What If He Doesn't Play in College?

Ten years, forty tournaments a year at the busy end, a five-figure total if you ever added it up, and a kid who stood in front of a hard ball on purpose several thousand times.

And then, most likely, no college lacrosse.

Almost nothing written for goalie parents says that plainly, because the whole surrounding industry has a reason not to. It's worth saying plainly, early, and without gloom, because how a family holds this question from third grade onward changes what the decade is actually like.

The short version

Most young athletes who play youth lacrosse don't play it in college, and that's the normal outcome rather than a failure.

You'll see a figure quoted — around 14.7% of high school lacrosse players going on to the NCAA. Treat it carefully: it's a ratio between two population counts, not an individual's odds, and it merges Division I, II and III into one number that describes none of them.

The realistic picture for a goalie: Division I is 78 programs carrying two or three goalies each, now under a hard 48-player roster cap that has squeezed out many of the walk-on spots. Division III is a large, real and often excellent option. Club lacrosse at a university is a genuine lacrosse life that many former high school goalies choose on purpose.

And under all of it: the ten years were never an investment in a roster spot. If they were, almost every family in this sport made a bad trade, and I don't believe that for a second.

What the decade was actually buying

A body that knows how to train. He'll know how to warm up, how to build strength safely, how to rest on purpose and how to come back from a setback. Most adults never learn any of that, and the ones who do tend to stay healthy for decades.

A relationship with failure that most people never get. This is the part specific to the position, and it's the reason I coach it. A goalie is publicly, numerically wrong several times every Saturday, in front of a crowd, and has to reset in three seconds and go again. There's no other youth activity that trains that so directly, and it shows up later in job interviews and hard conversations and everything else that requires being wrong without falling apart. That's a whole article on its own.

The ability to run a room. Ten years of organising a defense out loud, at volume, while under pressure, makes a particular kind of young adult.

The transcript, if you did it right. For most families the academic side of this is the part that genuinely changes his life, which is why grades are the article I'd read first.

And a decade of Saturdays with you in them. Which sounds like the soft answer and is, in my experience of talking to parents whose kids have finished, the one they actually name.

The ways this ends, and all of them are fine

He plays Division III. No athletic scholarships, so the money is academic, the seasons are shorter and the lacrosse is real. A lot of goalies are happier here than they'd have been as the third goalie somewhere bigger.

He plays club at a university. Competitive, organised, a genuine team, and considerably more time for the rest of his life. This is a growing and underrated path, and nobody should treat it as a downgrade.

He walks on, or he doesn't. The roster cap made this harder and it still happens. Worth trying, worth having a plan B.

He stops, and picks up something else. Intramural, a different sport, the gym, coaching younger kids. A goalie who stops at eighteen with his interest intact is a better outcome than one who plays two college seasons resenting it.

Or he quits earlier than any of this. At fifteen, at thirteen, because he found something he loved more. Which is allowed, and which is the outcome most likely to feel like a loss to a parent and least likely to feel like one to him later.

Suggestions on what you can do

Say the sentence out loud, early and casually. Something like: Most kids don't play in college, and this is worth doing anyway. Said once a year from about fifth grade, it inoculates a family against the panic that shows up at fifteen.

Watch what you celebrate. If a decade of your visible enthusiasm has been attached to performance and advancement, the ending lands as a verdict. If it's been attached to effort and to him, it doesn't.

Keep the other parts of him fed. Other interests, other friend groups, other things he's decent at. An athlete whose identity has one leg has a hard time when that leg goes, and this is the single most protective thing a parent can do across the whole ten years.

Handle the ending as an ending, not a failure. The last game of a high school career deserves to be marked — a meal, a photo, something said out loud about what it took. Families who skip that because it wasn't the outcome they wanted leave a kid alone with it.

And keep him near the game if he wants to be. Coaching a youth team is the single best thing a former high school goalie can do in the year after he stops, and the sport needs goalie coaches badly.

By age: third through sixth grade, don't raise college at all, and be careful what you're quietly implying. Seventh and eighth, this is when the club marketing arrives, so this is when the honest sentence matters most. Ninth and tenth, keep effort and enjoyment as the visible measures while the work goes in. Eleventh, be realistic together about where he actually fits, which is a kinder conversation than a hopeful one. Twelfth, whatever happens, mark it properly.

A few things worth avoiding

Try not to let recruiting become the point in middle school. It's the fastest way to produce a burned-out fifteen-year-old, and coaches can't even contact him until junior year.

Go easy on comparisons. The kid on his team who committed early may be in a different situation entirely, and you almost never know the full story.

Try not to spend money you'll resent. Resentment leaks, and a young athlete can feel it from a long way off.

And don't let the last season be about the outcome. It's the last one either way, and he'll remember how it felt far longer than where it led.

The thing to keep in view

If he plays in college, wonderful. It's a fine thing and I hope it happens.

If he doesn't, he'll still be a young man who spent ten years learning to stand in front of something frightening, be wrong in public, reset, and go again — with a parent who kept showing up for it.

That was the return on the whole decade. The roster spot was always a bonus.

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The program is written for the long version of this — ten years of development, with rest and other sports built in, because the point was never a single outcome. Three real days of a fifth-grade week are open on the site, no signup. Take a look at the free week.

Coach Greg — LAX Goalie Hub

Coaching from a coach — general information, not psychological or mental health advice. The end of a sporting career can hit a young athlete hard; if you see lasting low mood, withdrawal from things he used to enjoy, or changes in sleep or appetite, talk to your doctor, a school counselor or a mental health professional.