At my son’s high school, the FOGO (face off) junior took a verbal commit to a good school in September. Yay! My son is the FOGO with chops of his own, but he’s 1 grade below FOGO Number One. Even tho FOGO #1 is already committed to a college, and my son, who everyone says is “equally as talented” - the coach NEVER PLAYS HIM. Even the other parents in the stands turn around and look at me and say, “Why isn’t the coach playing Charlie?” This means my son get no stats, no game film, no “Player of the Week,” no buzz. Rule at our school: no one talks to coach re playing time.
But shouldn’t a coach somewhat be about giving exposure to the up-and-comers, especially when they are winning a game by 10 points? I am NOT a complainer. Johns Hopkins looked at my kid as a 9th grader. Oh - and the other, older FOGO? His parents pay for him to play in the coach’s summer travel team for 5 years.
At what point am I allowed to ask what’s going on?
Not sure what sport your son plays, but doesn’t he play club or AAU? My D plays college ball and not one coach was looking for film from HS games. All wanted club and AAU. If your S does not play AAU or club, make sure you have film when he does play HS.
@mamom is correct. If your son plays club lacrosse all of his exposure will come from that team. If you son does not play club lacrosse and is getting looks from JHU, more power to you!
As for talking to coach, it sounds like the player in front of him is deserving of the playing time. FOGO’s get so little time as it is, I can’t say I blame him for not splitting the time. It is generally a specialist position. If anyone is going to be talking to the coach, it should be your son and I would think carefully about how he wants to frame that conversation. Perhaps taking a “how can I bring my game to the next level, my goal is to play in college” approach would be helpful.
I think your son can talk to the coach about his role on the team. Not necessarily playing time but just what the coach sees as his role. Does your son also play positions other than FOGO? I think he has the right to ask the coach “How can I get more playing time? Should I concentrate on defense? Should I become a field player?”
If the #1 guy is playing on the coach’s club team, the coach is going to play him. Coach has a financial incentive to do so, to show everyone that the club is great and produces good players and therefore parents should pay for their sons to play for that club too. Even though #1 has already committed, he still wants the stats to win awards. Also, he could get better offers from higher ranking lax schools. Lots of kids commit but later change to a different school if a better offer comes. They do not stop playing in showcases and tournaments just because they have committed. And they don’t want to sit on the bench either, they want to play.
The kid who was ‘Mr. Lax’ in our state a few years ago decommitted as a senior and didn’t make his decision until March of senior year. He needed every one of those playing minutes even though he had tons of offers starting when he was a sophomore.
It does seem odd not to give playing time to bench players during “garbage time”, in order to rest the starters and avoid getting them injured, as well as give the bench players real game experience.
It really depends on the coach and his philosophy in building a team whether everyone should get playing time or if the starts should pile on the stats with more goals.
My daughter played women’s lax, so 12 on the field at a time. Coach rarely played more than 15 in a game and those 3 subs played about 5 minutes. If they were ahead by 10 or more goals, she subbed in more, but never all at once. She usually left the middies in to control the field and honestly, if we were ahead by 10, that meant the defense had barely worked up a sweat.
Only one coach in our conference used 10-12 players off the bench in every game.
On my son’s hockey team the parents are not allowed to talk to the coach. There is a parent rep who communicates with the parents. The captain communicates with the boys. It’s really quite a brilliant system. Personally I love it because there are no favorites, no drama, and I imagine it allows the coach to enjoy the boys and game.
With that being said, at the one and only parent meeting pre-season the coach said, “If your son has a problem with playing time don’t come to me. However, your player can talk to me at anytime. We can discuss why he isn’t playing and what he can do to get more time.” I thought that was appropriate and fair. Maybe rather than you talking to the coach your son can?
Yeah, different sports but my kids were told in a couple different clubs that any discussion you think you want to have with a coach requires that you wait 24 hours (if related to a specific game) and then begin with player and coach, and then escalate to player coach and parents, and then you can add in the club director/athletic director. But it has to start with a constructive “What do I have to do? I do want to play in college.”
My daughter was in that position - she almost never got HS playing time. Apparently it was about beefing up starter stats which blew my mind. Anyway, she played club and got recruited so it can be done. I took film during club and when she was JV.
I agree and yet it doesn’t happen much – my D plays college lacrosse and even there I see the same thing. I don’t get it myself. I would think an overall stronger team and a good bench that has experience would be better but…
This weekend’s NFL games will showcase a number of “garbage games” which are meaningless for one or both teams (or desirable to lose for some teams trying to get better draft positions). Expect some starters to have limited or no playing time to protect them from injury while the backups get real game playing time.
Slight contradiction there. But in any event, why would you ask what’s going on? Isn’t that a conversation for your son to have? I’ve known college coaches who’ve cut kids because their parents are asking about playing time for their precious.
As someone who coached HS lacrosse and had a son who played college lacrosse, high school exposure means very little in recruiting… it’s club lax and recruiting events.
My son left NC (where he would have been All-state) to play in the Founder’s League on a team with 26 D1 commits. He barely played but got recruited heavily and played in college.
Also, college lax isn’t the panacea everyone envisions it as. Very little money available and very few kids play all 4 years …
I agree with you @Cavitee that lax recruiting is all about Club - at the highest level. Drop down 20=40 or so spots in rankings for D1 or D3, or look at D2, and there are plenty of teams looking for recruits and some have pretty good scholarships. My daughter played on a very low profile club team and still had offers from D1 and D3 schools, but not top ranked ones. She ended up at a D2 and had her pick of a number of those.
Lax recruiting also heavily favors east coast players. The Maryland high school my brothers went to had more than 25 commit to D1 teams this year. Out west? The top hs has a handful of D1 commits.
Playing time at college is going to be given to the top players.