With the rule going into effect soon, 8th grade verbals are starting to fall like dominos in the gymnastics world. JO Nationals is this weekend in Indianapolis. I suspect many more will come in the next few weeks. Interesting times…
Circling back around to find out from the lacrosse experts, @twoinanddone here if you’ve witnessed an uptick in rising 9th graders making verbal commitments (so class of 2021). In gymnastics, it’s been extremely high. Some of the higher ranked schools have filled their class already. Of note is I have not witnessed the same in baseball which is the only other sport in which I have deeper knowledge.
The rule change became effective immediately (April) and everyone was caught by surprise as many thought they’d have until the summer rules meetings to lock in the current sophomores. There was no time to quickly ‘commit’ and get in under the wire. There were sophomores who had committed (almost 500 listed on the recruiting page of Laxpower) and they just stay in a holding pattern until September. Any others just have to wait. I’d say that come Sept 1, there will be a ton of kids who commit because they were ready in April but just hadn’t pulled the trigger (or the college coaches were busy with the season and don’t talk to recruits during the season). Next year should be different because all the sophomores (2020’s) won’t have discussed any details of offers until Sept 1, 2018, so on that date they won’t be ready to commit, will want to take visits to the schools, will need to learn about financial aid and playing time and travel. Kids who have had friends or siblings recruited in a prior year will know more and be more ready. Some high school and club coaches will have more connections and be ready for a Sept 1 kick off.
The summer camp and tournament season is just getting started so we’ll see if there are any reports of rule breakers. Many of the summer camps break up into age groups (sometimes even having different ages attend different weeks) so it should be clear if recruiting is going on with the 2020’s, or the 2021’s. Some of the tournament teams play in an ‘open’ division or kids play up on a team, but most play with their age group so recruiting coaches will only watch the 2018 and 2019 games, and will have to wait until Sept 1 to contact the 2019 girls. I can see some mistakes being made if a coach is watching a 2018 team play and it turns out there are rising juniors on the field playing up.
I have seen a few 2019 and 2020 commits posted on Twitter, but there also seems to be some sort of informal grandfathering going on where if an offer was extended before the rules changed, that offer can still be accepted. Read into that what you will.
2021s are being looked at for sure but from what I have seen the rules are being followed and no communication is happening with the recruits about recruiting. Even the 2019s who have previously committed are in a no contact zone until Sept 1 and that appears to be largely holding.
Not certain why, but lax commitments seem to have grown into such a one up game that kids have for years claimed D1 commitments that weren’t in place yet or even more silly D3 commitments that could never be formalized. I guess lax will come down to reality now…
Kids were committing (after receiving offers) to D1 schools as early as 8th grade. There is no way to commit until senior year when they signed a NLI. Those who wanted D3 schools could commit on the same time line, but it was more unusual for a D3 coach to be that far ahead in recruiting. Sometimes happened if it was a sibling or former teammate of a current player.
This is common in all sports, to commit before the NLI is signed, it’s just that in lax (and soccer) the original commitment was very early, there were freshmen and sophomores visiting the schools and talking scholarship terms with the coaches. Now there will be commitments in fall of junior year, and they won’t be formalized until senior year. Same as it has been.
I have a 2021 who plays on a top club team in Maryland and there have not been too many girls recruited from what I hear. I’m excited that my daughter doesn’t have the pressure to commit early because there are girls who play for her club (older girls) who committed in 8th grade - and most were recruited by summer before sophomore year. She wants to play NESCAC and her high school and club coaches have strong connections to many of the programs so I’m glad she has more time to decide.
If it’s lax it’s purely a result of the NCAA’s decision in February to restrict contact and verbal commitments until one’s Junior Year - agree it’s a good thing.
It’s not lax, but I thought of this thread when I saw a news item yesterday about a 13 year old gymnast who has verbally committed to U.Ga. THIRTEEN. She is not even in high school yet. The take-away for aspiring gymnasts seems to me to be that if you’re not a junior elite by 13, you might as well hang up your grips. On the other hand, my rising senior swimmer, who is in the thick of recruiting right now, is surrounded by girls whose fastest times are from age 13, 14, maybe even 12; plenty of them have not touched those times since. My daughter has kept plugging away and watched as girls she couldn’t hang with at 11, 12, 13, slowed down, while she was dropping a few tenths here, a second there, and has ended up as a pretty hot commodity, as mid-major D1 swimmers go. She has had two offers of full swim scholarships (and I do mean full rides–tuition, room, board, fees) and expects a couple more substantial offers from the other schools in her top four or five. What if these schools had gotten commitments (and were honorable people) when her now-slower friends were 13? There would be no space left for my kid, and that would be a loss for everyone, including the girls who committed at 13 and were going to programs that were no longer a swim fit for them. It’s so ridiculous.
I also have a swimmer and it’s been interesting to see the progression of the superstars from 12 and under to today. I want to think certain sports are different. My swimmer was also a gymnast years ago and while she was really good , she grew so we switched to swimming. Then she stopped growing! During those scrawny years, I think she was in the negative for calories each day. Now she’s 15 and has grow considerably and her times show it. Puberty affects kids all different ways and I can’t imagine why colleges don’t wait to identify their talent until later. There are boys just finishing 9th grade at my DD’s school who have long since “committed” to schools like Duke for lacrosse. Just seems crazy to me.
For Girls, XC/Track works exactly the same way - the vast majority are fastest in 9th/10th grade and then the body changes slow them down. So, coaches are always hunting for those who keep getting faster through Senior Year - our DD was one of those that kept getting faster and was able to keep several programs in the mix through RD of Senior year; she also had a teammate who was nationally ranked and signed with an ACC school at NLI signing day in Senior Year - not even Sydney Mclaughlin, who competed in the rio olympics, “committed” until NLI signing day in Senior year, until then she just kept several teams in the mix!
Mother of a D18 gymnast here who has long believed this super early recruiting needs to be done away with. It will change now with the new NCAA rule stating no recruiting of any kind until September of junior year but it doesn’t go into effect until August 1st. There has been a huge number of 2020s and 2021s making verbal commitments and I expect many more until that deadline hits. My D received a full gymnastics scholarship spring of sophomore year but she certainly had a lot of interest that showed as early as 8th grade when she went to Nationals. When you know spots fill up early, you do get caught up if I’m being honest. Those were stressful months (heck years!) for her and for us and a whole lot of work. It worked out incredibly well for us (she is very much looking forward to her OV and signing the NLI in November at her top choice) but I know many others for whom it has not. Most parents in the sport welcome the new rule change to slow it all down.
I really don’t think it is the parents who like it. Supposedly, in lax, it was the coaches who wanted the change by they couldn’t do it unless ordered to because the other guys would be picking up all the best prospects. So now they are all under the same delayed schedule.
I don’t think it will make a lot of difference. I think the kids who would have signed at the #2 and #6 schools will still end up at those schools. It is not like they won’t still be at the same camps and showcase tournaments, it’s just that the parents can’t talk to the coaches! The parents will be in agony.
In the gymnastics community, the parents like it. Well, the non-national team member, non-elite parents do as I agree those super top programs will continue to take those same kids. It does allow, however, for those not in those categories time to show either the athlete is consistently excellent and the results are not a fluke or simply average excellent/average. With only 62 DI programs in the country (and only 6 D2 I believe), that can be the difference between a scholarship, walk on or a place on the team at all. Either way, parents will be in agony for sure! It’s still a heck of a difficult process.
The proliferation of lax showcase camps for 6th, 7th, 8th graders is a huge money makers for the coaches and a drug for parents that want to live vicariously through their kids; it could be argued that as much money is spent on entry fees and travel over the years as would be gained through a 1/8 or 1/4 share scholarship at a top D1 lax program, understanding that Ivy’s don’t give them, and neither do NESCAC D3 - although some Centennial’s could ostensibly provide as a merit scholarship if those criteria are met.
It sounds like gymnastics may have been in the same situation - IMHO
^ I have posted this before, but the camps/showcases/travel teams system is ridiculous, not just because of recruiting and not just in lax. I have a nephew who is a very good baseball player in a state that produces a lot of baseball talent. He received several offers from Big 12 and SEC teams coming out of high school. But because he is not a pitcher at the next level all of those offers were for a relative pittance in scholarship money or were offers of a roster spot and some academic merit money (kid is pretty smart). Certainly even his best offers did not, on a dollar for dollar basis, amount to anywhere close to the money expended over the years travelling throughout the south east for camps, showcases, travel tournaments, etc.
What is more, while baseball isn’t exactly a poor man’s game, it is not as economically stratified as lax. Add that to the fact that my in laws don’t live in coastal California or the north east, and I assume the several thousands a year they have been spending on baseball over the last decade is a drop in the bucket compared to what some in metro DC or New York are spending on sports like lax. And I used to bitch about a couple hundred a year for JO volleyball, lol.
@ohiodad51 We are soccer, not LAX, but agree that most likely any scholarship money- in the majority of cases- will not match the money expended on club costs, tournaments, travel, etc in the years leading up to college. We went into the years of club play fully aware of the costs involved and with no expectation that our son would even continue to play his sport in college, let alone receive any money for doing so. We did it because he loves his sport and has always been thankful for every minute he is able to participate in it. We were continually surprised at how many parents thought there would be a sure pay-off in the end in terms of big athletic scholarships.
I am in the group that thinks it is ridiculous that kids have been getting recruited at such a young age. Our son was young for his grade and and also slow to physically mature. He was skinny and undersized going into his junior year when coaches were starting to look at him. He was great on paper as far as stats but when he was invited to camps had a tough time holding his own against 6’2", 200#, fully bearded, community college transfers who were competing for the same position. He was very lucky to end up at his #1 choice and has now grown to 6’2" also- he was just slow getting there. Early recruitment is such a gamble because, as many here have said, the results of puberty are such an unknown. Hopefully the NCAA regs will help level the playing field.
@Ohiodad51, @takeitallin, totally agree, and when combined with a student athlete committing to a lower academic school on a 1/8 share scholarship than they could have gotten into otherwise is ridiculous - what are people thinking. Thank goodness my DD’s sport, XC/track, is based on HS times and rankings which are easily verifiable by college coaches on Milesplit and Athletic.net - there are some showcase events popping up, but most aren’t bitting, for now.
Gymnastics was interesting for level 10s who reached that level later. We saw a lot of early recruits who ended up getting spots but then not doing as well later - yet, good or bad most schools seemed to honor those even if other girls with higher skills were left without a spot. It was an interesting process to say the least and in the end, the fact that some of the spots my daughter would have been interested in were taken, worked in our favor as she became open to looking at the Ivies. We said no to several full scholarships where the school was not a great academic fit. We are thrilled to be able to send her to an Ivy this fall – worth the money imo and happy with the fact that the emphasis is also on academics as well as sports, especially given the fact that these girls spend so much of their lives solely focused on gymnastics - if that emphasis continues throughout college - sometimes at the expense of other interests - then I think they will be more bereft at the end. The last college meet is their last gymnastics meet - there are no Sunday morning adult competitions… I hope that high school students are weighing the total college experience when making their decisions but very hard to do at 13, 14, 15 etc.
@Flinnt12, totally agree. While my daughter never got swayed by many much less academically strong D1 or D2 schools as they promised scholarships and mailed her shirts with her name on the back, many did… We are thrilled that she’ll be studying and competing (in that order) at a highly selective NESCAC LAC - all good.