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Five things a lacrosse recruit should know
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Five Things A Lacrosse Recruit Should Know

There’s a lot more to being a successful lacrosse recruit than what you do on the field. The process can and will throw things at you that you didn’t expect or consider, and you should know some aspects of the lacrosse recruit experience before you embark on your journey.

One of the hardest things you’ll do as a young person is be a lacrosse recruit. This is likely the first major decision of your life, and there is a lot being asked of you at such a young age. It can feel overwhelming, but there are a number of things you can do to help get through the process.

Five Things a Lacrosse Recruit Should Know

It’s Good to Feel Good About Being a Lacrosse Recruit

Congratulations on being part of the recruiting process! You’ve worked very hard to get to this point. This is one of the best times of your young life, and you should enjoy it. Everyone loves to be loved, and during this process, you might hear from a lot of different programs that will try to get you to be part of their future. Appreciate the opportunity to chart your own path and continue your lacrosse career while earning a degree.

Someone’s Always Watching

College athletics is becoming more and more of a pressure-filled industry. There is a tremendous amount at stake for coaches. They used to be able to take chances on people, but that is happening less and less.

Every coach is one bad incident away from possibly being fired. That is in their minds when they’re evaluating a lacrosse recruit.

The typical first two questions coaches have about recruits: “how are their grades?” and “what type of person are they?” Your coaches, teachers, opposing coaches, school administrators, and even people in passing are watching you and forming an opinion at all times. Make sure the opinion they have is the correct one and good representation of who you are as a person. It will matter to your lacrosse recruitment.

Like Robert DeNiro said in the movie Casino: “the eye in the sky is watching us all.”

Grades Unlock Possibilies

The better your grades, the more scholarship money you can get. Make no bones about it, higher education is a huge business, and the less debt you carry once you graduate will help you get your post-athletic career off on the right foot.

A lacrosse recruit should make sure they do well in the classroom. Know this: coaches are evaluated on what their players do in the classroom as well. Graduation and retention rates can have an effect on scholarship money in the eyes of the NCAA, so it is very important that you do your academic work and unlock more scholarships!

Coaches want players who they don’t have to worry about in the classroom. 

Be Mature in Your Communication

Many young people lack maturity. Those who depart from the norm stand out to all college coaches. How a lacrosse recruit communicates with coaches will shape their view of them.

How you text and talk to your friends isn’t necessarily the way you want to build a relationship with a potential coach. In most cases, coaches act as surrogate parents while you’re in college, so keep that in mind as you build that relationship. Be responsive to coaches who reach out to you, even if you’re not interested in their school, which brings me to my next point…

It’s Okay to Say You’re Not Interested

This is one of the hardest parts for a lacrosse recruit and one of the things they dread doing, but it’s okay to let a school know that you’re not interested in them.

Coaches would prefer to be told that so they can move on and try to fill that spot elsewhere. At the end of the day, it is YOUR decision on what you think is best for your future, and the only people who should have any input on that are the people closest to you.

Coach offer opportunities. Whether or not that opportunity is the best for you is your decision. Don’t string people along. If you’re legitimately not interested, it’s okay to be upfront about it. Coaches will respect that, and you never know when you may cross paths with those coaches agian.

Don’t ghost coaches. If you’ve visited a school and had multiple conversations with them, they deserve a call, text, or email letting them know you’ll be going somewhere else. Those calls hurt, but they are necessary and respected. It’s all part of the game.