LaxTV Forums | A Forum About The MCLA

Since I'm not getting much done at work on a Friday afternoon, I figured I would bring up a new topic - one that I've been mulling over for awhile. How do most teams deal with the issue of allowing guys without high school experience play for their squad? I'm especially interested in hearing how the mid-level and top-level teams handle this situation.

When I started playing back in the dark ages of the late 1980's, our team was comprised mostly of guys that were new to the game along with a handful of key players that had high school experience. Obviously, a lot has changed in the last 15 years and now we have players coming in every year with 4 or more years of playing experience. Despite that, we have still allowed guys without any experience join the team. It's a pretty tough road for the "brand newbies" and only a small percentage stick around to eventually become major contributors to the team, but it still happens occasionally (one of our captains on this year's squad never played in HS). A good athlete is a good athlete after all, and even though lacrosse is a tough game to learn, it can certainly be done.

Do most of the Top 25 - 40 teams have guys on their squad that never played in high school? Or have we moved to the point where it's not worth the effort of teaching the game to guys that have never held a stick before? I am guessing that most B Division squads use some (or lot) of inexperienced simply out of necessity, but what about the A Division teams? Also, if you do bring on brand new players, how do you balance the disparity in playing levels between the current team and the new players, especially in the early stages?

Any thoughts or comments?

Marc Lea
CP Lacrosse

I know you are looking more for Division A teams, but I would highly encourage all programs to prowl their weight rooms and exercise areas for athletic men and throw a lacrosse stick in their hands.

I have found in my time at St. John's that some of our best investments in time have been athletic guys who are just looking for a sport to pass the time. In fact, our entire junior class never played before and they are mostly starters and our best utility men. We got them to buy sticks and then spent a few hours every week getting them to develop their skills. 2 years later, many of them are our best players and team leaders.

I would imagine that for a top 25 team, it would never hurt to have a few investment players that need extra coaching but are fantastic athletic specimen.

f you are willing to put in the time, players can really come through for you down the road.

I played for a team that was completely comprised of players with no HighSchool experience, and I would say the PLU is still mainly players with no HS experience. Great coaching and leadership can do a lot for your team. Kris, Aaron, and I all started as freshmen at PLU the same year. We were all 2 time all-stars, and Aaron actually recieved MVP of the league.

I think it is important to have multiple people starting out at the same time, so they can push each other. We have 1 kid this year with no experience, and he doesn't have anyone his own skill level to push him. I hated Kris and Aaron as we started playing, and wanted to be better than them. Now Aaron is one of my best friends, and Kris and I are co-coaching....

UCSB has 4 players on their roster who had never played lacrosse before college. Two are rookies and one is the president. It is amazing how much faster they pick up the game than kids who started playing in high school. These guys are ripping lefty shots after several months of playing.

get their dues early and let them know they aren't going to be playing much.


i do think that in some respect they pick the game up faster, they have better teachers and players to learn from in college than in HS. but i have rarely seen anyone who hasn't played have any real impact.

Wait so do most teams have a "tryout" where cuts are made but athletic kids who havent played are allowed to make the team or is there no tryout at all at other schools?

We have pretty competitive tryouts (this year we had 87 guys for a maximium of 40 spots, and all 87 had at least played some level of high school lacrosse). That's typical for us, but we actually do have one player on the team who didn't play in high school. He was an outstanding three sport athlete at a high school that didn't have lacrosse when he was there, but he knew before he came here that he wanted to play lacrosse and not pursue college opportunities in other sports (soccer was probably his best option). We kept him because of his athleticism and his attitude and work ethic, which are both incredible (he's also a 4.0 student). He's worked harder than any player I've ever coached. He didn't see the field much as a freshman, but he earned a starting D middie role his sophomore year, and this year he's going to be a standout at that position.

We make mistakes sometimes in our tryouts, but in his case, despite never playing before college, it was an easy call. You can tell the guys who will stand out. It just takes some patience sometimes as they develop.

We get roughly 10 freshmen a year who stick with it, we get a couple who have never played before who get frustrated and quit. Of those who stick around, 6-7 have played before where as 3-4 haven't. We have had some who have picked it up fast. My freshmen year, we had a kid from Keokuk, Iowa (Adam Rader, for those who were around then) who was great athlete and picked it up fast. By his sophomore year, he was our 2nd leading scorer and had a nasty outside shot on top of his great speed.

Ryan Walsh (Sioux City, IA) who is currently on the team has picked it up pretty good and is a great defensive midfielder for Iowa. Tony Barkey (Madrid, Iowa) also is a good defensive midfielder. They just found a niche on the team where they could help out. Erick Zehr (Iowa City, Iowa) played goalie for us last year and played well for never touching a stick til last year.

We try our best to help the new guys out and learn. This past fall when I was helping out. Kevin usually ran practice where as I pulled the new guys to the side to help them with basic stick skills and give them 1 on 1 time. Also when Kevin went over team offense and defense, I stood next to them on the side and went over things a little bit slower. Usually worked out well.

Danny Hogan wrote: but i have rarely seen anyone who hasn't played have any real impact.

One of our captains this year had never played before 2 seasons ago. he was a soccer player and we converted him into a LSM. I've found former soccer players who are good overall athletes convert very well into lacrosse because the movement on the field is very similar. Just as long as they work hard to develop the stick skills.

Tim Gray wrote:

Danny Hogan wrote: but i have rarely seen anyone who hasn't played have any real impact.

One of our captains this year had never played before 2 seasons ago. he was a soccer player and we converted him into a LSM. I've found former soccer players who are good overall athletes convert very well into lacrosse because the movement on the field is very similar. Just as long as they work hard to develop the stick skills.

I agree with Tim. Of our starters-

1 attack who never played in high school
1 face-off specialist who never played in high school
2 defenseman who never played in high school

Like John Paul said, if you have some patience and some time to put in with players who are very athletic, they can really come around for you. Why not, right? The worst that happens is that they ride the bench for awhile, have a great experience on the team and move on to something else.

Sam Goble & All American & BYU Captain Morris "Mo" Poole never played in HS.

5 years ago allot of Utah players started in College. It is getting quite rare now, due to the dramatic growth of the HS and youth leagues.
There were 13 HS teams in 98 there are now 34 teams with 29 JV/Freshman teams.

I would be surprised if most teams didn't have a couple of guys that had never played.

Danny's right in that most don't end up making a huge impact. But they are usually great people to have on the team from a coaching standpoint.
Alan Armenti was a Freshman my first year at FSU, and had never picked up a stick before. He was usually first to practice, and he worked as hard as anyone. He never scored a ton of goals, but he was always hustling, and did the right thing on the field moreso than many of the starters.

I guess he didn't have any of the bad habits to unlearn.

I think you can pretty much find this cenario on any lacrosse team in the MDIA. I guess because we all have the "club/virtual varsity tag" and the fact that we depend on all interested players for $$$, we aren't going to chase off inexperienced players.

I never played highschool lacrosse...there wasnt even highschool lacrosse where I am from. Most of my team hasnt played highschool, and yet we still do pretty good, most of our players come from a football or soccer backround though, so that is helpfull.

With No HS expierence

1 attackman
7 middies
3 Defense
1 Goalie (me)

All of those non highschool players are often better players, infact both of our captains are non highschool players.

We've always got about 5 guys who have never played. They usually didn't have lacrosse at their high school, especially this year in the midwest like Illinois. Some of them had a club type situation but it's still like having no experience. Like it was said before, those guys are usually the hardest working players on the team.