I sat down this week on the Quintessential Podcast with Maryland coach John Tillman. We talked about the 2024 Terp season that ended in the NCAA title game, their magical playoff run of three wins, transfer portal impact and the summer recruiting circuit.
I asked him: What are some trends you’re seeing this summer? What’s catching your eye?
John Tillman: I think, for a lot of us college coaches, high school coaches, parents and even the kids – I think there are a lot of guys playing too much lacrosse.
I understand there’s a sense of musical chairs – if you’re a young player and you want to go to college and play, and you’re a parent, you feel the need to make sure that you’re out getting seen, because when the music stops, you want a chair to sit in.
Q: How did we get here?
JT: I thought there was a little bit of overaction after Covid that people signed up for too much and did too much, and that would back off over time. I don’t think we’ve seen that back off. I feel like there are kids playing more than ever.
Q: What’s changed?
JT: We now have four college coaches per team that can go on the road. So you have more eyeballs out. There are more events than ever. And sometimes what people forget is, our job is to go out and find the great players. And if you are from an obscure club or an obscure high school, our job is to find you, even if you’re not at the biggest events.
So if someone is playing for a prominent high school and a prominent club, and then they’re doing a lot of showcases, and then they’re jumping on another select team and another select team…You’re seeing guys playing sometimes 11 straight days or 15 days out of 18.
Q: That’s not smart. It’s too much. Stop the madness.
JT: That’s a lot, especially when a lot of times in these tournaments. You’re playing no less than three games a day in really hot weather. Or if you make the playoffs, you’re playing sometimes five games, and you would rarely do that. A college athlete would usually take a day off and rest your body and hydrate.
Q: The price to pay for chasing the dream is the physical health and mental wellness of the athlete.
JT: We are seeing a lot more overuse injuries like hamstrings, hip flexors and back issues.
Q: These injuries pop up at the high school level and then are compounded in college as the volume gets turned up. Common sense adjustments to the summer recruiting calendar would benefit everyone.
JT: We, as a coach’s group, need to put in more dead periods to help with it, because we’re seeing a lot of the same kids over-and-over again.
I think the families mean well, and it sounds good in December. But when you’re in it, when it’s really hot, the guys are tired. You’re just not seeing that love of competition. You are not seeing that enthusiasm by everybody.
Q: The players aren’t thriving. They are in survival mode.
JT: It just seems like it’s a lot. More is not more. And I think I speak for a lot of coaches because we keep having these conversations. The college coaches, and even some of the High School coaches, because they’re worried about their student-athletes.
Q: Recruits benefit from playing multiple sports. Being a multi-sport athlete prepares you for the demands of playing college lacrosse. But more importantly, being a multi-sport athlete in high school prepares you for life.
JT: You learned so much from playing other sports, whether it’s football or soccer, hockey or wrestling, and you’re worried that they do so much lacrosse that maybe they can’t play those sports, and there’s so much benefit from getting a break and putting your stick down and doing something else. And then being excited to pick up your stick again.
So, is there a way where we can somehow meet in the middle and help everybody just have a healthier experience?
Q: It’s the race to nowhere where people are so focused on
exposure that they forget about improvement and putting their best foot forward. The calendar needs reform.
JT: I understand why they (parents) do it. I can see why there is anxiety. Are we at a point where we need to step in and say, all right, you know what? We’re going to add limits. Right now, we have a dead period from July 2 to July 6. Do we elongate that dead period to a full week? Do we add another one?
Q: I would go even further. Should Monday through Thursday be off limits all summer long? Should the month of August be a dead period?
This is America and event operators have a right to be in business. It’s critical to understand that event operators care about the money in their pockets. They don’t care about the health and wellbeing of your son or daughter. If they did, events would offer holistic speakers on –
- Time management
- Drug and alcohol awareness
- Strength & conditioning
- Speed training
- The perils of social media
- Relationship awareness
- College counseling
None of them do. All they care about is the money. They want to take your money, let you play, hopefully without incident and send you back on the road. They could care less about the holistic development of your child. They are not educators. They are lax entrepreneurs. The only solution is for the college coaches, the evaluators, to say enough is enough. We aren’t going to your tournament. We need time off during the summer.
JT: The summer calendar will be discussed because we had a coaches survey go out, asking those questions. That will be discussed at our coach’s convention in December.
What should the coaches do to intervene? It’s not only the amount of money the families are spending, but parents taking time off from work feeling like you need to be everywhere, and kids are not having a healthy summer. And I worry about young coaches feeling like they need to be everywhere. And now there’s no balance in their life. And their families are taking the hit. So, I hope that maybe we peel it back a little bit. Everybody would win, it would be better for everybody in general.
Q: It’s time to pump the brakes. Less is more. Burnout is real.
Be mindful of your time spent in practice compared to game ratio. In season, college lacrosse players invest at least 20 hours of practice and training for every two-hour game. The summer sweet spot for a high school player is a ratio around 10 to 1. That’s ten hours of practice for every hour of game action. Meaning prospects should be actively training their skills in a small group environment where teaching, touches and reps are ample.
Think about summer more as a time for development and less as a period of exposure. Too many players are under performing because of event burnout and would be smarter to invest more time into their skill base before stepping onto the big stage.
Playing better in less events > playing poorly every weekend.
