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Survey: Are the many summer travel teams hurting individual camps and skill set improvement for young players?
May 6th, 2010 at 8:42 am
Summer Elite teams are great and can be a fun valuable experience, but the problem is there are too many and many of them are not elite. In the Northern Virginia area there are around 11 programs with summer teams all competing for players. This dilutes the talent of the teams. The bigger problem is that most of the players from U-15 through high school and their parents think that these summer teams are the answer to getting better and getting noticed. The reality is that the overwhelming number of athletes I come in contact with through coaching high school lacrosse will not play lacrosse in college. The small number that will go on the play will compete at the DII and DIII levels and will receive no money for athletics. Those that are talented and lucky enough to get money to play at the DI and DII are the minority. So in my opinion players and parents need to make sure that they have the right motives. A players best chance of getting into his dream school is through academics.
I think that a quality camp experience or just focused practice over the summer will be a bigger help to most young players then playing on a summer team.
June 2nd, 2010 at 9:17 am
Have to agree with m’boy Okee, with the following elaboration:
^ if you’re an athlete who needs to acquire the fundamentals of individual play (throw, catch, shoot, dodge, scoop — on the run with both hands), you need to go to camp, no question.
^ if you’re an athlete that has 100 hours to spend in the preseason, spend it a little at a time in summer, fall, indoor game-only leagues. Each week you’ll discover something new in your game, and grow in confidence, and have fun.
^ if you’re a laxer with less athletic prowess than your competition (power, speed, size), then run, do push ups, join a gym, go to one of the multisport explosive conditioning joints, or all of the above.
^ if you need to grow your saucy one-on-one game and acquire more colorful pinnies, or if you really are already one of those kids that is going to be recruited, join an elite team.
July 27th, 2010 at 11:56 am
Our offseason (U13) we stress smaller informal games like chamush that work on catching and passing in close quarters as well as seeing the field under presure. You only need 4 players to have a game. Parents will ask what camp would I recommend I tell them I can give there kid a 45 min wall ball routine that if they do it 5 times a week all summer they will improve much more than a week long camp which tend to have a certain amount of standing around. If they really want camp I steer them towards overall agility camps that stress footwork and explosive body conditioning. I’m a strong supporter of getting away from the game for a little while so we’ll put together some days for ultimate frisbee, basketball and other activities just to touch base but not teaching every minute of the time. I found that multiple game summer touraments with little practice can inforce bad habits as well as good at the U13 level.