So first of all, lacrosse is a club sport. Again, that means that if you want to play it seriously and are looking at college offerings, you need to play on a "travel" or club team in most cases, unless you have a magically incredible high school team. If you are playing it for fun, then playing on a club isn't necessary.
My son Lincoln plays for the Caledonia Youth lacrosse program and it has a relatively short season, but it is worthwhile. I would say Cal has a pretty decent program overall and can compete with most other schools. Lincoln's school grade of kids is pretty good at it so they do quite well. We have enough quality teams in our area that we don't have to travel very far which is nice. We have had quality coaches so far and the nice thing is that the clubs take a break for school season and then pick up after school is done.
The high school program does decently well from what I have heard. They have a new coach who I have heard is doing a good job.
I love lacrosse. I really wished I could have played it. And as such, it is amazing to me that more kids don't play it. I think the numbers of kids has grown for the school program and that is good. But it still is a little lower than I think it should be and the number of kids that take it seriously and play club out of Cal is astoundingly low. I don't really know why this is. It isn't terribly expensive, at least to me, to play. But then again everything is relative and when you fork over massive money for tier 1 hockey, everything else is pretty cheap compared to that. It is funny when I hear people mention that they can't afford to play when it costs a bit over a hundred bucks. I am probably just spoiled but a hundred bucks barely buys a cheap hockey stick. It just seems hard to understand.
So there are a number of clubs throughout Michigan. I don't know all of them and I am not saying that other clubs aren't good or haven't sent kids to college or any of that. I am saying that the 3 most significant programs or main programs in my lacrosse "world" are True, Omnia and the Cherries program out of Detroit. So while I know there are others, I also know that our club doesn't play many of them because there isn't much competition at least at our age level. Not trying to offend, standard disclaimers, etc.
The Cherries program, from what little I know, is pretty good and some of the better players end up playing there. That is about the extent of my knowledge but I know they are generally good.
Omnia is a program started by a guy who used to be part of the True organization. It has run for a couple years in Detroit and this year expanded to Grand Rapids. I know they have pulled some good people from the True program and also some players. I think they are a work in progress but haven't heard anything seriously negative about them. Competition is not a bad thing. More on this shortly...
We have been a part of True lacrosse for going on three years now. They are a national organization with branches in many states. We have played on their regional team for two years, which is their lower level team, and this year we are on their state team, which is their higher level team. The club has many positives and a few things you might call negatives much like any other place. We have been happy with it so far. The boys that we know that play there like the coaching and it is nice to also have the two owners, particularly one, know who Lincoln is within the hundreds of kids (maybe thousands) that they have.
They have a fall, winter and summer session and play some tournaments throughout the year, particularly during the summer. The tourneys are extremely fun, but the kids get a lot more practice time in than they do game time. They practice all year and play at most 5 tournaments. That isn't much compared to hockey. Regardless, it is a good scene and one that I encourage any kid to get into if they want to take lacrosse seriously.
The state team Lincoln plays on which is kids graduating in 2027 is fairly good. The makeup of the team is kids from the area with the exception perhaps of the Forest Hills schools and maybe Hudsonville. FH has their own teams, but we do see some of their kids play with us sometimes also. Our kids have played with one another for a few years and they are settling in nicely. We have added some kids in and look like we will have a decent team--perhaps even good enough to do okay in some of the tournaments on the east coast, where the best lacrosse in the country is played.
I have heard a few people say that their experience at True wasn't positive. I don't know enough info to say why that could be. Like any other place, these people may have had something not go their way, or maybe didn't get enough playing time or were perhaps cut or maybe had a bad coach or something. It is hard to tell and it is not possible to please everyone if you run a competitive sports organization.
Now back to what I mentioned earlier. I am amazed that there aren't more kids but I am happy for the ones that we have. The problem here is that there aren't enough talented kids to field two competitive teams. It's similar to the situation we have in the Grand Rapids area with tier 1 hockey. So a program like Omnia comes in and says to come play for them. Well, there were some kids that went and did that from the area. But they don't have the level of talent that our True team has, from what I understand from many sources.
So this becomes problematic. it ties into the whole Detroit carousel thing also that I wrote about already. The best kids tend to come together on the best teams. You form the totem pole as always. True has the advantage right now. They are established and they have been around. Will they hold the advantage? Only time will tell. But I don't think you are going to be able to have two teams that possibly compete out East. Unless we start getting a bunch more talent that comes in I don't see it happening.
True has been a ton of fun so far and the best part is getting to know some of the families from other schools that you would likely have never connected with any other ways. We have a nice bunch of parents and I am very thankful for that.
It is interesting how each sport is a little bit different as you would expect. A few of us have really tried to spread the word about it and I believe we do have some new kids that are coming in to try it for the first time, which is exciting. It can be a bit frustrating when there is a large skill difference between the boys on the teams (I am talking about school lacrosse here), but I have explained to my son that he needs to help these new kids get better and learn how to do it. The more kids coming out the better it is for him and the new kids get to experience how much fun it can be. Really all you have to do is get a stick in a kids hand and they start to get it right away.
Lacrosse tends to pull you in just like the others do. You can literally do it all year if you want to. Lincoln does very well at it and practices on his own and has a passion for it, so the sky is the limit for what he can do.
I may have some other threads about more specific things like Box Lacrosse or other topics, but this is just more of a general overview.
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