Recruiting 101: A Guide for Players and Parents

The recruiting process can be one of the most exciting and confusing experiences a student-athlete and their family go through. It will test your patience, your budget, and your emotions. The goal of this guide is to give you honest, practical information to help you navigate it well.

Are You Ready to Commit?

Before anything else, ask yourself a hard question: is your son genuinely passionate about playing college lacrosse, or does he love the game socially?

Playing lacrosse in college is a significant commitment that goes well beyond the fun parts. If your son is the type of player who never wants to put his stick down and is driven to compete at the next level, the process is absolutely worth pursuing. If lacrosse is more of a social outlet than a calling, save yourself time and money. Very few players who treat lacrosse casually end up sticking with it through four years of college.

Have that conversation honestly before you invest in the recruiting process.

Getting Started

Once you have decided to pursue college lacrosse, here are the first things to focus on.

Play for a reputable club program. The landscape has changed significantly over the last decade. College coaches are largely recruiting from a pool of 20 to 40 club programs nationally and attending a handful of showcases each summer. Make sure you are in one of those environments. It puts you in front of the right people.

Build your school list early. Start with a list of 50 to 100 schools you are genuinely interested in. The broader your search, the better your chances of finding the right fit academically, athletically and socially. Ask your coaches to be honest with you about what level is realistic. Most players end up at Division 2 or Division 3 schools, and many of those experiences are more enjoyable and fulfilling than playing at a mid-level D1 program. Include those schools in your search from the beginning.

Also make sure every school on your list is somewhere you would be happy if lacrosse was taken away tomorrow due to injury or a coaching change.

Do your homework on academics. Research admissions requirements at every school on your list. If your GPA is a 2.0 and a school’s average admit is 3.5, remove it. If your GPA is a 3.5, do not waste your time with schools that admit 2.0 students. Do not assume lacrosse will get you an academic exception. Younger players reading this: your grades will either open doors or close them. Take them seriously now.

Managing Your Own Process

Build a database — usually a spreadsheet — of every school you are interested in and track all correspondence. In late April or early May for the summer recruiting period, and throughout fall for the fall period, begin sending coaches a personal email with your athletic and academic resume, your summer schedule and a highlight tape or game film if you have it.

For tips on putting together a strong highlight tape, read our full breakdown: So You’re Making a Highlight Tape.

Keep coaches updated throughout the season. Follow up after your spring season. Reach out before summer events. Let them know when you will be at their camp or tournament. Be proactive. Do not sit back and wait to be discovered.

You own your recruiting process. It is no one else’s job to get you recruited. Not your club coach, not your high school coach. They are valuable resources, but they are managing a roster of players. The research, the outreach, the follow-up and the decisions are yours to manage.

Understanding Your Options

Most fans know the top D1 programs: Johns Hopkins, Duke, Maryland, North Carolina, Notre Dame. The reality is that very few players ever suit up for those programs. If you are not unquestionably the best player on the field every time you play, you are not playing for a top 10 or 15 D1 program. That is not a knock — it is just how narrow that window is.

One of the biggest mistakes young athletes make is deciding they only want to play for a high-profile D1 program or not at all. That mindset rules out a tremendous number of options that could offer a great education, a genuine athletic experience and a scholarship you could not have gotten otherwise.

If you are one of the better players on your club or school team and have solid grades, there is very likely a home for you at a mid-level D1 school, a D2 or a D3 program. Beyond that, the Men’s Collegiate Lacrosse Association (MCLA) has programs at schools that do not sponsor NCAA lacrosse.

School lists by division:

The Recruiting Timeline

In April 2017, the NCAA passed rules preventing college coaches from contacting recruits in any way before September 1 of their junior year. Coaches also cannot work around this by communicating with a club or high school coach about a prospective athlete. That is considered a violation.

What this means practically: college coaches will watch you play in the summer leading up to your junior year, but all actual communication begins September 1 of junior year. Recruiting at the D1, D2 and D3 levels now happens during junior and senior year.

Should You Repeat a Grade or Take a PG Year?

This is a personal decision and one that should not be made primarily for lacrosse reasons. Will your son have an athletic advantage competing as an older, more developed player? Yes. But there are real social and financial costs to consider, and reclassifying does not always significantly change where a player ends up in the process. Make this decision based on what is genuinely best for your son overall.

Recommended Showcases

Attending the right individual recruiting showcases can help draw attention from schools that have not yet seen you play in a tournament setting. Be selective. Research which coaches attend each event before you commit time and money.

If a camp conflicts with a club tournament, discuss it with your coach before registering. Always check which coaches are confirmed to attend before spending money on any showcase.

Prospect Days

Prospect days are one to two day camps held on a school’s campus. They are a great way to get in front of a specific coaching staff, but they can also drain your budget fast if you attend every one you are invited to. A few rules of thumb:

  • Try not to attend the same school’s prospect day more than once. One full day in front of a staff should be enough for them to evaluate you.
  • Think in tiers. If a top 10 program showed no interest after their prospect day, the other top 10 programs probably will not either.
  • Remember the timeline. Freshman and sophomores do not need to be attending prospect days unless it is purely a learning experience.
  • If you are a rising senior, be selective. Do not spend time at prospect days for schools that have shown no genuine interest in you.
  • Just because a coach sent you an invite does not mean they are actively recruiting you. Coaches fill camps. Be realistic about which events make sense for your goals.
  • Due to NCAA rules, prospect days cannot be exclusively invitation-only events. You can email a staff and ask for information or an invitation.

Understanding Scholarships

The NCAA limits athletic scholarships strictly. Division 1 men’s programs have 12.6 scholarships to distribute across a roster of roughly 45 players. Division 2 programs have 10.8. Lacrosse is an equivalency sport, meaning those scholarships are divided into partials across many players rather than a handful of full rides.

Full scholarships are rare. More commonly, an upperclassman might see their partial scholarship increased as a reward or retention tool, which means that money comes from somewhere else on the roster. Scholarship money also tends to go first to offensive playmakers, faceoff specialists and goalies.

Even with a partial athletic scholarship, you may still face significant costs for room and board, books and transportation. Division 3 and Ivy League schools offer no athletic scholarships at all. Military academies cover tuition but require a congressional nomination and service commitment.

Scholarship awards are made year to year. While coaches cannot guarantee renewal, it is standard practice to honor the same level.

NCAA Recruiting Period Definitions

During the recruiting process you will hear these terms regularly. Here is what they actually mean.

  • Dead Period: No in-person contact or campus visits are permitted. Coaches may still write or call recruits.
  • Quiet Period: In-person contact is only permitted on the school’s campus. No off-campus recruiting.
  • Evaluation Period: Coaches may watch you play off campus and assess your academics and athletic ability, but cannot make in-person contact with you off campus.
  • Contact Period: Coaches may make in-person, off-campus contact and evaluations.

Division 2 does not have specific contact and evaluation periods outside of the dead periods. Division 3 prohibits off-campus contact until a player has completed sophomore year of high school, but has no restrictions on recruiting materials, phone calls or electronic communication.

Useful Links

Find recruiting showcases and events near you in the Lax Lock Tournaments & Showcases directory.