Which prospect camp to attend....

This keeps coming from parents, which prospect camps to attend? The number 1 answer - where does your kid want to go to college? Forget lacrosse, if they are there for a semester or year or whatever, an stop playing, do they still want to go to that school? If the answer is no, I suggest finding another school.

The choices are immense, and as usual, the devil is in the details. Do you want a large school? small? southern? western? What majors are good for the student (knowing most kids change their majors more then once)? Distance from home? Tons of options without considering lacrosse. Those are the ones you target. I always suggest starting with US News best colleges and rankings, has information on just about every school.

Next - look at the lacrosse program. Is it fully funded by the college/university? Do they have cuts? How many coaches do they have and what are their qualifications? Does the coach have lacrosse a priority over attending classes? Are there corporate sponsors for the team (this helps if you have to buy equipment for the player)? Forget about how long the coaches have been at the school, there are so many changes during the year that the odds are that the head coach starting will be different in 4 years.

Do the research ahead of time, then attend the prospect day, meet the coaches, and just as important talk to some of the existing players (your child and parents talk to them, together and separate). Basically your interviewing them as well. If your son/daughter creates a rapport with a player during the day, invite that player to lunch or dinner - you will learn a lot !!! We attended one prospect day where there were ~300 kids (aka a money grab for the program), and just watching the existing players lack of interest (or smiles) and poor interaction with the inattentive coach were enough for us to say No.