Episode 8 - A look at recruiting part 2

SPEAKER_01 0:03

There we go. There's the sound of silence right now for uh in the crease coast to coast discussion about D2 lacrosse. I think we'll just call this Danny. This is the the season of lost music, and we've got to get the music going. I don't know what the heck. We'll figure it out sometime. We need help. We need professional help. But but uh so we're we're back again this week. Uh, and just to let everyone know, Danny and I had well, first of all, we had so much fun doing the the recruiting uh episode, and I don't think I think you and I talked about it even yesterday that we just didn't get enough off our chest. There's more that we want to discuss with everyone out there that listens to this podcast about uh recruiting and what it takes. And there's some things that we didn't get to and we didn't want to do a really long one, so we try to break it up. So we decided to do another one to finish off um and do episode two of recruiting.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Yeah, um, you know, the the last when you talk about recruiting, like we talked about in the last podcast, there's so many different avenues. And we we touched on a lot of them, but we didn't get to the to to the real meat and potatoes really at the end, you know. Um, I just felt that there was a little bit more that the people should know, perhaps maybe um from your and I's perspective, you know, being that both of us have had sons, you know, recruited and and have gone through the recruiting process. So last week we discussed, we we went over a couple of things. First of all, we discussed uh evaluating your son. You have to evaluate your son's talent and where he stands on that totem pole of talent, you know, where he is. Um, parents should be very honest when evaluating your son, that type of thing we touched on last podcast. We also touched upon um highlight film. Um, some people think you don't need it. I definitely think you do need it. Um, I know I know kids that have gotten offers based on just their highlight film, with the coach never having seen him live play. I've no kids that that's happened too. So I think a highlight film is very important.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

And I and I think uh if you that is a very good point because if you are not in a hotbed and you are in the the South Lake in Louisiana, or you're in maybe, you know, Utah, although Utah has a lot of tournaments now, too. I'm just saying if you're in spots where you can't get to maybe summer tournaments, or the coaches that you're interested in can't get there to see you, then that highlight film is the way for them to get to see you.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

A hundred percent. You know, you you need somehow to get at least the conversation started. And having a highlight film is is the one way. So, how do you get the highlight film? You record everything his sophomore year, all his high school games, any rec league games that he plays in, and summer, summer team or travel team if he plays on travel team. Um, and then we discussed also about how parents have to see how far they're they're willing to let their babies go away from home. How far from school, or um, I mean from home are you willing to go? Um, some parents don't want their kids going too far, and some parents really don't care how far their kids go. It's it's a two-sided coin. So we touched on all of those things. We started to get on to travel teams, and we started to talk about money and expenditures that you're going to spend in order to promote your son. So here you are, you're in southwest Louisiana, your kid's a face-off kid, and there's really not a lot around there. So you're gonna have to travel, you know, somehow, some way, at some point, to get your kids in front of coaches. And that and that could cost money. Um, but how far are you willing to pimp and promote your son? So that's something that every parent has to think about. Um we're at the point now where now it's summer tournament time, and most of the big tournaments are have just taken place. Right. Um, there's some region, there's some regional games. I know the New York State regional, high school regional games are today, and that represents all of New York State. You have upstate New York Central, Adirondack's, Nassau County, Suffolk County, all regional teams that you know these kids from these areas try out for, and they make this team, and then they have a big tournament, and it's almost like an empire game. I know that states do that, some states don't, but these are ways to get your kids looked at in front of coaches. It's start to try out for these regional teams, um, whether it be an underarmor team or a Nike team or something like that. We discussed that it's probably gonna cost a couple of hundred bucks for you to do that, but it's gonna get your kid in front of coaches.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Yeah, and so that's a good thing to point out, too, is you know, when do these really happen in the summer? I don't think we talked about that last episode. And and from my um experience for the four years that my son was doing that, they really start a lot of the ones like under armor tryouts and everything, they start in late May. Those are usually late May, early June. And then that's when you start getting in that mid-June through the end of July, is when you see a lot of the the tournaments, either for travel teams or that you can, like you said, you could actually sign up as a single, you know, if there are showcase tournaments. Usually the month of August, there aren't any summer tournaments from from what I remember. Do you are you tracking the same thing?

SPEAKER_00 6:15

Well, there's the one the one big tournament I know that's is the first weekend in August every year is the Lake Placid Tournament, which is a phenomenal tournament. It draws teams from all over the country, and they always have like a coaches reunion up there. You'll see ex-Syracuse players and stuff like that. That's a really good tournament. And it's in Lake Placid, which is like this beautiful mountain ski town. It's really gorgeous. So that I know is the first weekend in August, but usually by the end of July, all the big ones are over. Like you said, they usually start in June. I know that high school in the north, in the northeast, gets out late. They start later, they start after Labor Day, and they go to the end of June, mid-June to the end of June. So some kids are taking their finals and getting ready to go to their first tournament that week. Right. Whereas the kids from the south have been out for a month, you know, right, and been practicing with their travel team or whatever. So so that's those, these are all things. So again, it's it's about getting in front of coaches. So you got your you have your tape, you have evaluated yourself, you have narrowed down schools because of how far you're willing to go. Because if you're not willing to let your gut son go seven hours away, a seven-hour drive away, you just took out a whole lot of schools that you know, maybe, maybe he could have played lacrosse at, perhaps. But you put that restriction on him, and and you now you're narrowing down schools. Now the student must have somewhat of an idea of what he might study. So now you have to look at the schools within that five-hour. Let's say you're willing to let your son go to a school five-hour drive away. So now in that area, there might be 30 different colleges in division two, division three, and division one. Now you have to narrow that down. You know you're not a division one player, right? So we're not really a division one player. So we're looking at that next level down. So now you just took 12 schools out. Now you're narrowing down the schools even more. So now the student and the parents have to sit down and say, okay, Johnny, what do you think you might want to study? Whether it be education, accounting, business. Most colleges have business and accounting and education majors, you know. Um, it's the engineering and the kids who want to study that that might have a little difficulty in some of the schools.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Right, right, exactly. So that I mean, that is that, like we talked about, that kind of narrows it down and then brackets it when you're going to the the next level. We talked about some of that from uh the either the we talked a little bit from the prospect camp, the the prospect day camp, but what about um doing things? And I don't know if there's anything else in the travel team that you wanted to touch upon, but what about if you've narrowed down those schools? Um, you know, nowadays, with every school having their own their own website, uh the athletic department have their own website, every school has a questionnaire to fill out, student athlete questionnaire specific to the sport. Absolutely. And that is, in my opinion, especially if you've narrowed it down and some of those schools look of interest to you. That's that's kind of like the entry portal, in my way, to that school, that maybe a first look, even before you uh call the coach or email.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

100%. I totally agree with that. Um, again, you're you're narrowing down schools now. Now, so now you you've you've got an idea of what you want to do. You know, my son wants to be an education major. Most most colleges have that. If your son wants to go into pharmacy or some of the medical fields, he may he might have a difficult time playing lacrosse because he's gonna have labs, and it's a different, it's a different avenue for the medical sciences, um, for the students. Um, I know some kids that have gone on lacrosse scholarships, wanted to be a pharmacist, got into the pharmacy program, and just found out that lacrosse was just too much, and they left lacrosse because pharmacy was too demanding. And so if the kid wants to think about the medical field, you have to think about the demand that's gonna be on that child. So that's something to think about. And I'm not going, I'm not saying and I don't know, I don't want to sway any any future prospects from not, you know, fulfilling your dreams or going for your dreams and being a pharmaceutical major or a dental student or whatever it may be. Um, it's just that it's gonna be difficult for you to play lacrosse and meet the demand of the schooling that's gonna be involved. So that's something that a recruit has to think about as well.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

Oh, exactly, exactly. I mean, I think that is a critical component because um you almost have uh at the D2 level, you you you almost have two full-time jobs when you're talking about what you have to commit as far as time to the lacrosse program and what you have to commit as in time to your major. And it and some, like you said, are much more demanding than others because they come with labs and and other things that uh up and above just the class demand and and needs to be factored in. Not that you can't do both, but you just have to realize that that's a that that is a potential um challenge, I guess I'd say that's just gonna your your time management's gotta be even even greater in in instances like that.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

Yeah, you you're gonna miss a lot of parties if you if you choose that way. You know, and the kids are gonna be partying and you're you're gonna be you're gonna be in the library study. So that's that's a different thing, you know, altogether. So that's another thing that parents have to discuss with their kids and that type of thing. That's all if you want to play lacrosse, okay? That's if you want to play lacrosse. And we're geared to the kids really that want to play lacrosse. Um for for those who want to play lacrosse in college, there's what, 80 division one teams, right? 80, 90. Yep. Um, there's 72 or 73 division two teams and over 300 division three schools. I've lost count.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

That's that's a lot of school. That's a great, yeah. There's a lot of schools to be able to choose from to still continue to play NCAA lacrosse. Absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

That's a lot of schools. That's over 400 different colleges. That's there's a spot for you somewhere if you really, really want to play lacrosse. Okay. There really is a spot for you somewhere. It might not be your dream school, it might not be close to home. Um, but you'll get to play college, college-level lacrosse.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

Exactly. Exactly. And and I and I think that's the the great thing about it. And there are there as the sport grows, as we see every year, right? There are new D3 and new D2 programs coming online. More of those than every year because that's a bigger commitment by the the school, and they've got to balance that. But you know, D D2 and D3, they're they're starting to pop up more and more, which is which is great. It's great for the sport, it's great for all the the athletes out there that that want to try and play college and cross.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

That's that's that's the truth, 100%. It the game is growing, leaps and bounds. And we've said that in our first podcast, just how the game has exploded. And and now now you're getting kids, you know, the kids are coming from Florida that can play. Um, one really, really surprising um state is North Carolina. They are putting great high school teams together now. They're their travel team, their Team Carolina is is a very good select squad. Um, you know, you have teams as far out from just Seattle, Seattle, Washington that come to the East Coast, these travel teams. Um so parents, I think it's really important that you get your kid on a travel team. If you really want to get your kid up to NCAA level, they're gonna play better competition than maybe your high school area. Um, you're gonna play against kids who who want to play. Um, you know, not just going out for the team because you know their friends are on the team. Once you get into that, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

That's a great, great comment. I because that's was my son's high school. There were a lot of kids that were on the team that were on the team because their friends were playing it, and it wasn't as you know, it wasn't as serious as my son would like to have seen it, you know, and his travel team did bring that. I think the other thing we talked about last time, which is I think critical, especially for those families that are not in those hotbed areas, right? The coaches do not travel a lot to high school games unless you're in a hotbed. They travel to the summer tournaments where they can see a wide variety of athletes from all different parts of the country at these tournaments. So that is another reason why travel teams become an important um leg or tool that you need to use for recruiting.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

Absolutely. And again, the level of lacrosse is going to be higher. So now you're filming those games, and you're filming against kids that want to play and that are good players, and you're playing against not maybe not your high school team, but you know, some tournament squads that have some good players on them. Exactly. And the kids know how to play the game and they play the game well. So now you're playing at that level when you go to these summer tournaments, you know. That's and you're gonna be seen by coaches, you will be, but that doesn't mean that the coaches are gonna come running, screaming across the field and say, Hey, I gotta have you. It doesn't really work like that. It doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

If they if they see I was waiting for that for my son, I was waiting for that every game.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

Yeah, it doesn't work like that. Didn't happen. So so what you've done as a player is you've now I played summer. I'm going, I'm going to play this summer. I'm coming up this summer. I just finished my sophomore year of high school. I'm a rising junior, and here's my highlight film. And I'm gonna send this highlight film to 35 schools, and it's like fishing. You throw the bait out there and you start reeling in. See who bites. You might have zero bites, you might have 30 bites, you might have three bites, but that's how you start the conversation between a coach. Hey coach, and you have a cover letter with your highlight film. So if you're gonna write a letter to a coach, you better have some things in order before you do that. First of all, you better have the right coach's name and the correct spelling of his name, and make sure that when you say at the bottom, go Trojans, that it's not the bears that he coaches. Exactly. Exactly. So you better have that in line. So the first thing you better do when you write your cover letter is make sure that you're writing to the correct coach at the correct school.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Uh I will tell you that um that's great points because in in the electronic days that we have, it's very easy and it's great, it works fantastic. I do it all the time, not only you know in work and other things, that you have a you start off with a standard template and then you you change, but you got to make sure you make all those changes. The other thing that my son did when he was reaching out to the schools, and when you say 30 to 35, that doesn't surprise me at all. I I don't know if any parents out there that kind of shocks them, but you you can't you gotta you gotta spread the net wide to begin with as much as you can to try to get those those bites, right? So my son added a few other things, like he would go back and look at what their season was. If it's like if he's doing it in the summer, he looks back at what the season was for that team the year before, or you know, what he liked about this, what he likes about the school or the conference they're in, or schools they play against. But and then so we add add a little bit more based on doing a little bit of research. Now that that takes a little more time to get out to those 30 to 35 schools, but trying to add a little personalization to that coach um is uh is a great way to do it. You know, read their bio, see where they've been before, if they actually grew up in the same near the same area you were, or or whatever. There's some connection you can make. It doesn't have to be long, it's like one sentence, right? I think that was what uh my son did, and I think that helped out a lot.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Exactly. You know, you're writing now, you're sitting here writing your letter to the coach, and you you know that it's coach uh Johnson from whichever college it may be. Let's just say Anderson University. Okay, let's just say that. You your first letter, your first stuff should say dear coach, my name is such and such. I am a rising junior midfielder from Roanoke, Virginia. I've been playing lacrosse since the age of eight. I play on such and such a travel team. I play for such and such a high school. I had these accolades. I made All County my junior, my sophomore year. I played um JV freshman. I was brought up to varsity as a sophomore, started, and here's my highlights. Um, and I'm gonna fill out your questionnaire. Thank you for taking your time. And that's it. And now he's got a letter from you. Hey, I got a kid from Roanoke, Virginia. He's, you know, interested in our school. I find, I find, I feel that this school could be a fit for me academically and athletically, is something that you should say in that letter. Dear Coach Johnson, you know, great season last season. I I saw that you went 10 and 3 and and and you made the conference championship. Kudos to you and the staff and the team. Um, and that you should always add something like that, because it does. Add a little personal edge to it. It shows the coach, hey, this kid watched, he watched the game. He saw us play or he did his homework. And that shows a coach that, hey man, this kid might want to be here. You know, he might want to be here. That type of thing. So when you write that cover letter, when you write that cover letter, there's a couple of things that you have to have in there. And that's make sure you have the coach's name correctly and you're sending it to the right school. Tell them where you're from, any accolades that you've had. Um, you know, tell them what travel team you're on. Then you can follow that up with an email the following week. Hey coach, it's you know, such and such a gut kid. I emailed you last week. I'm from Roanoke. My travel team are is going to be at the following showcases and these dates. So now the coach has information. And he's he's got two from you. He might get it, he might, you might get an email back from an assistant asking you to fill out the questionnaire or come to a prospect day because they can't officially talk to you until September 1st of your junior year. Right. So some of the replies that you might get back might seem not personal. They might seem, oh, they just want me to fill out the questionnaire. Fill out the questionnaire. Do what the coach is asking you to do. And then if he's at the if he's at these tournaments, he has a chance to see you. Or maybe his assistant is at the tournament, or maybe the graduate assistant is at the tournament. He might have three assistants at three different locations on the same day looking at kids. So once that coach has your information, he saw you a highlight film, you know, and he sent you a letter saying, Hey, might want to join the prospect day. And that's where we go back to where we went back from last podcast. Now it's gonna cost money. You know, you're you're gonna pay money. It's $150 to go to a prospect day, but you're playing in front of the coaches. You're playing in front of the coaches, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:31

Yeah, and and uh I don't know if you want to get that. Uh so let me ask you this. Um let's let's go back with the email of coaching, and then there's two things that happen. Let's talk more about uh post-September 1st, the junior year, as things progress and the coaches can actually talk to you. Um there's two things that happen to those emails, right? They the coach can answer you, or the coach doesn't answer you. So let's look on the positive side. What do you do next if the coach answers the email? What do you see as like the next steps?

SPEAKER_00 25:09

Okay, it depends on what the letter says. You know, sometimes you can tell a difference between a generic type letter and a more personable, uh personal type um email or contact. For example, you could get um dear John. We um we think that you'd be a great fit uh at such and such a university. Um please feel free to contact me. Um here's the link to our website, um, fill out the questionnaire. It seems un personal because you were on a travel team and you went to a tournament, and now your name's on a list. So your name's on a list now, right? So these coaches get every kid that's at that tournament, they get a list where he's from, what position he plays, whether he was right-handed or left-handed, or every coach gets a list of every kid and every team and everything that goes on for that day. They they walk around with a book like this. Right. They know which which fields are gonna be watch, which fields are, you know, which kids are gonna be at which fields. They know. So you've sent your you've sent your link, you've sent an email with a cover letter, the coach answers back. It's post September 1st. So now he can actually pick up the phone and talk to you. The coach can actually speak to you. Hey, Billy, how's it going? How's school going? What's going on? How's mom and dad? That type of thing. They can actually speak to you. When they do that, that's a good sign. That's a good sign. When a coach answers back and he says, for example, my my middle son got a letter. I know you're a Navy man, so you might not like this. You might not like this. Uh Army. Army sent Sean a letter, okay? And it was, we saw you play. We saw we were there at such and such a tournament and saw what you did. You were a great transition player. We think you'd fit great on our team. Would you be interested in being a cadet? That's what the letter said. So you knew right then.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

I would say two things of that. One, that's a great letter because it's personal. But two, Sean made the right choice of not going to the army.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

I knew you were gonna say that. I knew you were gonna say that. But, but and my wife and I, we were both like we were crying and high-fiving at the same time, knowing that this was a great letter. It was division one, top-notch. Yes, you know, they saw that. Yeah, they have a great team, they have a great team. They they really do, and this year they were phenomenal, but that's another story. But we knew he wasn't gonna be a cadet, his hair was down to here, his hair was he was a surfer boy, he was sunshine, you know. He had hair down to his shoulders, long blonde hair. There was no way he was cutting that hair, being a cadet. And the first thing we did, you know, I told Sean, I showed Sean the letter. I said, This came in the mail today. This wasn't an email, this came in in the mail. And I said, This came for you today. And he was like, Wow, wow, he was blown away. I said, Well, you have to answer him, you know. He's like, No, I'm not gonna be a cadet. I was like, I know.

SPEAKER_02 28:41

That's not the point.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

I know you're not gonna be a cadet, but you have to answer coach back. Hey, coach, thank you so much for thinking of me. I really appreciate the letter, it was phenomenal, but I have my sights set on other schools. Thank you for thinking of me. And he wrote that to the coach, and the coach answered him back, hey, you know, if you ever change your mind, you know, call me. So once you get out there and you you, you know, you're you're you you have conversations with coaches, it can go a ton of different ways. But get let's get back to what you said before. Some can some might answer you. We we threw that bait out there, right? We sent our link to 35 coaches and we got some bites. Hey, fill out our questionnaire. You fill out our questionnaire, next thing you know, you get an email back. Hey, where are you gonna be this? Are you going to be in such and such? We're our you know, we're going to be there as well. We'd like to come see you play, we'd like to see you play again. Why don't you come to our prospect day? So now when you're talking one-on-one with a coach, you've opened up dialogue. Doesn't mean you're gonna go to school there, it doesn't mean anything except right, except you've now opened up dialogue, and that's what you want to do. And how do you do that? How do you do that? You get on those travel teams, you get onto those teams that you're gonna pay money for, you're going to travel, so you're gonna have to pay money for hotels, maybe even flights if you're from some parts of the country. Okay, and you sent your letters out, you've narrowed down your schools to, you know, my son's only gonna go within a five-hour drive. Doesn't matter whether it's north, out, south, east, or west, you know, five hours away. You've narrowed down your schools. Okay, these 30 schools fit that criteria. Now you sent your link out, and three coaches have answered. Doesn't mean the end of the world, it's not the end of the world just because only three and you sent out 35. You still have basically all of your junior year and all of your senior year to grow and get better. So if you get on a coach's radar, he might watch you for a year and see where you go, especially if you get on his radar. So another thing, if you're a recruit and you're a young, 16, 17-year-old kid, parents, real important, uh, social media, what they say, pictures that they post, things of that nature have to be severely watched. Any wrong picture, you know, a picture with a beer in it, or some sort of alcohol, or or some sort of drug, or you know, a picture like that, or maybe a racist comment or um a derogatory comment meant to somebody, social media you better watch your social media.

SPEAKER_01 31:51

You know, we that's a great point. That's a great point because things, as we know, right, the last several years it's changed like that, and and there's more social media platforms, you know, things like TikTok and everything else that are that are proliferating out there that but the coaches are gonna look at that, and why are they doing that? Because they are looking at the total athlete, and they have got to see are they gonna be fit one, fit into my program, but two, are they gonna be trouble for my program? And that's kind of what you need to be watching out for. Not that, you know, if there's a if your son has a picture like that, it's not saying that he's trouble or he's a bad person, but they you know, you just gotta be careful about that.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

Yeah, social media is something that that really needs to be discussed with your son, especially if he wants to get recruited. Um, you know, a coach is not going to be too eager to give out a scholarship to a really good lacrosse player that might be a little bit hard to handle, whether you know it's through social media things that he said or videos that he's posted or pictures like of that nature. So I think it's really important that parents curb their their son's um social media and and and watch it. You know, they should be able to get onto their son's social media, they shouldn't be blocked from their kid. Right. They should be able to see the content that their child is doing. And if there's content on there that's unacceptable, it's up to the parents to really to really set set the example and and and and tell them what's right and what's wrong. And because that could mean a scholarship, that could mean thirty thousand dollars or more, right?

SPEAKER_01 33:57

Exactly. And and to go on to that, to just add to that, it's not social media much, but it's it's behavior, it's it's attitude. Um I've read many times more than one coach, I think it's pretty standard that the coaches aren't just looking at your play on the field, they're looking at how you behave with your team. So when someone else on your team, if you're an offensive player and someone else on your team scores, do you go and congratulate him? Do you uh celebrate with him, or are you off, you know, sulking because you didn't get the point? When you're in the huddles with your team, whether you're defense or offense, are you in the middle of that huddle or are you off, you know, not even paying attention and not listening to the coaches and not being engaged with what the plan is after that timeout or at the end of a quarter? Those are critical things, you know. I saw that with my son's team. Uh other players that were really good that thought they were, and this were a class, not classmates of his, but classes ahead of him, where you know, they didn't feel they needed to be in the huddle. And there were a lot of coaches that were turned away by that because of that.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

Absolutely. Um, many times coaches, let's say a coach is interested in your kid and he's contacted your high son's high school coach. Just got an email from a player of yours. Um, his name is Jimmy Anderson. And coach, can you send us a link to a whole game so we can just watch a whole game? So, because they're they like the kids, so they're willing to watch, take, take an hour and watch a whole game. And they're gonna watch his body language and they're gonna watch what he does off ball, and they're gonna watch just about every movement he makes. He slams his stick after he misses a goal, or if he doesn't ride hard after a miss or something like that. Coaches want to see that because in their highlight film, they're not showing that stuff. Oh, exactly. You know, and so in the highlight film, everybody's a star, you know, and that and that's all good. That's what you want to get out there. You want to show the coaches that you can play. So your highlight film shows you're a star. But what do you really like as a player off ball when you're not it? Like, are you in the huddle? All good points. Coaches will ask high school coaches for a link for a whole game, and sometimes they might go to the travel team because now they're streaming these travel tournaments, they're streaming them now, so you can pay and have it streamed and go home with the the USB with all this film on there.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 36:50

So now they have that going on. So a coach can say, oh, Jimmy Anderson was at the uh Long Island Lax Fest, and let's watch that film. And they'll look at they'll it's a it'll be a 45-minute game, so it's a lot less time. And it's against top-notch opponents, it's not high school, right? And and they'll see what he does again off ball. What's his body language like? Is he with the team? Is he celebratory with his teammates? You know, that type of thing. So all of that goes into play, you know, um, how you are on the field, what type of player, not only athletically, but what type of teammate are you? You know, that that really goes a long way. And and your grade point average can really make a big difference in how much money you get from a from from a college. And this is why I love Division II. And this is what I think makes division two special because they can stack both athletic and academic scholarships, right? Whereas D1 cannot and D three cannot. Okay, you go to a D1 school, they're taking in 12 kids, 13 kids, three, maybe four are getting money athletically, athletically. Okay, but what's great about Division II is they're able to stack. So if Jimmy Anderson, who's this midfielder from Roanoke, Virginia, and he sent his uh email out and he got a bunch of bites, and he said, I'm gonna be at these tournaments, and these coaches went and saw him at his tournaments, and everything's rolling for Jimmy Anderson right now. They looked at his social media, nothing really of bad content on there. Looks like a pretty decent kid. They contact the high school coach, they contact the travel team coach. Hey, what's this kid like? What's he like? What's his parents like? You know, that's a biggie too. So all of this comes into play, parents, you know, and the grade point average may be the most important thing. And I believe I believe it's school first, sports second. And and I I'll say it to you, I've said it to my to my kids a thousand times. The hardest thing to do is to be a student athlete. A student athlete. It's easy to be just a student, and it's easy to be just an athlete. But when you combine the two, to be good and to be good at both is a very special thing. It takes time, it takes, you know, uh commitment on your part, and all of that, and the grade point average that you graduate high school with could relieve you of a lot of college debt.

SPEAKER_01 39:56

Exactly. I think you're you the point you just stated is is very important about it. It's easy to be just a student or it's easy just to be an athlete. I mean, I can tell you when I was going through college, I wasn't a scholarship athlete. I I dabbled in you know diving uh for my school for a couple of years, but it wasn't at that level of commitment that when you're a when you're a scholarship athlete, whether it's D2, D1, you know, that you're committed to a program where they expect you to put in a lot more time. So I didn't have that until I saw my son and what he had to go through at his team and his lacrosse program at D2. You're exactly right. It it is tough to be a student athlete. Um, and and I think that's important to realize as they go through this. I mean, you've got to have a uh a love for the sport to want to do that and study at the same time. But uh use when you said it to your kids. I say it to my son all the time. You know, academics comes first. That's why you're at the school that you're at, is to get that degree. Um, and and lacrosse is a great thing that you get to do there. And at the same time, it's it's difficult sometimes because you've got to do your your studies and you've got to commit so much time to the program.

SPEAKER_00 41:18

Yes, you know, and I think only special kids get to do that, and and the ones that get to do that are the lucky ones, I think. You know, you get to do that. That's you get to be there, you know, you get to be on that team, you get to be playing at an NCAA level, you get to wear that conference patch on on your jersey, you know, you get all the uh the things that that school gets, you know. Um, you get to take those bus rides, you get to do it. It's not like you you get to do it, and it's a it's special, but to get there takes a little bit of work, it takes a little bit of time, you know. And I think that grades are the most important thing. I mean, you can save a lot of money on an getting an academic scholarship with a really good grade point average, uh, a high ACT or a high SAT score. You know, you can get you at some schools could offer you, let's say you get uh 1200 on your SAT and you graduate with a 3.9 grade point average. Some colleges may give you up to $30,000.

SPEAKER_01 42:38

Right, you can make more on your academic scholarship than your athletic scholarship.

SPEAKER_00 42:44

That's correct.

SPEAKER_01 42:45

When you when you say about uh stacking them like that in D2, right? And that's what the coaches are looking to be able to do for you, too, for those student athletes.

SPEAKER_00 42:53

Yes, that's what the coaches are looking for you to do. They're looking to get you as much money as they can as the school will allow academically based on your performance in high school, your GPA, your ACT, or your SAT scores. Again, we we spoke about it last podcast. You start getting lower scores, you start closing the doors on schools that might really want you. That might really want you. Yeah. My son Sean played in a he was at the National 175 camp. You know, it was 175 kids on teams, two-day camp, coaches all over the place. Each team had two college coaches. Who was his coach? The coach uh assistant from Richmond comes right up to me. You're Sean's dad? I'm like, yes, I am. He goes, We love him. We love him, we'd love to have him. I was like, forget it. He's not, he doesn't have the GPA to get into Richmond. He goes, What's his GPA? I think at that time it was like 3 2. You know, three, two, three, three. That's what he was. Yeah. And he goes, he said to me, and he had that little southern accent too. He said, You get him up to a three five, you call me. You know. So hey, here's a coach that liked my son, but my son simply didn't have the grades to get into that type of school. Right, right. So even though his his athleticism and his ability on the lacrosse field might have been good enough, he didn't have the grades to get into that school. And it was simple. So that GPA, that grade, that grade point average, that ACT SAT score closed the door on some of the schools for my son. Right. And it will, and it will for other people's son.

SPEAKER_01 44:44

And that's that how that sometimes is the natural narrowing of schools, too, right? And that's important as just as well. But I if I could, if you don't mind, I'm going to refocus and on two things that we've discussed before that I just want to touch upon. Because I think we've talked about a lot of facets, and we're in this. I don't want to end on this, but there's some things like um to discuss. We've talked about right now the the great, all the great things and the positive things that you need to look for and try to get towards get your son recruited. And when he gets those bites, what does that look like? But there's also a time you said, like, if you go out to 30 and you get three bites, well, what do you do with the 27 other schools? Do you just let them go? Do you try again? I know from what my son did and what we did is we, if if it was a school he was really interested. Now, of those 30, not all were those schools, but say there's another 10 in those that he still really is interested in, interested in the the academics of the school, where the school was, what the school offered, and the lacrosse program. He would reach out another two or three times, but sooner or later, if he wasn't getting that bite back on any of those, that bite is they're not gonna, they're not gonna go after your bait. And we have to realize that, and that kind of narrows it as well. But I think that's an important thing because you don't don't want to spin your wheels at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 46:04

You're right. Some coaches don't they're not interested, you know. If you if you've reached out two, three, four times and a coach hasn't responded, they're not interested. You move on, right?

SPEAKER_01 46:16

And I think the thing to point out there, too, is it's not always because you're not talented. I mean, that could be part of it, but it also could be that you're uh right-handed attackman, and really what they're looking for this year is a lefty, and they've got enough attackmen, and they're looking, maybe they're looking for more uh you know, deep holes in this recruiting class than they are offensive players because that's gonna happen as well.

SPEAKER_00 46:42

That's right. A school's, you know, uh uh their their wants and needs change from season to season, you know. Some some schools are carrying two goalies, and some colleges want to carry five. So, you know, if you're a goalie and you're looking at a school that's carrying five goalies, hmm, you know, you might want to look somewhere else. You know, that's up to you if you really want to play, if you really want to play. These are just things to think about, you know, and not every coach is gonna answer, not everybody, you know, they just won't answer. And some will some will and say, hey Jimmy Anderson, thanks for reaching out. But we've already got our attack unit for the 2022 class, and you might have that, you know, or you might even get yourself into a situation where they're very interested in you and they're narrowing it down to three. Okay. There's three MIDI's that they're looking at, they got to pick two, okay? You're one of the three MIDIs, but the school's really gonna pick two, and you're in the mix. You've gone to the school, you've met the coach, you've had the overnight and everything, and at the end, he picks the other two. It's part of it, you know, that's something that you know that's the part of the recruiting that sucks, kind of. You know, you're in the mix.

SPEAKER_01 48:06

It is stressful, yeah. It's stressful for the for the athlete, it's stressful for the parents. I went through that with my son. Um, and you know the great thing is what you said earlier is with all the schools that are out there, you can find a very, very good match.

SPEAKER_00 48:28

There's over 400 colleges that have lacrosse in this country, and another how many club teams, God, I don't even know. Right. Right. So, but if you're looking at NCAA and scholarship, I think Division II is the way to go. I really do. Because I believe that you're gonna get the most bang for your buck, so to speak. For example, let's say a college in North Carolina costs $42,000 for a year. That includes everything, room, board, uh, meal plan, the whole, the whole thing. Let's say your son gets graduates with a 3.9 GPA and gets a $1,250 on the SAT. He's just earned himself the probably the top academic scholarship that's available from that school. And let's say that that school in North Carolina, their top academic scholarship is $30,000. Okay? To the coach, that's like wonderful. Now the coach can now the coach can based on your level of play is gonna give you athletic money. If you're a Brian high school all-American, you might get $10,000, $12,000 or more. They might, between the athletic and the academic, it might be close to a full scholarship. If you get eight thousand dollars, that's thirty-eight. Let's say the coach offers you thirty, the school offers you thirty thousand dollars in at academic money and eight thousand dollars in athletic money. That's do the math. It's a lot of money. It's almost it's almost it's almost full a full ride, you know. And how is that not attractive to parents? Okay, some parents can afford it, Kev. Some parents got it like that, you know. Hey, it doesn't matter where my kid goes, it doesn't matter how much it costs. Some parents got it. I live on Long Island. People who live on Long Island, it's expensive here. So there's not many parents that I know that got it like that. Right. So they're looking for the help, they're looking for the financial help. Exactly. So if your son's a good lacrosse player and he's smart, he's gonna get into a school. If he's a halfway decent lacrosse player, halfway decent, and he's smart, he's gonna get into he's gonna get a scholarship, you know.

SPEAKER_01 51:27

Exactly. So all great points. I know we talked about this yesterday, and it's another thing that be a little bit careful, but you kind of went through it when you talked about generic emails or a generic response, and sometimes a generic response for the prospect day camps. Did you want to touch on that at all?

SPEAKER_00 51:45

Well, it depends on again what part of in the process you are. If you're pre September 1st, they can only send you generic mails, they really that's all they can, okay? And and post September 1st of your junior year, that's when they can talk start really talking to you. And just just go along with that coach. If that coach sends you, hey, come to our prospect day. If you're interested, go go to that prospect day, go hustle out, ball out, and be the best player you can be that day, and be in front of the coach if that's the school you really want to go to, and all they can do is say, Hey, hey, Jimmy, thanks. We really appreciate it. But we filled our attack class.

SPEAKER_01 52:35

Yeah, I guess where I was going. You're exactly right. If you're really interested in that school, I know my son got just a ton of come to our prospect day camp. So I think there was there were two things to do is one, some of them we didn't, he wasn't in the school, we knew that, so we didn't, and we knew it was a generic email, so we didn't really reply. The other ones are like you talked about, you and I have talked about before, is you're not really sure. Um, and and you know, these schools do make money on the prospect day camps, right? So yes, and how many kids are going to be at the prospect prospect day camp makes a difference as well. Yes, one of the great ways to weed out some of that is if the coach says, Hey, we saw you play, want you come to our prospect day camp. It's always good to have but if before you want to make that final decision to go, to reach out to the coach and kind of talk about well, where did you see me, right? And what tournament did you see me at? And if if there's that, if they really do did see you, you can tell if they're if it was a generic one or get more information on that to make your decision of whether you're gonna spend the money for that prospect day camp or not.

SPEAKER_00 53:47

Absolutely, that's a hundred percent correct, Kev. You know, the coach reaches out and hey Jimmy Anderson, we you know, we think it'd be great. Why don't you come to our prospect day? You know, we saw you play. Jimmy, call them up. Coach, you go to the website, their phone number's there, their phone number and their emails there. So you go to that school's website, you go on the lacrosse coaches, you get their phone number, you call them. Hey, this is Jimmy Anderson, coach. I just got your letter. Thanks for getting me. Hey, let me ask you a question. What tournament did you see me at? If that coach, if he has to think about it, chances are he didn't see you. But you know what? You got the you got this conversation going.

unknown 54:32

Right.

SPEAKER_00 54:32

So you know what I mean? At least you got the conversation going, but you'll know when they really want you. Okay, you'll know, you'll know, you'll know. It's a different type of email, it's a different type of connection. Um, they'll probably get in touch with your travel coach because they can talk to you. They can talk to your travel coach. Exactly. And your travel coach, the travel coach can be a direct line to you. Exactly. Okay, so there's those, there's those little loopholes.

SPEAKER_01 55:01

So right, and I and I think the point out is I'm not like I like I told you last time, last episode, my son went to a prospect day camp. Um, he hadn't been recruited by the school after the prospect day camp. He was recruited by that school, and that's the school he's going to. So it's not so much that you if the if you haven't been there before, but if that school interests you and you, like you said, you want to go to it, go to it. But the you're a lot of kids are going to get a lot of these requests, and sometimes in you know, I know we didn't have the money to go to every prospect day camp because and and the travel, you know, and the hotels, we couldn't do it all. So we had to make those decisions, and it was based on where did we, like you said, you kind of start to know which schools are really interested in you.

SPEAKER_00 55:45

Absolutely. You you you know, you know, you know. It's like I said, it's a different, different tone to their letter or their email. It's just a different tone. Yeah, hey, Jimmy, we saw you play. You were phenomenal at the LI uh at the Long Island Wax Fest in Farmingdale. You know, you had a great seven-goal game. You know, we could use a player like you. We think you'd be a great fit for the uh the Trojan family here at Anderson University, you know, that type of thing. When you get that type of email, that coach is interested in you. Okay. Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 56:26

So um we've been going for a while now, Danny. It's been great. Are there any hearting words you've got for the for the crowd out there?

SPEAKER_00 56:34

No, just you know, good luck. It's a it's a it's it's a job. It's a it's a job. You you you've hot you got your highlight film, you've evaluated your son, you've videoed his his sophomore year, uh, whether he was in fallball or box, even box lacrosse, if he plays in in the winter. Uh, a lot of kids play box, film that stuff, make a really good highlight film, no longer than three minutes, make those first 60 seconds exciting, narrow down your schools by how far you're willing to go away to school, narrow those schools down. If you are interested in a particular major, look at schools in that particular five-hour range, let's say, you know, um, that have that major, and then start reaching out. Just send those, send that link out, send a cover letter, make sure that you have the coach's name correct, make sure that you spell it correctly, make sure that you tell him about any future tournaments that is coming up, or if you made any regional teams or under armor teams, or any specific maybe camps that you might be attending, the National 175 or the Peak 200 or whatever, whatever camp you might be going to. There's these are all across showcase type stuff that gets you in front of coaches. So once you do that and you and September 1st of your junior year, you can literally call them up. You know, you can literally start calling them, you know, and you're going to have to do not every coach can make every tournament in every spot, but you know what? You might pique his interest if you if you have a good grade point average and you have a great highlight film, and and and you go to their prospect day and do well, you good things could happen. So it's a job, it's a lot, it's gonna cost some money, but in the end, the the the money that you put into it uh the it will pay off 50-fold in the end.

SPEAKER_01 58:45

Exactly, exactly. That's a I think that's a great way to end it. You gave a great synopsis at the end, and uh, and I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, I've truly enjoyed where my son is playing and to be able to watch that and what he's been able to get out of it. Not only, and this is at a D2 school again. I like to always put that in there because I like you said, I think D2, because of the way they can stack scholarships, what they can do, the the myriad of schools, but I think also what he is getting out of the program and his team, and that helps him mature and make him a better person, not just a better athlete, because that's also what he's getting out of it. So, with that, Danny, once again, I really appreciate you uh sitting here with me today as my co-host on this show. Um, my pleasure, Kev. Always fun. So uh we're gonna sign on.

SPEAKER_00 59:36

Let's tell the people, oh, tell the people what's coming up. We have some exciting news.

SPEAKER_01 59:41

So we do. So we've been reaching, I've been reaching out to uh uh a few coaches out there, and uh we are gonna be starting some podcasts and having coaches from uh different conferences get on. I won't reveal who they are, you're gonna have to wait and see. But we're the what I'm trying to do is hopefully we can get at least one coach from each conference to really once again spread the word and let everyone know about what's happening, you know, the differences in each conference from a coach's perspective and the things they're looking for too. So that's kind of where we're going next.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:13

So, yeah, so a couple of coaches have responded and are willing to come on to the podcast, and I am so excited about that. God bless them. They don't know what they're gonna come into. In the up and yeah, right, right, exactly. They'll be like, come on, guys, let's go. I gotta go. You know, we'll be we'll you and I be smoking cigars and talking lacrosse till midnight. But anyway, I'm really excited that these coaches have responded, and um, everybody out there in podcast land will be uh we'll be highlighting these coaches in in the up and coming podcasts.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:46

That's right. So that wraps up for this one increase, uh coast to coast discussion of D2 men's lacrosse. Thanks, Danny.