How does athletic recruiting work?

Athletic Recruits
1

My rising junior son is a solid lacrosse player and loves it. He would like to play lacrosse in college, even if it’s just at club level. He is not good enough for D1, for sure.

Forgive my total ignorance. Can anyone direct me to a website, or provide some links? Or if my son was recruitable, would we already know by now? Does he need to contact coaches at colleges he may be interested in?

Also, I should add, he has some interest in rowing, and we suspect he would be great at it. He is tall, strong, and muscular. I don’t know if this factors in at all.

2

Hopefully you can get some lacrosse specific advice here. I can’t help there, my advice is more general.

Full disclosure my S is same age, but we are in a part of the country where the schools he is interested in don’t normally recruit, so we wanted to get an early start to get him on their radar. He has been in contact with his targeted programs for a few months, and even took unofficial visits to a few. And I am a bit OCD when it comes to this, so I can give you a bit of what the collective wisdom you will find on this board and other places on the internet will be. Plus I have had some individual conversations with parents of kids in similar situations.

First thing is I would ask a club/high school coach for an honest assessment of what is realistic. If there is a college coach you know well enough to get an honest answer, even better. As a parent, I think there have been times where I was overestimating or underestimating the abilities of my kids. One is in an individual sport with winners and losers, and it can still be hard to know. Team sports in my opinion are much harder to assess, especially as a biased parent.

There is a lot of good information on this board, when I was starting this process I probably read most of the posts from the last couple of years unless they were clearly not relevant. I would start there.

I think the non-lacrosse specific advice is to have S put together an email to send to coaches with a summary of why he thinks he would be a good addition to their college team. He needs to put together a resume, which is mostly athletic but also has the key academic information. Also be sure that there is an email and phone number for one of his current coaches on the resume and email, and then make sure that coach knows he may be contacted. There are plenty of examples online of these. Make sure the emails are addressed to “Coach Smith” not just “Coach”. S put in at least a line or 2 in each email that was specific to every coach that he contacted, either something about their season or having an All American, or their venue, just anything to show that you aren’t sending a random email to everyone, you are emailing this coach because you want to go to HIS school and play for HIM. I also attached a transcript that showed GPA and class rank. RE: line should be Son Name, 2019, athletic honor or other attention getting stat, position. Or some variation of that.

Coaches can’t contact him back directly until September 1. Our experience has been a mix of “thanks for the info we will be in touch in September”, to a couple coaches emailing his high school coach to express interest and also ask for his assessment, to about half remaining silent. S sent out an update to give some information on his summer successes, and to let them know that he will be participating in a big recruiting event so they can (hopefully) be watching him compete there.

There are recruiting services that you can pay for, I think that if you are willing to do the research and the work then it probably isn’t necessary. But I suppose if you were trying to cast a very wide net and sports was the #1 consideration that might make it more worthwhile. S doesn’t really have 20 schools he is willing to play for, so it’s a manageable list for us to handle on our own.

Good luck.

3

It’s already late in the summer for this, but a lax camp would be a good way to get an assessment of what’s reasonable from a recruiting POV. There are huge variations within the divisions and even within conferences (i.e., Tufts lax is more comparable to D1 while Bard’s team might not win against many high school teams.) These are not ID camps, but they usually take advantage of college coaching staffs and players. (Princeton has one, and there’s a big one at Peddie.)

Speaking from experience, it’s easy to get distracted in the recruiting process - schools that have a varsity roster spot for you somehow start rising up the list over schools that were topping the list prior to sports being in the mix. I know you are focused, so keep this in mind as you consider this; you’ll be a big help to your son this way. Also know that it is possible to play at many schools without being recruited. For some reason, many schools have huge rosters.

Crew is an easy walk on sport. If there are clubs near you, many do a week long Discover Rowing event in the summer. If he likes it and is thinking about it as a recruitment sport, he’d have to get on a team now to be talking to coaches in the spring. There do not tend to be tons of slots for rowers. At this point, I think he should stick with lax given timing.

4

Thank you @gardenstategal and @dadof4kids . Very helpful.

5

I’m inclined to agree with @gardenstategal about rowing. It’s a very tight sport if you are looking to be recruited. Having said that if your son has strong athleticism and is committed to giving rowing his “all” it’s not unheard of for someone who takes it up late to be recruited. Not likely but not unheard of…
I’d first have him do a “learn to row day” at a local club as previously suggested.
Collegiate rowing teams are generally open to walk-on but there is a try out session for those interested. Walk-on do not get admissions support.
Good luck!

6

Lacrosse recruiting has just changed. No contact can happen between college coaches and the recruit OR his high school or club coaches until Sept 1 of junior year. Since this just changed, some current sophomores (and even younger) have been contacted and many are ‘committed’ but there was an immediate halt to recruiting. I do expect many to commit very early this fall because the coaches have been following this group for a year or so. It isn’t too late though. A friend didn’t commit until Feb of senior year. He’s a star athlete but his academics are a little lower so his original choice didn’t work out (his choice, the school still wanted him). Other teams were more than happy to make room for him.

There are not a lot of club teams in the Northeast although I’m sure there would be intramurals and pick up games for those not on a team. Club teams are much bigger in the west. D3 teams can be very competitive for making a team, and recruiting. What is a little different in D3 is that some of the best teams are public like SUNY Cortland and Salisbury and other schools are not as well known on College Confidential like Stevenson or Hampden-Sydney.

I agree that the high school coach should know where your son would fit athletically but sometimes they aren’t as good at knowing how the student fits academically if you have a very specific type of school in mind. Even though there are several hundred schools that sponsor men’s lacrosse, it is still a small world - they ALL know each other, know where they played in high school and college, know their brothers and cousins and uncles.

7

Thanks @twoinanddone . This is why I love CC. I know a thousand times more than I did just a few hours ago.

8

So, if my son is an A-/B+ student, is a coach going to be interested, assuming he has ability? I expect he will get 31 or a little higher on the ACT. Or is it really just about skill level? @twoinanddone

9

There will probably be some academic cut off that the coach is needing. In my son’s sport, I have mostly talked to Ivy coaches but also one NESCAC coach. All had some academic standard that needed met. Usually some form of “I can take 1-2 kids at a 27, 2 at a 30, 2 at 32, 2 will need a 34.” They pretty much all said it depends on how good you are athletically how good your academics need to be, within a range like that above. I think in actuality they need to hit an average, but to be competitive they are looking to get a couple kids with high scores so they then have the ability to dip a little to get some standout who otherwise can’t meet the average academics.

But make no mistake they are recruiting to win. Period. If you are a 36 ACT 4.0 National Merit Scholar, but not quite as skilled as someone else who barely meets the minimum academic standard they need for that slot, you are not getting the slot. Coaches who don’t win get fired. Their job is to bring in top lacrosse players, not top academic students.

10

Got it. Thanks again!

11

I think it’s a bit akward to ask a coach over email, but when I was face to face with them all were very straight forward about what they needed. They all also told S that if he throws out a 25 on his ACT this fall, the recruiting conversation is pretty much over until he can post a higher score. I have been told by numerous sources that once you have a 30+ ACT score to put in that RE: line, your emails get answered much quicker with a lot more interest. S has enough in his academic record that they think he will make the scores, which is why the ones we asked were willing to meet with us, but they don’t want to waste time on a kid they can’t get past admissions.

12

At the Ivies or the NESCAC, they will have a minimum but a 31 and a solid gpa will meet it. The question is will the coach want to use that spot for this athlete? There are a few high academic/lower athletic ability kids who will get in (on their own, not with coach’s help) and boost the team averages, and there are a few high athletic/medium academic (no low academic kids get into the elite schools no matter how good they are), but most of the team will be very good athletes with very good academics, which is what I think your son is. Remember in lacrosse the Ivies are among the best teams, competing for the national championship, but lacrosse is a country club sport, and there are many top academic kids who are great athletes and have been playing for 10 years. The coaches have a lot of talent to pick from, academically and athletically.

At most schools, he’d be fine with those stats. At the very selective schools, he’ll be able to get a pre-read so it’s not like he’ll get to the application stage without knowing if he’ll be admitted to the school. Except Haverford. Be careful with Haverford.

If he’s really interested in playing, he might look west. In the last few years, a few schools have started new teams and have risen in the ranks very quickly. Marquette came on fast and beat the National Champions two years ago. If you look at the rosters, most players are from NY or the mid-atlantic region, strong players who probably wouldn’t have been starters at Maryland or Duke or Albany, but got a chance to shine in a new program. Utah is still a club team but wants to convert to NCAA in 2 years. There are opportunities there, probably a good deal of money, and a gorgeous school. Even as a club sport, they are playing the best club teams like Colorado, Colorado State, and the California schools. It’s very high level play.

13

Again, very helpful @dadof4kids and @twoinanddone . My son is not interested in super selective colleges. I have no idea if he is even good enough for a D3 team at this point. The level of schools he is currently considering ranges from U Vermont to Denison. He doesn’t want to attend any colleges with lots of smart people, he says. That is not his style, lol.

14

Odds of playing lax are still best than most - by a lot

Men
HS # NCAA # % to NCAA % NCAA Division I % NCAA Division II % to NCAA Division III
Baseball 488,815 34,554 7.1%. 2.1% 2.2% 2.8%
Basketball. 546,428 18,684 3.4% 1.0% 1.0% 1.4%
XC 257,691 14,412 5.6% 1.9% 1.4% 2.3%
Football 1,083,308 73,660 6.8% 2.6% 1.8% 2.4%
Golf 146,677 8,676 5.9% 2.0% 1.7% 2.2%
Ice Hockey 35,155 4,102 11.7% 4.6% 0.5% 6.5%
Lacrosse 109,522 13,446 12.3% 2.9% 2.3% 7.1%
Soccer 440,322 24,803 5.6% 1.3% 1.5% 2.8%
Swimming 133,470 9,455 7.1% 2.8% 1.1% 3.2%
Tennis 157,201 8,092 5.1% 1.7% 1.1% 2.4%
T&F. 591,133 28,334 4.8% 1.9% 1.2% 1.7%
Volleyball 55,417 1,899 3.4%. 0.7% 0.8% 1.9%
Water Polo 21,857 1,014 4.6% 2.6% 0.7% 1.3%
Wrestling 250,653 7,075 2.8% 1.0% 0.8% 1.0%

15

If he’s interested in Florida, there are a number of nice D2 schools - Tampa, Lynn, Rollins, Barry. Most haven’t even started recruiting juniors yet.

Find the schools he’s interested in and then check out the lacrosse program. I’m convinced almost anyone can play in college if they are willing to go to the schools that want them. Many schools will want your son because his grades are good and I bet his lax is pretty good too. He’ll have a nice source of money if he can ref youth and high school lax while he’s in college. My nephew can make $700 for a tournament weekend

16

The level of play at the higher levels of D2 is very much like the D1 experience - Adelphi, Limestone, LeMoyne, Mercyhurst are the top of the heap and would go head to head with Tufts, RIT, Salisbury, and Stevenson, amongst other D3’s. On the lower end of D2, the overall quality of the play takes a major step down, and at that point there are many stronger D3’s amongst the ~65 D2 teams and ~230 D3 teams.

17

Thanks, @Chembiodad , that’s useful.

18

If your son just wants to continue lacrosse (or another sport, like crew), and is not looking to be recruited, he’ll have walk-on or club opportunities at any college that carries lacrosse.

If he is looking for a recruiting hook, then there is a process. There are different NCAA rules governing recruiting at D1, D2 and D3 levels. In addition some conferences or groups of schools may enter into some form of agreement about their recruiting process and standards for athletic recruits. There may yet be another layer of rules and standards within each school as agreed to between the admissions office and the athletic department. If you are serious about pursuing recruiting, the first thing is to register your son with the NCAA. He will receive a unique ID that colleges will want. The website will also contain all of the NCAA rules applicable to the division and the sports.

@dadof4kids gives a pretty good general synopsis of the process that is not lax specific. While there are rules about when a coach can actively contact the athletes, the biggest work around are the camps/showcases that are either run by an organization or by schools. Both of my kids went through the process, one for softball, the other for baseball, and we observed that the big recruiting push is at different times for different sports and gender (girls tend to come earlier because they mature at a younger age). I have seen on other threads that the lacrosse process seems to start earlier (men and women). For baseball starting the summer between sophomore and junior year is not too late because physical maturity for baseball can come pretty late. This is when my son got on a bunch of radar screens, but the hardcore recruiting did not occur until the next summer. I think for “academic” kids pursuing Ivy, LACs, the coaches also needed some testing and gpa data before they would spend much time on any kid. So, I do think it is worthwhile for your son to attend some of these camps/showcases this summer.

Writing letters with the info that dadof4kids suggests is also a good idea. I would add that setting up a YouTube page with video of your son in live action and performing certain skills will also be helpful. It was a must for softball and baseball. The purpose of the letter is to pique the coaches’ interest so that they will look for you at the camps/showcases. A good video is worth a lot more than a bunch of words.

In terms of academic standards, there seems to be a lot of variation to the specific calculations/quota’s. The Ivies use a mechanical calculation called the Athletic Index that assigns a weighting to GPA and standardized test scores, including SAT II’s. There is a bottom AI number for any athletic recruit, and the mean of all recruits cannot be more than 1 standard deviation from the mean of all the students of that school. Each coach has a quota for his/her team. There can be some games played where the coach will recruit a very high AI athlete to offset a low one. Football recruits are “banded” as dadof4kids describes in post #8, although other sports do not band. The NESCAC and other selective D3’s generally use some form of banding process. If a coach is interested in your son, I am sure he/she will explain his/her schools process and standards. At a minimum, he/she will let you know if his academics are in the ballpark (or what he will need to score and maintain his gpa at) even before he/she submits a preread to the AO. Here is a site I found useful. There is an AI calculator for you to plug in your son’s stats. You can use it as a general guide for the NESCAC/band schools as well. http://www.tier1athletics.org/2012/10/01/academic-index-calculator-2016/

19

In my experience, most of the lacrosse recruiting happens during summer tournaments. What I mean by that is, kids who are playing on a club team that attend summer tournaments are the ones being seen by college coaches. D19 has been playing lacrosse since he was about 5 and has played club for many years. His team is coached by a former D1 coach and they play in very competitive tournaments every summer. The way it works around here (mid-Atlantic) is that if you are looking to get recruited, you put together a profile of yourself, identify the schools you are considering, and send those schools an email along with some film of you playing. In that email, you identify what tournaments you are attending, your team, your position, etc. Depending on many factors, they will either come watch you play and at least before the new ruling, if they are interested, communication b/w the college and your coach occurs, with the coach sort of being the go-between b/w player and college coach. While my son is not planning to play college lax, this is how it has worked for several of his teammates. On his club team, so far there are 5 or 6 kids already committed to D1 teams. And every tournament we go to, you can see the college coaches/scouts lining the fields. Depending on the tournament (many are high profile), you will see lots of D1 coaches, at other lesser profile tournaments, you will see either lower D1 schools or D3 schools. My son’s h.s. team also played in a tournament this summer, one that is not as “high profile” as the ones his club team plays in, however, because of the location (Maryland), there a couple of top 10 D1 (MD and Loyola were both there) and but many other smaller schools I’d never heard of that were D3 (Wesley and Marymount are two that I can remember).

The tournaments my son plays in have teams from all over the US but most are from MD, PA, NJ, NY - others are more regional all-star teams that come from places like CA, Denver, Minnesota, NC. I’m not sure where the OP is from, but if he wants to play in college (whether D3 or club), best bet would be to talk to his h.s. lax coach to find out how people in that area go about getting recruited to these type of schools. Around here, most of the kids who hope to play in college, even D3, play summer club in order to be seen/recruited. The D3 school recruiting seems to happen later in h.s. (summer after junior year) though now with the new rules, even D1 will happen later now too. A couple of D19’s teammates had verbally committed fall of their freshman year to top 10 D1 teams (too young IMO so I’m glad for the new rules). There is a boy who was a benchwarmer his junior and senior year on our h.s. team but he got a scholarship to D3 Marymount. I’m assuming he got recruited during the summer since it definitely wasn’t from h.s. play.

If the OP’s son really wants to play, I suggest looking at schools that have newer programs and agree with someone above who said to look at D2 also. But definitely start by talking with his h.s. coach to see how most kids are recruited from your area.

20

No one is ever going to confuse the college (or athletic) experience at Limestone with Syracuse or Albany or most D1 teams or the top D3 teams. D1 teams travel more and have nicer facilities, even teams that aren’t very good. Gettysburg is just nicer than Mt. Olive.

I don’t agree that the top D2’s can hold their own with the top D3’s. There is a difference in talent at the top, but if you drop out of the top 20 of the D3’s, then they are closer in ability to the D2’s (and the much lower D1’s)