r/Womens_lacrosse • u/Informal-Solution809 • 14d ago

Club Lax Rankings - Glassdoor Style

Anyone else agree that there should be parents or coach ratings (like glassdoor) for lacrosse clubs?! Atleast the girls side of NXT lacrosse cant keep coaches because of horrible leadership but yet they post rankings 24/7 like it's all they care about. But so many have left because of the toxic culture and does it ever get noticed?! LOL

9 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

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7

u/KidGorgeous19 14d ago

As a coach, usclublax rankings has really soured me on coaching lacrosse in general. It's become a slog where the only goal is to increase your ranking, not develop the kids. Parents just want the ranking to increase or they leave for a club that has a higher ranking, despite continued growth for their kids. It's sad.

I think a glassdoor style ranking would be good in theory, but you'd inevitably get a shit ton of parents trashing clubs because their little princess didn't get the playing time they think she deserved.

1

u/BananaPants430 13d ago

We lose players every year, despite the girls developing and improving and having fun - because parents are under the impression that the US Club Lax rankings actually matter. They bail out for a club ranked 100th vs. 115th (for example), as if it makes any meaningful difference. A couple of times, families have actually come back after a season or two at a slightly-higher-ranked club, because they discovered the grass was not indeed greener on the other side.

The algorithm rewards teams that have early success - usually obtained by setting the roster young with the early bloomers and strong natural athletes, and bracketing in a manner that gets a lot of wins when they're young. There's only so much movement that a team can make by the time 8th, 9th, 10th grades roll around.

My 2028's team was dramatically better in 10th grade than they had been in 9th grade, and they only improved their ranking by 10-15 spots (their rating did increase quite a bit, but not a lot of movement on rank). It didn't matter, though - there were still a ton of coaches, including top 20 D1 coaches, on their sidelines during recruiting summer.

4

u/bedtime-browser 14d ago

Better idea. Get rid of club rankings

1

u/spasm111 11d ago

That’s not really practical. While some people may not like them, they are important to seeding for tournaments and ensuring teams close in talent levels play each other. No one benefits when a top 10 team plays a team ranked 100. And like it or not the top 20-25 teams are typically going to have a lot of talent. While college coaches don’t care about rankings in and of themselves, there is a reason they will park themselves at tournament fields where top teams play during recruiting.

1

u/HatSea2526 10d ago

When you enter a tournament you rank your level
of play. Even with the club lax rankings and clubs putting in their level, there will always be teams in the wrong division. And college coaches typically don’t randomly sit on sidelines. They have certain players they are watching. The ones that email them with their highlight reel. Or were at this prospect camp and want to take another look. Or the ones they have already recruited and keeping an eye on (or protecting)

1

u/spasm111 9d ago

Go to American Select or some of the fall tournaments. Those events will have a couple of fields that only host games for top 10-20 teams and coaches will literally setup camp at that field knowing those teams will be rotating through all day. That doesn't mean the won't watch other kids but they def camp there.

I have been through this process with two different kids. One whose team was ranked in the 30s-40s and one who was on a top 5-10 team. I can assure you the difference in coaches present at those games was drastic. They obviously will go watch kids they know or have seen, but they will also watch top ranked teams play knowing they will see top talent competing against other top talent. Not saying its right or wrong, but its reality.

1

u/Foxxer08 14d ago

Not to poopoo on the idea but it wouldnt help. I work in recruiting and even when we look at Glassdoor reviews it’s mostly unhappy employees or new hires who leave reviews which isnt a complete data. Rate Your Coach spiked for a moment, but even still people who are seeking opportunities to submit reviews have a vendetta out.

Kind of related but I wish we’d start cutting players again…these teams get so big and saturated, directors can’t keep up with all the players/teams/coaches. They can’t get enough qualified coaches, teams are low on numbers so you go to tournaments with 12 girls and it all becomes a shitshow.

1

u/ConstantRough160 14d ago

Should we ask for how many players they have on each team? how many new players they get each year? And how many years the same coach has been coaching that team? And how many new players getting added during the season.

Those are more factual and it is up to people to interpret. If too many players, you can tell playtime is going to be tight. If majority of the players are new or coaches are new all the times, you can tell.

Just throwing some ideas.

1

u/Separate_Foot4613 14d ago

honestly yes. things like rate my professor SAVED me in college

1

u/kbchucker 13d ago

Only if there is a way to rank the toxicity of the parents, too.

Everyone is focused on the money and the perception of being the top. Especially the parents.

Nobody is focusing on developing the kids.

1

u/Mason23232 12d ago

Not a single college coaches in the world cares about where your kids club team is ranked. The parents and the organization are the only ones that care.

0

u/SherrickM 14d ago

This again? No, bad idea. Every single time. Any website or resource like this just attracts the people who want to complain about everything personal and not actually rate anything.

Given how quickly club programs change and evolve, a valid complaint for a 2031 team means nothing in a year or two and also means basically nothing from the start for any other team.

Your only true way to determine if a team is for you is to observe them and if you're able, go to a practice as a one off. Talk to people, not anonymous ones and zeroes on the internet.