Hello there —

If you get this email, it likely means you’re the parent or coach of players involved in the lacrosse world.

That journey can be a psychological battle. We get it. Our mission is to help with that journey. However, we haven’t developed a perfect solution for it… yet.

In the meantime, we’re going to keep chipping away at serving you some clarity on different aspects of the lacrosse world.

Today’s piece shines a light on Inside Lacrosse’s evaluation process. IL is one of the main evaluators in the sport.

We get a ton of questions around rankings, evaluation scores, stars and how it all works.

It is meant to be informative based on our perspective as to how their process works.

We understand the weight these can hold for athletes, so we think it is important for people to understand how some of these things can come about.

The FCL Team

When I was getting recruited, my high school coach told me I needed to learn how to sell myself. I didn’t love that. I just wanted to play and get recruited.

That’s how most players approach it. Play well and hope. This strategy works for some, but coaches have a lot to sift through.

The issue is coaches aren’t just evaluating talent. They’re trying to reduce uncertainty with limited spots and limited information.

That’s where recruiting being a two-way street shows up. When you reach out with clear, specific interest, it gives a coach something concrete to evaluate.

This does not mean be disingenuous. It means sharing if a place is your dream school. For example, if your parents both went to the school and you’ve been a fan since a young age, share that!

The first step is figuring out what you actually want and conveying that.

It doesn’t guarantee anything. It just changes the signal you’re sending, which is one of the few parts you control.

Matt

Rankings generate a lot of buzz. Young athletes talk about rankings… a lot.

“This team has three 4-star players. I heard she is a 5-star recruit.”

This holds true in every sport, especially football or basketball. For better or for worse, a ton of hype surrounds the ranking of recruits.

Today we want to provide clarity on how Inside Lacrosse evaluates players. We’ve sourced this directly from their article: Understanding Our Recruiting Content.

For context, the author of that article, Dan Kaplan at IL, is a friend of ours. We’ve spoken to him about the topic and worked with him. He puts a ton of effort into his job and does his very best to get it right.

Rankings are hard. There are tons of players out there, and limited time to see everyone.

These evaluations don’t define who you are or where you are going. They are the reflection of the opinion of one group at a particular point in time.

Inside Lacrosse uses three different metrics for assessing a player: evaluation scores, star ratings, and rankings.

Each of these processes have their own identity. They are connected, but not dependent upon each other.

Players do not need to attend an Inside Lacrosse event to receive an evaluation score, star rating, or ranking.

#1 - Evaluation Scores

Players can accumulate multiple evaluation scores throughout their high school journey, and evaluations are performed at all times of the year.

Here is the context for the Inside Lacrosse Evaluation Scale. You will see the score on the left, and what that means on the right:

#2 - Star Ratings

Star ratings are typically updated once per year, in close proximity to when rankings are released. Stars can also be added in waves throughout the year.

Not all players will receive a star rating. This is the breakdown percentage wise of players who typically get this rating:

Every class will not have the same number of 5, 4, and 3 stars. This is similar to other sports where it allows flexibility if one class is deemed more talented than another.

Players do not need any specific association, and they do not need to play in any specific event to receive a star rating.

Having received more or higher scored evaluation scores does not guarantee a star rating.

Star ratings incorporate college coach opinions.

#3 - Rankings

Rankings take as much information as is available into account. This includes “analysis of the high school career, club performance, physical growth and appeal to college coaches as a prospect.”

Rankings are typically released once a year. Each class will receive three sets of rankings currently (and this could change if recruiting rules changed):

Having received more or higher scored evaluation scores does not guarantee a ranking.

Rankings incorporate college coach opinions.

All of these evaluations are, by nature, subjective. They are opinions. There is no possible way to objectively categorize an entire class in rank order.

That’s ok. It is important just to know what they are. They are cool… but not that big of a deal.

Our advice: don’t bend over backwards trying to get evaluated, ranked, etc.

Players might get ranked or starred because IL evaluators spoke to college coaches and they all agree that the player is a strong prospect; however, the reverse is rarely true.

College recruiters are not scouring the ranking lists for recruits.

Coach Class and Coach Dunn

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Many college teams moved star midfielders to attack recently.

Of course, you want your best offensive player to be on the field more, but there are other reasons why this change could unlock an offense.

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