. When you leave, you should feel that you have a good understanding of the coaching philosophy, an impression of what the players are like and how the players relate to the coaches. You also want to know what the coach thinks about you and your potential to contribute to the team. Make sure you get as much information about the school as well, since the education you receive there should be your most important overall consideration in choosing a college. Also, its a good idea to follow up any visit with a thank you note to the coach, whether or not you are still considering the school after your visit. Coaches dont stay in their jobs forever and you may end up playing for that coach at another school someday. Always use common courtesy and dont burn any bridges enough said. In identifying potential recruits, the college coaches seemed more interested in getting good athletes vs. good lacrosse players who lacked overall athleticism. Their comments were generally along the lines of; we can teach the skills, but we cant teach the athleticism. One indicator of a players athleticism is his participation in other sports. Many of the skills mastered in other sports and overall physical development will help make an athlete a better lacrosse player. In reviewing player bios from recent announcements of college recruits, I noticed that most of the recruits participated in, and often excelled at, other sports besides lacrosse. This doesnt mean you should pick up another sport late in your high school career, but you should probably think twice before you drop a sport to focus solely on lacrosse. Also, according to some recent articles, single sport athletes who play their sport year-round are more at risk of getting repetitive stress injuries and face a greater likelihood of burnout. SCHOLARSHIP OFFERSThe Division I and II programs have athletic scholarship money to offer their top recruits. Division III programs dont have athletic scholarships, but will try to help their recruits qualify for academic scholarships or other forms of financial aid. Coaches typically try to recruit many more players than they expect will commit to the school. They know that not all prospects will want to attend their school and others may decide to take up an offer somewhere else. If a coach has scholarship money to bring in several new recruits, he may have offers out to many more than that initially. Once he has all his scholarship money committed to, he will take the remaining offers off the table. Its important for recruits to know that verbal scholarship offers can be pulled at any time and without any advance warning (we learned that the hard way!). That is why it is important to take all your official visits as soon as you can, so you are in a position to make a decision before the recruiting classes get filled. That doesnt mean you need to take the first offer or rush a decision, but dont spend months trying to decide and risk losing some offers. Dont be afraid to ask the coach how soon he is expecting a decision from you. Besides your lacrosse skills and academic proficiency, coaches also are interested in your character and how you will fit in with the other players on team. Make sure that in your phone conversations and face-to-face contacts with the coach and players, you put your best self forward. Coaches are looking for players who demonstrate honesty, dependability, leadership, a strong work ethic and a passion for the game. They dont want to ruin their team chemistry by adding someone who will upset the mix in a negative way or with someone who may be difficult to coach. The amount of the scholarship also provides some indication of the interest the coach has in a prospective recruit. However, keep in mind a couple of things. First, the costs to attend a school vary, so that a $10,000 scholarship at a $20,000 a year school covers one half of the total cost, while a $10,000 scholarship at a $30,000 a year school only covers one third of the total cost. Second, some coaches prefer to put out less money for new recruits and use more of the money to increase scholarships for their top players who they want to reward and retain. Other coaches will focus more on getting the scholarship money for their new recruiting class and less on current players. Scholarships are only guaranteed for the first year. However, if a player continues to participate on the team and meets eligibility requirements, he will likely keep that scholarship money for all four years. Another possibility is that a coach will try to get a prospect to walk-on his freshman year with the intent of trying to get him some scholarship money the next year. Obviously, there is no guarantee for a second year scholarship, but it might be worth a shot for someone who really wants to attend a particular school and thinks he can make the team. MAKING A DECISIONYour eventual decision may end up being a slam-dunk or one of the toughest decisions youve had to make in your life. If youre giving serious consideration to more than one school, it may be helpful to list the 10 or 12 key categories that are important in your decision and compare the schools against them. You can develop a scoring system and weight each category differently if that helps. However, be careful about making a decision based solely on your feelings about the current coaching staff. As I mentioned earlier, coaches move around freely to different positions and programs. There is no guarantee that the coach who recruited you will be there for all four years and may not even be there your first year. Almost all of the major colleges and universities have websites where you can find tons of information about the schools and their lacrosse programs. You should take advantage of that to learn all you can about the schools you are considering. If you have scholarship offers, you will need to make a decision on them at some point. When you have the decision made, you will let the one coach know you are accepting his offer and let any other coaches know that you are not taking theirs. Once you have made this commitment and have been officially admitted to the school, then the final step is the National Letter of Intent ( HYPERLINK "http://www.national-letter.org/" http://www.national-letter.org/). The coach will provide you with documentation indicating the amount of the first-year scholarship offer. You, and a parent, will sign the Letter of Intent indicating that your acceptance of this offer. The Letter can only be signed during the official signing periods. There is an early period which was November 10-17, 2004 and a late period which is April 13 August 1, 2005. During the late period, a recruit is given 14 days to sign and return the Letter. It becomes invalid after that and must be reissued. The signing of the Letter officially commits you to that school for the first year and directs other schools to stop recruiting you. Be sure about your decision before you sign. In summary, the main thoughts I want to emphasize are that a player needs to actively market himself and to develop an understanding how the recruiting process works. Hopefully, the learnings Ive shared with you have provided some value on how to navigate the process. Now it is up to you to get yourself in front of the coaches by attending the camps and sending out your profile and video. Parent involvement and support is also necessary. My son and I spent a lot of time figuring things out and deciding what to do next. Working together will give you the best chance to take advantage of the recruiting opportunities and get a successful result. Becoming a hotbed In answer to the question posed in the title of the article, yes, I believe that Minnesota can become a college recruiting hotbed. The growth in youth programs across the state, along with the addition of more high school programs, will eventually spawn many more players with college potential. Efforts also need to continue to provide opportunities for college-potential high school players to participate in the recruiting camps where they have the most visibility among college coaches. There are also a few camps being hosted in Minnesota now that are bringing in college coaches from the NCAA schools. These should continue to draw more and more college recruiters as the state produces a growing crop of high quality players. Another way to help put Minnesota on the recruiting map is for Minnesota players who succeed in these college programs to come back to the state and share their experience and knowledge. Minnesota could benefit a great deal if players return to coach, officiate, run camps and administer youth, high school and college programs. Also, a few college programs in the state, like the University of Minnesota, may be able to achieve NCAA sanctioning in the future and no longer require Minnesota high school players to leave the state to find Division I, II or III lacrosse programs. I dont have a crystal ball, but I definitely see the opportunity for Minnesota to become a real lacrosse hotbed in the next 5-10 years. The foundation is there and with a continual push from players, parents, coaches, officials and administrators, it will happen.      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