Episode 7 - A look at recruiting

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Yay. All right. So welcome back to In the Crease, a podcast about uh coast to coast, about D2 lacrosse, men's side, obviously, is what we focus in on. I'm here with uh Danny Moran. This is Kevin Stenstrom, and we're back again. How you doing, Danny?

SPEAKER_01 0:19

I'm doing well, Kev. How you been?

SPEAKER_02 0:21

I've been good. It's been a quick summer already. We're in the middle of July. It feels like you know, just yesterday we did the podcast for the championship, and and things just got away from us from all the things we're doing over the summer. But we wanted to get one more pack podcast in, at least on this season, right?

SPEAKER_01 0:36

That's correct.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

Yeah. So, you know, we had talked about this before. Um, and now that we're not in any kind of games or talking about the different conferences or really in D2, like we said, what we'd like to do is end up this season now. We'll probably start up again in the fall, especially if we can get what we wanted to, which is bringing guests on, you know, either from different conferences, coaches, you know, sports information directors, and and get their perspectives from their conference, their teams, what they look for, what they're looking forward to in the next season. That's kind of where we want to go in the fall. But to really wrap up for this season, our first season doing uh in the crease, we really want to focus one last time on on kind of giving our perspectives of recruiting and not just recruiting from maybe what the coaches look for, but recruiting perspective from a parent's perspective from two dads who've who have gone through it. You Danny have actually gone through it more than once, actually, three times now. I just I'm a I'm a rookie, I've only done it once, but uh it's interesting when you go through that, especially as a beginning of a parent. Sometimes you even start out. I remember my son was a freshman in high school, and still right starting to navigate that, right? And you really you start off with, how do I even get started? What do I do to start to have my son or daughter looking down to where they should go and be recruited and what do I need to look at? What do I need to kind of do? So I'll start off with you. How do you how do you even get started? What do you recommend?

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Well, you know, I think I think living on Long Island, I I had a little bit of an advantage because of the level of lacrosse here that starts so early. So a lot of the high school teams up here are very good and actually draws coaches for high school games. You know, we have the St. Anthony's up here, we have the Shamanades, we have the Manhasset's, the Shoreham Wading Rivers. These high schools are national high school level lacrosse. And being from Long Island, I think we have a little bit of an advantage in that the coaches are drawn here and the level is so high, excuse me, at a at a younger level. But I think what we should talk about is if your child isn't from one of those hotbed areas, how do you get them recruited? Well, I think the big thing is uh parents, parents have to almost really super duper evaluate your son and his talent. I think parents might have visions of grandeur sometimes when it comes to their child and their lacrosse and their sports or whatever, they might exaggerate how good they are or or where they are in life. And I think for me, I was very honest with my boys. I'm like, hey, I think you're here. You shouldn't look at those schools, you should look at these schools. But on the other side of that, you have to, as a parent, if you want your child to be recruited, you almost, I hate to say the word, but you have to almost pimp your son or your daughter. Um it's in a way, for lack of a better word, I uh you really have to do that. And and you have to get him out or her out there and and have them seen by the coaches. So, how do you do that? So we have a number of different avenues that we can run as far as recruiting. I think number one, go ahead, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

Oh, so let me stop you there before you go into that, because I found what one thing you said, and we've talked about you and I have talked about this before, right? Honest evaluation. So when my son was in seventh, eighth grade and and freshman year of high school, he had visions of grandeur of um D1, right? And if I did an evaluation of his talent then, when I was doing evaluation of his talent then, and I didn't come from a hotbed school, hotbed area. I mean, we live in Northern Virginia, we don't get the schools that get the looks around here are all the private schools, and my son went to a public school. So there was already something that was going to be, he was going to be behind in that. But if I did the honest evaluation, I think one of the things you said to me when we've talked about this before is if your son is not the best player on the field, then D1 may not be a good, may not be the right choice for him. May not be, he may not be at that level. And when I looked at my when I looked at my son, my son was always one one of the best on the field, but he was rarely the best on the field. In fact, he had a classmate in his school with him who was a better lacrosse player than he was, so all around, you know, they played different positions, they both played offense, but you know, so I think that I I really loved when you said that to me before. When we this wasn't on any podcast, this was you and I having discussions of if your son is not the best player, you may want to look at other avenues. And I did talk to my son early on about don't just look at D1. If you want to play college lacrosse, you we need to look at everything. Absolutely, right? So I I I I wanted to say that because I thought that was such a great way to look at it in a lot of ways, just a one um one uh mark, right? One level that you can really say, is he there or not there?

unknown 6:28

Right.

SPEAKER_02 6:28

And so that's that's it.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Well, you have to again evaluate your son as a player. Is he the best? Is he the top five on that team? Is he is he playing against top-notch uh uh opponents and doing well? There's so many avenues, there's so many things. Again, you have to be as a parent extremely, extremely honest in your evaluation. My oldest wanted to play D1. He had the size, but he didn't have the speed. He just did not have the speed. And it was simple, you know, it was simple. He he didn't have the athleticism. He was a good lacrosse player, good enough to get a scholarship and go D2. He just wasn't D1 material. My middle guy, he happened to be very athletic and got looks from all three divisions. Different story with him. My third guy might not have the athleticism as my middle guy, but might have a little bit more to his game than my older guy. Again, not Division I material. One of the better kids on the team, always, you know, maybe one one and one, one and two uh in the afternoon. You know, he's always in the in the scorebox at the end of the day, but that's not important. He plays the game right and he's got the vision and he passes well and all of that, but he's not division one player, he's just not. And we spoke about it, Joe. Hey, this is what you need to do, Sean. This is what you need to do. TJ, this is what you need to do. So it found its spot. Again, we live on Long Island, hotbed, a lot of looks early, blah, blah, blah. But we we're we're trying to get to the people who who are living in Virginia and Georgia and Kansas City.

SPEAKER_02 8:25

How do you get looked at? Right. And so before we go there, that's another good thing to say. So I remember when uh my son was on a travel team and I was talking to the the coaches, and they actually recruited him to come to this travel team. And and one of the things I said, I I like the the team, I like the coaches. One of the things I need is kind of the guidance. And one of the things he said was, this is like his freshman year, one of the things he said, look it, I'll tell you right now, we live in Virginia. It's very it's practically impossible for most of these kids in this area to go to D1 because they have not played as many years as those that live in Long Island and Baltimore. They pick up the stick later. Their skill sets then are a little bit farther behind. That doesn't mean they can't, but you need to you need to be honest and look at other avenues. So I once again, you said the right thing. You're in a hotbed. You actually can probably, you probably could have measured your sons against the the St. Anthony's and the shamanades and those players. Whereas here in Northern Virginia, my son was at the top of Northern Virginia, but you know, he wasn't playing the shamanades and the St. Anthony's schools all the time. You know, he just didn't do that. So you've got to be honest about that. So, but let's go back to what you were starting off as the things that you would key in on for how you get your son looked at.

SPEAKER_01 9:45

So the first thing, again, evaluate your son, figure out where he is athletically and academically. If he's not, you know, 3.5, 3.7 student, that you're shutting the door on some schools that he could possibly get into. So grades are very important and and we'll always imply how important the grades are. But I think you have to get a good highlight film together, especially after sophomore year. Like your sophomore year of high school, the parents should be uh recording everything that they do, every game, school games, and if they're in a rec league, you know, video that. And if they're on a travel team, video video those. Video everything after his sophomore year. His sophomore year should have been videoed. Unfortunately, for my youngest son, his sophomore year was the year of COVID. They'd canceled the season. So we struggled to get highlight film. The highlight film I had was him as a freshman. He was five foot nothing and he had grown to 5'11. I couldn't put out that highlight with him being so small. He had grown so much. So we struggled to get highlight film, but we managed to get it. We we had some fall and we got him into a fall league up here in Long Island, which was competitive. We played some good teams and blah, blah, blah. So, anyway, get that highlight film. Don't let it be five, six, seven minutes long. That's too long. That's far too long. Coaches are not gonna sit for eight minutes and watch a highlight film. So make it three minutes. And what your position is, is depends on what kind of highlight film it's gonna be. If you're a FOGO, you know, I had a coach say to me, I never saw a FOGO lose a lose a face off on a highlight film, you know. Right. So every highlight for a FOGO is, you know, them winning. So if you're a FOGO, you might want to throw a couple of highlights of um, maybe you not winning the initial clamp, but fighting for that 50-50 ground ball, something like that. You know, you you might want to throw some of those in. If you don't win the clamp and you don't and you miss the 50-50 ball, and the the other FOGO gets the ball and you cause a turnover and pick it up, they want to see that type of stuff too. So if you're a FOGO, just not face offs that you win, because every every every face-off kid in the world is doing that.

SPEAKER_02 12:26

Yeah, yeah, I think that's a really good point. So, my son who who uh played attack in in high school, now he's playing MIDI, but played attack. Um, and it's highlight film that we did, and we did exactly what you said. Actually, kind of interesting. We filmed everything a sophomore year. My wife did most of it because if I was filming, I'd screw up the filming because I'd watch the game more than keep it focused on him. But um but but what we did for some of his highlights weren't the great goals, not all just great goals and some great passing for assists. We had some things in there where he picked up ground balls or he rode on defense when they lost the ball and got the ball back. Yeah, because that showed more uh you know, a broader game than we thought that would would show well. What do you think about like yeah?

SPEAKER_01 13:22

That's perfect. If you're an attackman, you should have some highlights of you riding hard, you know, perhaps maybe causing a turnover. You know, hey, if you're a good passer, show show some really great passes. You know, that's coaches love that stuff. Coaches love the little things for an attackman. They know that you can score. You know, they they do their homework, they see that highlight film, they're gonna do that. If they like it, they're gonna do their homework. They're gonna call the coach, they're gonna ask about them, you know, that type of thing. So the things on your highlight film are very important. Again, keep it to like three minutes. That first minute better be very exciting and eye-catching. That first 60 seconds. So you you want to grab that coach's attention right away. So, you know, you you don't want film that's you know taken from the top of the box and it looks like an ant out there, and you can't really tell which is who. You know, you want you want something that's a little better quality, a little closer, maybe, that type of thing. So that's very important because now in the days of emailing, you can email that highlight film to every single code that you want. You know, you can just email it to them and just click on it and bam. And so that's that's another thing. So, what we got? Evaluate your son, make sure you evaluate it honestly. Get that highlight film and get it and make sure it's not a long one. Make sure that it's exciting and it shows different parts of his game. For example, my son's highlight film, my middle son, um his highlight film basically started out with him just causing turnovers and transition. He had some highlights, four or five turnovers caused turnovers on defense and transitions or transition assists. That's the way we started out. So it was exciting, you know, bang, ball down, scoop up, run, pass, score, like exciting lacrosse. The end of his uh highlight film was him scoring. You know, so we started out with the exciting stuff. You know, this is what we feel that this is his best attribute, you know, his his defense and his transition game. We know that he can score. We know that we can do other things. And and and coaches know that too. So now Joe, my youngest, his highlight film, he's a shooter. That's what he is. You know, his highlight film is him scoring, stepping in, um, dodging, you know, scoring, just scoring. Um, some of his uh clearing because he's a midfielder. So we have highlights of him clearing the ball, um, causing turnovers, that type of thing, playing defense. So all of those are on the highlight film. And you want, again, make it quick, make it exciting. You might have to spend a few dollars, um, parents, you know, to to get a professional maybe to put the graphics on it. You know, this is uh Ronan Stenstrom from such and such a high school, and he's a 3.7 GPA.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

Yep, we did that. We hired someone to edit and put the the stats up there up front. Um, you know, and and we did not put music to ours. Okay. We thought that would be, I mean, everyone kind of does that, but most most coaches are looking at the film. That that was our belief. So we didn't even do music to the one after a sophomore year. We did his highlights, and but we had someone professionally edited for us.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Well, that's again, you're gonna have to pay some money a little bit here and there, you know. Uh, if you want to get your son recruited, again, it's like here we go. I hate to say the word, but you're pimping your son. So now you've got this highlight film, you you you've recorded everything in his sophomore year, and now you're gonna send it out to coaches. Okay. Coaches might respond, coaches might not respond. It it depends on what you know, each coach, each school is different. Yeah. So what's what's next? What's next in the recruiting stage? Okay, mom, dad, how far do you want your baby to go away? How far away are you willing to let your child go? I know parents that won't let their child go more than a two-hour car drive. And it's just the way it is. Whether they're only children, you know, a lonely, only child, and the parents are like, oh, my son's not going to Georgia. He's gonna stay right here near mom and dad, you know. Two hours I can go up and see his game, and two-hour drive, I can be home. He can come home two hours on the weekends. Some parents are like that, they don't want their kids far away. So that's a question you have to ask your son. How far how and and parents have to ask themselves, how far away are you willing to let your pay your babies go? And that that's a big one. That's a big one. Because some school, there might be a school in Georgia that's really interested in your son, and your son is from New Jersey. And you're like, I don't know if I want a son going to Georgia, New Jersey. It's a 14-hour drive. Yeah, you know, it's like it's it's part of it, it's part of it. So that's one thing. So now, so we got evaluation, highlight film. Now you have to start thinking about how far away you want to go. All part of the recruiting process. Now you're narrowing it down. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:07

Now, yeah, how about the the uh I'll go the opposite way of that is what does your son want to study, and what size school perhaps does he want to go to? Very good questions. All very good, all very good. Because what I did with my son is I built a spreadsheet of I looked at uh at back his freshman year was D1 through D3 of schools that had what he kind of wanted as a major. And at the time he was thinking of Navy ROTC. So those also that have Navy ROTC. That then morphed by his sophomore year of really sophomore junior year, of not our focusing on ROTC anymore, especially because most of them that we knew of that had ROTC and lacrosse were the Navy ROTC, were some of the big D1 schools. So we already knew that that probably wasn't going to be an option based on how we evaluate, you know, evaluated and what kind of schools had already reached out. But we built a whole spreadsheet of did they have what he wanted in a major, what size was the school, and was it you know, D1, D2, and D3? And those were the ones we kind of uh as we built that down. Now those are the ones that we started to reach out, or he's that's the other thing I did. I'm interested to hear that. Like, I didn't reach out to him, I didn't reach out to any any schools. That was on him. We went through the spreadsheet, we talked about it, then he would reach out to the coaches. What do you think about that? Am I am I I don't want to get you off your track thought, but I'm just curious of that. Maybe I am getting you off track, but you know, no, you know, not getting me off track.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Um, actually, you know, you it makes perfect sense what you did, and and you you you go with what you have. Again, you're from Northern Virginia. Maybe not all the coaches are there, maybe not all the evaluators are there. So you have to do something a little bit more different. You you evaluated your son, you got a highlight film together, and then you started to narrow down schools. And because of certain things, you eliminated schools because of it, you felt it was D1 and you felt your son wasn't D1 level, and at least maybe at that time. You did you did a smart thing as a parent. Again, he has to know something. But I'll be honest with you if you asked my kids what they want for dinner tonight, they couldn't tell you. So, how do you ask a sixteen, seventeen year old kid, hey, what do you think you want to major in? That's a hard question.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

Yeah, very, very valid point. I mean, at the time. And this is uh data point. At the time, my son knew what he wanted. Uh, my older son, who was already in college, had already had a had been bore focused for four years in high school, what major he wanted. After his first semester, he changes his major. My son, who's plays lacrosse, he knew what he thought what he wanted. He went in for that major. He's he's now a different major than that as well.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

So that's what happens. You know, you get you you think you want to go one area. For example, my middle son went in as an accounting major. Uh, first semester, took a marketing course, loved it, and changed his major instantly and became a marketing major.

SPEAKER_02 22:42

Well, I think that's important, right? I think that's important. I mean, some of the things we looked at too. What's the diversity of the curriculum and majors that they have so that they have some other choices? Some schools have not a lot, others have, and most schools are getting much better on having a more diverse um curriculum of majors that you can pick from. And I think that's an important thing, you know, because like you talked about, you know, it's not just all athletics, it's academics. What I always said to my son was you need to like the school almost before you like just the lacrosse program. Because if you get injured and you cannot play the sport anymore, would you want to be at that school?

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Another, another valid, valid thing to say. Could you see yourself going to school if you didn't play lacrosse there? Right. Could you know, could you see yourself there? So that's that's another thing. That's that's picking colleges. That's in a little different avenue than recruiting. So we're starting to go off, you know. We want to start to, we want to stay with how we can get our kids recruited. But those are all valid points, you know. Hey, does that school have that major? Does that school is it far away from home? These are all things that's part of the process.

SPEAKER_02 24:05

All right. So bring me back then. Bring me back on recruiting. Get me uh get me back in line.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

Yeah. So, but you know what, they're all good points, and they're they're they're points that should be brought up. There's probably there might be parents out there that know not a lot about sports and lacrosse, but their kids is stud, you know? So another part of recruiting is having a coach at either either your high school coach or your travel team. We'll get into travel team in a second because that's part of the recruiting team as well. Um, is your high school coach willing to send out emails and and keep you abreast of situations that are coming up? For example, my son's, my youngest son's uh travel coach wasn't as uh, he didn't know a lot about which tournaments were coming up and which camps were coming up. Whereas my middle son's coach knew all about that stuff. He knew a lot of coaches, he he was on top of things. Hey guys, I think you guys should all try out for this Brian Under Armored team. You know, your chances of getting on the team are not very good, but you'll be seen by a lot of coaches. You know, it might be worth the $99 to go out and play for two days, and you never know what can happen. And that's gonna be, but there's gonna be 150 to 200 coaches in all three divisions to add that something. So you know you make the team, but you go and you try out anyway, because there's a chance that you do something in front of a coach that he likes.

SPEAKER_02 25:57

Yeah, so two good points there, uh, that I'll I'll I'll uh add on to one, uh a coach that will help in the recruiting process. So I would say my son's high school coach was not that, but his travel team coaches, he had a couple that were were willing to help. And part of that is the exact same thing that you just said tournaments. Like so my son uh did the regional tryout for Under Armour, same thing. It was gonna be a long shot that he got in. In fact, we knew he wasn't gonna get it, but we got he got recruited heavily by uh D2 and D3 schools based on that that tryout.

SPEAKER_01 26:38

Well, there you go. That's that's one way of getting your son in front of coaches, and I think that in the recruiting process, that's the most important thing. You have to get in front of those coaches. How do you get in front of those coaches? Right. Okay, you know how's one way? Go to their prospect day. You find out when and where such and such a school is having a lacrosse prospect day. It might be $150 for you to go for the day and play with the team and you play in front of the coaches and you do drills, and you'll run some games. They might throw, you know, if there's 70 kids at their little prospect day, they'll try to make, you know, three teams and go through drills in the morning, have a nice lunch for the kids, maybe take them on a tour of the school, and and then they play games in the afternoon. And let me tell you something, coaches film those games. They film them. So you go down that prospect day, you think you're just playing in front of a coach. They're filming them. So when they go back, those coaches are looking at those films hard and saying, hey, you know what? This kid's pretty good. Or this kid, uh, he might not be what we're looking for. Or, hey, you know what, this kid has to pay. That's that's all part of it. They you go to these prospect days, it's gonna cost, it's gonna cost, but you're gonna be you're gonna be working out in front of the of the coaching staff, and that's what you want. You need to get in front of coaches. So now you've evaluated your son, you you have a highlight film, you've kind of narrowed down schools according to how far away you want to go and that sort of thing. Um, you've eliminated schools because of your grade point average. That's really good. And again, the lower your grade point average, the more doors you close as far as playing lacrosse. The higher your grade point averages, the better it is that you you'll play and get a scholarship. Um now, so now where are we now? We're at getting in front of coaches on prospect day, camps that a particular college might be running, or or some sort of individual showcase camp where there's many coaches watching at one time. So for example, there's a there was a D2 showcase in Philly two weeks ago. I know uh family whose son went, um got on, made the all-star team. His first showcase, his first individual showcase. The kid was nervous, scared to death, um balled out, wound up making the all-star team, right? What happened three days later? Guess what? He's getting calls. The letters are coming in. One lacrosse showcase, one really good showing, and now now the phone calls are coming in.

SPEAKER_02 30:03

Yeah, so let me I'll add that so interesting. Uh the the showcases I kind of talked about, the underarmor for my son. Interestingly, the the schools that recruited him from that, he didn't end up going to any of them. We some of the there was a couple other schools that he was interested in that hadn't really recruited him, and we focused in on those to get on their prospect day camps. The school he's going to now and he's playing for was a prospect camp, late July, early August before his senior year. Then after that, they recruited him. He went down for a weekend and committed after that. So I you touched on all the things we kind of did, and and there are and I think it was great that you pointed out that that um showcase that that that's that boy you know, he he's being recruited now by those coaches. There's so many different ways to do it. I think you got to be open to trying different things, especially if you if you know some of the schools you want to target, finding out where they're going to be and how you can get in those sort of tournaments.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

Well, you know, again, some parents well, on my youngest son's team. Again, I had three, my youngest son, my older two had been recruited. So there was a lot of parents on that team that their kids had never gone through this. And they they were asking me a lot of questions. They were coming up to me. What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? And I would tell them, get them into showcases. You know, our our travel coach is really not doing that much for us. He's not really letting us know what's going on. So we kind of have to be a little proactive. And then when COVID hit and there was no sophomore year, we really got, we really got proactive. I mean, we we we we had to do overboard. We went overboard. And we we emailed everybody and got the highlight film and started going to showcases and and and that was it. And after the second showcase, my son committed. He was the junior, and I was happy that he committed because a lot of his his buddies that he plays with are still going through the recruitment process, whereas the pressure's over kind of for us a little bit. Yeah, you know, the pressure's over. So he just has to go out and play, hit the gym, and do that. But these other kids, I've been telling them their parents, get them into these showcases. It's gonna cost you a couple of bucks. And and parents, for the parents out there in podcast land who are listening to this for the first time, you're gonna spend some money to have your kid looked at. Okay, you're gonna spend some money. Um my son's uh travel team was $2,200 this year. Yeah. So that's that's not it's not trump change, it's expensive. And but you're gonna you're gonna get to tournaments and you're gonna get to good tournaments, and you're gonna get in tournaments, uh, and that's what you're paying for. Okay, so now what you just hope that, you know, if you're a MIDI, you hope that you have your face-off guy does real well that day, and and you guys have the ball and you can showcase yourself. If you're a defenseman and you're at a showcase, let's say you're a defenseman and you sent out your highlight film to 20 coaches, and you told those coaches, hey, I'm going to be at the NXT Cup, Philadelphia showcases on Flo 7th to July 9th. So now the coach has that information. He's seen your highlight film, and he's like, hey, I'm going to that showcase. I'm going to take a look at this kid. Let's see what's up. So now you're looking at defenseman. Wow, you look at him. He's 6'3, he's got nice size, good stick skills. But guess what? Their face-off kid's really good, and they're getting the ball all the time, and the kid's not playing defense because they have the ball. So now the coach is looking to see if this kid's playing defense. Now he's only going to give you a half. He's not going to stay the whole game. Unless it's like a championship game or something like that. But those coaches, their time is limited. You got to get to the other fields. Yep. Their time is limited. So they'll come and they'll watch, they'll watch a half, and then they get to another field because they have six, eight, maybe 10, 12 more kids on their radar that's at that showcase. Yep. So, you know, you hope as a defender that your FOCO has a really bad day and that you're playing a lot, and that you're playing a lot of defense. And and I hate to say that, but it's the truth, you know. So here we let's let's recap. Evaluate the son, highlight film, right? Knowing where you want to go, how far away, getting your son in front of coaches, whether it be in prospect days or showcases, whether it be a D1 showcase or D2 showcase or a D3 showcase, some of the showcases are so big, all three divisions are at the showcase. You know, try out for that under armor team in your area. You know, chances are you might not make it, but that's okay. That's okay. It doesn't mean you stink. It's just it's a good way to get in front of coaches. Hey, and if you do something good in front of a coach, that's all it takes, is one good day, you know? Right. So you want to get to showcase. Now we're talking travel team. That's where you're gonna get in front of the most coaches. That's where you're gonna be playing against the better competition. And you can get to evaluate yourself on, you know, pretty good at these tournament games, especially if you're in the A or double A division where you're playing top notch, playing top notch. Yep. So um, my son, they, you know, being a Long Island team, we're always playing big, big, you know, the big ones and the 91s and and Lassachusetts. And yeah, I remember when the when the Krabs were big and the Loonies out of out of Baltimore, you know, we played them all. We played them all, and that's how you evaluate yourself by playing teams like that. Hey, we've gotten smoked, you know, 16 to 3, but the next game, we were a lot better because you know you're playing against competition like that, and you're playing in front of coaches.

SPEAKER_02 37:03

Well, that was what I was gonna point out is that you know, your your team could lose, but if you have a good day and you show um and you even in that adversity that you are showing your talent and it shows through, especially against a if you're losing, sometimes you're losing because that other team is just so damn good. Um, and and that's part of it. So, you know, it's not so much the score, but what you do and what you do as a teammate, too, right? Um, how you work in in that team structure. So, I mean, I I I think that that's it, I think you hit all of those. Um, so I like like you said, evaluate, get the highlight film, narrow the schools, figure out which coaches, whether high school or or travel can help you out, get the tournament showcases, prospect camps, and like you talked about, the last thing we want to really highlight, talk about as a travel team. Anything else for the parents out there that you can think of to wrap it up? We've been going now, probably 40 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 38:04

You know, parents, it's a job. It's a job, and it takes a little bit on your part too. Um, we we have, you know, you have to keep things into together. You have to respond to coaches. You know, coaches might send an email out, son's email, and he's not looking at it because he's on Instagram or he's on Snapchat or whatever he's doing. In his summertime, he's out of school, so he's at the beach or he's at the park or at the lake, and he's not checking his emails, and then all of a sudden you look at his email, and there's seven seven emails from coaches and prospect days and to that type of thing. So important to keep up on your emails and and answer these coaches back.

SPEAKER_02 38:49

And yeah, and I I agree with I totally agree with that, and keeping on top of it in its job. But I the I'm curious on your thoughts here because I wanted my son to own the process. He needed to be the one in front of the coaches and and doing the communicating, not me. Um, because he had to show his maturity that he could uh communicate um and engage with those coaches and and tell the his story, not me telling his story, um, which I thought was important. Like when we would go meet with coaches, it wasn't me shaking the coach's hand to begin with. I would go in last. It'd be my son going in first.

SPEAKER_01 39:30

Yeah, that's exactly what we did. I mean, Sean T, my oldest, um, you know, we had to do some things for him. He wasn't the kind of the the kid that would uh dot his I's and cross his T's all the time. So we had to help him along in the process a little bit. But you know what? That was a learning process for us as well. Because that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02 39:53

Well, yeah, and I think you're right. I mean, it's not so much that they have to do everything, but I think you've got to bring them along to that point too. Because I think my opinion is the coaches want to see that. They don't want, they're not recruiting the the parents, they're recruiting the son.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

Exactly. And with with my middle one, different one, different situation. All three schools, he had over a hundred letters. We had division, division two folders, division three folders. So there was like one night a week where either my wife or myself went up on the computer and started checking off the boxes who called, who didn't call, who did, who did this, who do we have to answer, you know, and and it became a job. When when if they're really good and things are starting to happen like that, it can it can get overwhelming quick, especially if you have a high school coach that's not helping or or a travel team coach that's not helping. So now it's all on the parent. Yeah, you're right.

SPEAKER_02 40:50

I had to do that with my son too. I had to remind him, like, hey, you need to respond to this coach. You, you know, he he he he emailed yesterday, you have not responded yet. Even if it's not, and some of them times there were just teams that he wasn't in or school he wasn't interested in. I didn't care. I wanted him to, you know, I wanted him to respond and and give something back to that coach because that coach was taking the time to reach out to him. And absolutely the same way. If we were trying to reach out to a coach and a team and they weren't responding, that was one, it could be telling to us, but two, you know, we wanted that that kind of respect to answer us, either no, he's not for us or whatever, but we owed that to the coaches as well.

SPEAKER_01 41:32

No, you you you should. That it does show a level of maturity and and responsibility, and it's just it's the right thing to do. It's just simple as that, you know, answer the coach back. You know, you like again, you might send out uh fifty 50 emails to coaches with links to your highlight film, and only 10 might answer you. Doesn't mean you're out of the box yet. If that's, you know, if that's a school, if one school is particular, let's say you want to go to Lenore Ryan, that's the school you want to go to. Big time Division II, you know, beautiful Hickory, North Carolina. It's got it checks all the boxes for you. And maybe the coach isn't showing the most love in the world. You know what? Go to that second prospect day. You know, hustle. Keep calling the coach, keep on him. And you know what? After a while, he might just say, hey, you know what? I like this kid. I'm gonna bring him along, I'm gonna offer him something. You know what I mean? So you don't give up, you don't give up. You know, um, there was times I felt I know my middle son, again, all three divisions, and he had gotten hurt one summer, had a high ankle sprain, and he missed the 3D camp in Baltimore. And after his team, it seemed that his team did very well at the 3D camp. And after that weekend, it seemed a lot of division one offers were given out to kids on the team. And Sean had missed, he had missed the the tournament because of a high ankle sprain. I had actually got him up at 4 a.m. in the morning. I said, if you can plant, we'll get in the car and go. We'll be in Baltimore in three and a half hours. You know, and I said, if you can plant, if you can't plant, we're not going.

SPEAKER_00 43:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:21

And he couldn't plant. And after that, he felt disenchanted a little bit. Well, you know, I'm I'm as good as him. Or and they're getting letters from those schools, and I'm not. And I said, just keep just keep plugging away, you know. Certain things happen to certain kids, you know. And I'm gonna give you a really quick example of how things can happen. A freshman on an LSM on a pretty decent team on NASA in Nassau County on Long Island. Um, two seniors on a team studs all Americans. So the team's pretty decent. So one Senior stud defenseman, LSM, goes down with an ACL injury. The freshman steps in. He's a freshman. He's pretty good, but he wasn't going to play if the other kid was, you know, didn't hurt. Well, that team made it to the Nassau County Championship. And the Nassau County Championship drew probably about 160 coaches. What happened? He played in that game. They lost. They lost. But a coach came right up to him, D1. He was a freshman. D1. Now they changed the rules since then. Yeah. They can't talk to you till September 1st of your junior year. But at that point, they could still talk to him as a freshman and committed to a D1 school. Okay. Here's a freshman got on a team. Senior goes down with an injury. He winds up playing. The team had two studs. They wound up going to the Nassau County Championship. Drew a bunch of coaches. Coaches saw him play, had a commitment at the end of the afternoon. Now that's that's luck. Yeah. But you make luck out of it. You get that opportunity. Right. Now that kid, that kid went D1 and wound up being a four-year starter. Okay. A four-year starter. And and and did great. And then COVID hit, you know, and kind of screwed up the team chemistry or whatever. So he has a fifth year of eligibility. And I believe he's choosing to go to a D2 school and play his senior year at a D2 school. And actually his fifth year of eligibility. Yeah. And get his master's. So that's luck. You know, that's luck. And that can happen too. But that's being in the right place at the right time.

SPEAKER_02 46:07

So that's a great way to conclude. I think that's a great way to finish this off because what that's uh we you kind of wrapped it up is it's it's luck, and then taking advantage of that. And there's a lot of things that go into this. I think we I think you did a great job of pointing out the the steps, different steps to look at and try to focus in on. But in the end, a lot of times, just like on the field, it's heart and drive and persistency, right? Being persistent and and marking your time and and just keeping at it.

SPEAKER_01 46:40

That's right. And being a good kid, you know, coaches they call up, they find out, hey, what's this kid like? What have his parents like? Are the parents these yellers and screamers? Wheels, let's go, Billy. You know, are they those types of parents? You know, they're just want to they want to know, you know, those coaches want to know about the kids too. So when these coach when these kids start to get when the you know coaches start to really get interested in kids, they start doing their research too. They're good at what they do, these coaches, you know.

SPEAKER_02 47:13

Well, I think I I think uh for this episode of In the Crease, maybe we need to do uh recruiting episode number two, if we get the interest in that. We want to keep going. You and I have not talked in a in a few weeks, Danny. So I think that was part of it. We just haven't talked in a while.

SPEAKER_01 47:29

That's true.

SPEAKER_02 47:29

It's been a ton of fun, as usual, just talking lacrosse, even on the recruiting side with you. I feel like I learned something new every time from your perspective. So I really appreciate that. So thanks for doing that tonight.

SPEAKER_01 47:41

Oh, it's my pleasure, Kevin. I I love doing this podcast, it's a lot of fun. It really is.

SPEAKER_02 47:46

It was a blast. I hope everyone enjoys this. And and uh, this has been uh in the crease, a coast to coast discussion of D2 Men's lacrosse. And we will see you soon, probably in the fall.