My Lacrosse Recruiting Experience as a High School Senior

That's Guest blogger and Navy Head Coach Rick Sowell (right) as a riding attackman from Cobelskill chasing me down in 1983 in a game at Herkimer. I covered Rick and we had some battles! I am embarrassed recall that in those days, my BC days (before Christ), I used a profane and limited vocabulary to talk allot of trash and disrespect opponents. I later played with Rick on Maryland Lacrosse Club and it was allot better playing with him then against him!   

Navy Coach Rick Sowell: My recruiting experience as a senior in high school was an interesting one. First off, I can tell you having been a college coach for about 20 years now; the difference is night and day compared to the recruiting process back in the early 80’s. I was recruited by Ithaca College to play football and Hobart College to play both football and lacrosse. After a visit during the fall, I committed to Hobart, but unfortunately, due to grades, I found out in late April I would not be accepted. So then, the plan was to attend JUCO [Junior College] for one year then try and transfer. I ended up choosing Cobleskill over Herkimer because Cobleskill had dorms, plus they were the better program at the time. From there Terry Corcoran recruited me to play for him at Washington College. As a head coach at Stony Brook I recruit[ed] JUCO players; In fact, we had 4 former JUCO players on our team. As a Coach, I look for players with great work ethic and I really enjoy seeing them develop throughout their college years. [I like my teams to] work hard on the fundamentals aspects, the little things that make a big difference.