Yep, that's me!  I could probably write a book or at least a blog about this topic. Does anyone really use blogs anymore?  I'll spare the details and just make a message board poast for fellow-old timers, trying to relate our experiences to the perceptions I had from the major men's sports...

Our daughter plays women's lacrosse. She is very good but still raw by national standards, as the training in Florida (and most of the USA) is quite poor compared to Maryland, New York, and the places in between  That's one big difference between our experience on the recruiting trail and those we all hear about in football and men's basketball.  Even though she started later than most kids who are being recruited nationally (she has only played 3 years), our daughter has made the Nike 120 and Under Armour 150 for her class. A couple of weeks ago, she was an All-Star at the UNC (defending national champs) winter camp and scored the winning goal in that All-Star game.  Compared to most kids on the national recruiting scene -- kids from Maryland and those other places where the training is great -- our daughter has just appeared.  It's with that context from which our experiences are framed.

One thing -- at least in the lacrosse world, parents talk to each other. A lot.  Every rumor gets shared, repeated, debunked, then rehashed again anyway...  We as parents are looking for as much information as we can get, and it's sometimes hard to remember not to believe everything you read on the Internet. An "insider" rumor about a coach gets considered seriously, and my guess is that goes for sports we all care about, football and basketball.  Try to remember this the next time you post something.

Women's lacrosse, which is probably more like the typical NCAA sport, has some major differences in recruiting than what we normally hear.  I imagine football recruiting in the 1940s... it might be something like this, except add Youtube highlight footage and text messaging to a 1945 recruiting budgets. To me, that appears to be how coaches evaluate talent.  The most common way for a kid to be seen is to go to the preferred college at a camp run by the coaching staff.  That got our daughter on the UNC radar.

The second major method college coaches have is travel ball, known as "club lacrosse" for this sport.  Club lacrosse is simply an all-star team comprised of girls from the same class year.  The big clubs have multiple teams for each year from maybe 5th grade through the junior year of high school.  This is one area where Florida (the state, not UF) is very underdeveloped, although there are people trying to make good things happen on this front.  Our daughter made a top club team in Maryland -- it is currently the #2 team for freshmen in the country -- and that is how she first got some attention.  These club teams compete against each other major national tournaments, and the Division 1 coaches show up to watch the games.  It's a little weird to me, as the coaches just stand on the sidelines as parents would (the opposite sideline, of course!).  I'm unsure how they get a really good view of what's happening on the field.  At the really big games, the coaches are definitely noticeable.  When our daughter's club team played the #1 club team in the country -- their top team is #1 in every grade because it is the side team for a lacrosse factory named The McDonough School -- when they played to a 6-6 tie (2 goals for our daughter), our club counted 100 coaches from 75 D1 programs standing on the sidelines for that game.

Apparently, the coaches use relationships as their #1 talent evaluation tool.  Does the girl star for M&D Black (McDonough's top team)?  Well, she must be a Top 10 recruit in the country that everyone should want!!  Because the college coaches have limited time and budget to recruit -- remember they are literally standing on the sideline of some cow pasture in Maryland or New Jersey for maybe 3-4 weekends a  year to see the talent play -- the college coaches appear, to me, to defer a lot to people in the club system who have been around for a long time.  It seemed crazy at first, but then I thought about it.  What else can they do?  Recently, college coaches have tried to mitigate the potential errors inherent in this approach by recruiting more girls then playing the ones who actually improve once they arrive on campus, but is that enough?  Will the traditional powers of UNC and Maryland be able to continue recruiting from a network as the sport expands nationally at such a rapid pace?  This will be very interesting to me.

The college coaches just supported an NCAA rules change that takes effect Aug 1. The new rule prohibits the college coaches from contacting the club coach before the recruit's junior year of high school. Until Aug 1, the club coach essentially circumvents the prohibition of NCAA programs contacting kids before their junior years.  I believe this rule was DIRECTED AT the club coaches. While Maryland and UNC may not always mind the club system being gatekeeper to the kids, mu guess is most programs would rather wait to recruit kids when they are older, more mature, and more open minded to options across the country!

The hardest thing for these coaches to do is project how a 14-year old girl running around Maryland in the summer will perform in the NCAA tournament as a college kid.  I don't see how their processes collect enough data for them to do this well.  To be honest, this concerns me the most.  How do we know what will actually "fit" for our daughter when she gets to school?  We'll collect as much info on the schools, programs, and coaches as we can, then we will help our daughter make the best decision for her.  Now that she has one great Pac-12 offer and two more schools have called (yes UFNY, including THAT one), it may be out west for her no matter what!  We'll just have to see...

I've already written too much. If you have any specific questions, reply here or send a Mudmail.  If you are also the parent of a recruit in some sport, please reply with your experiences here. I am very interested in reading what other families hear and do. 

PS No offer yet from UF, but she has offers from all of UF's main competitors.  She is on UF's radar screen and vice versa.  Every program appears to be on a slightly different time line.  We'll know a lot more at the end of the summer...

PPS Believe it or not, UF may not be the best place for her.  Yes, we are long-time boosters, and my wife is on two boards at the university.  My wife is also an F Club member.  This would seem like the ultimate no-brainer at first glance.  At the moment, while UF is in the mix, other schools lead for her right now. It's a crazy life!