My son is a junior who plays varsity AAA football and lacrosse. (He's not division 1 material though, mostly because of size). He has a 3.9 gpa and is taking 3 APs and one honors class this year. Football has year-round conditioning, 4 days a week for 2h/day in the off season for people not involved in other sports. He wants to drop lacrosse this spring and focus on grades and getting prepared for football next year. My concern is that dropping lacrosse will hurt his chances, knowing how important varsity sports are. I know that he'll still be busy with off season football and he is involved in a couple of service organizations, but still I worry. Lax is a much bigger time commitment and he's right that it will be easier to get better grades if he drops it. I don't want him to burn out but he has his heart so set on USNA that I don't want him to make a foolish decision. Any thoughts?
sports question
- Thread starter hel2662
- Start date
Since your son will still be competing on a varsity team, dropping lacrosse probably shouldn't harm his chances from a sports participation standpoint. However, one of the things that is essential to survive Plebe year is the ability to juggle many responsibilities, and get them all done to the best of the Plebe's ability. If your son is going to need to use his lacrosse time to take on a leadership role (captain in football, president/VP of his service organization, or something of that nature), that's great. If he wants to stop lacrosse to have an easier time, without having any significant responsibility outside of grades, that could be hard to explain if asked (BGO or MOC interview, for instance).
Spanky58ggpt
5-Year Member
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2010
- Messages
- 120
A lot of variables to consider here. From the perspective of beefing up the resume, how likely is it that he might be considered for captain of either team. He needs to keep grades up most assuredly but the "whole candidate score" takes a lot of aspects of the young person's involvement into consideration. How much does each sport mean to HIM. If he is a football player at heart and did lacrosse for some fun and to be with his preferred social circle, HE may decide it is in his best interest to drop lacrosse. Keep in mind that both sports are very popular among the mids. DS decided to drop baseball after middle school and football after JV freshman year to concentrate on wrestling. Loved watching him play both and even helped coach while he was in middle school. Since then he has taken up cross country (3 years varsity, team captain, 2X state qualifier...) to improve his conditioning for wrestling (4th year varsity starting now, 3X regional champ and state qualifier, placed 4th as a junior, 2nd year as team captain). As much as we loved watching him play baseball and football, it had to be his decision and we find it hard to argue with the end results of that decision. Guide and support, don't make demands. JMO 
2012mom: Good point. He is doing more things to take the place of lacrosse, but I'm not so sure they are leadership-intensive. I think he needs to think about this.
Spanky58ggpt: You're right about lacrosse - it was just for fun and to be with friends. He would drop it in a heartbeat if he had to choose between it and football. I am ok with his decision for it's own sake, and if he were applying anywhere else it wouldn't bother me at all, but I do worry that it will look like he's slacking off in his outside activities. That being said, varsity lacrosse is a way bigger commitment than jv and it's hard to work that hard if you don't love it. I totally understand why he wants a break, given how intense football has been this year.
As far as leadership positions, he was capt of jv last year as a soph but I don't know what his chances are at varsity capt next year. Only 2 offense and 2 defense guys get it, with QB automatically getting it, so it's pretty hard to get it as an o-line guy. Thanks for both of your input.
Spanky58ggpt: You're right about lacrosse - it was just for fun and to be with friends. He would drop it in a heartbeat if he had to choose between it and football. I am ok with his decision for it's own sake, and if he were applying anywhere else it wouldn't bother me at all, but I do worry that it will look like he's slacking off in his outside activities. That being said, varsity lacrosse is a way bigger commitment than jv and it's hard to work that hard if you don't love it. I totally understand why he wants a break, given how intense football has been this year.
As far as leadership positions, he was capt of jv last year as a soph but I don't know what his chances are at varsity capt next year. Only 2 offense and 2 defense guys get it, with QB automatically getting it, so it's pretty hard to get it as an o-line guy. Thanks for both of your input.