“…Assistant coach Jordan Harris said he sees the elite camp as the future for recruiting…“I see the elite camp eventually becoming the most important week for us as a team,” Harris said. “We are going to end up doing 90 percent of our recruiting at the elite camp in the future. It was a big success this year.”
The BYU men’s lacrosse team won the 2011 Men’s Collegiate Lacrosse Association Championship in May, and it hasn’t pulled the reins back since hoisting the trophy.
During each summer at BYU, the dorms, campus and fields are taken over by kids of all ages participating in EFY and sports camps. The lacrosse team recently finished four straight weeks of camps; a cubs camp for ages 7-12, two weeks of regular camp for ages 12-18 and for the first time in BYU’s lacrosse camp history, an elite camp for ages 14-18. Numbers increased by 175 youth this summer compared to last year.
Steve Naegle, who just finished his first year as an assistant coach, said he looks for several different things while at camp, especially when it comes to recruiting future players.
“I look for athleticism, stick skills and understanding the game of lacrosse,” he said. “Seeing the better players playing with each other provided a better level at the elite camp and that made it better for the guys at the other two weeks. Some of them were beginners, and there wasn’t as wide of a spread of skill level and experience level at the other weeks.”
With BYU being a club team, it doesn’t have a big budget to travel around to recruit players. These camps have been one of the best and most successful ways for the coaches to see kids and recruit them to BYU. The coaching staff created the elite camp for the athletes they were interested in to come and play in front of them. The camp also provides the youth interested in playing for BYU the opportunity to experience the BYU culture.
For more: http://universe.byu.edu/index.php/2011/08/02/byu-lacrosse-is-on-the-rise/
laxbuzz
Its a shame that it does not help out the womens team to give them a chance to use the fields that the men use or give them the exposure that they get from the school or the money backing also…..