We were fortunate to catch up with Justin Walker, the head coach at the Rivers School (MA) and Director of the Top Gun Fighting Clams, one of New Englands premier club lacrosse organizations.
With decades of experience both as a high school coach and with the Clams, Justin has an outstanding knowledge base of the recruiting process and how it has changed over the past few years.
Below is part one of our Q & A with Justin, who discusses the history of Clams Lacrosse, the evolution of club teams and what separates the Clams from other teams.
Check out the video for some highlights of the Clams in action this past summer.
On how the Clams started and how the club has grown:
The Clams have been around since the early 90s, though they were not yet known by that name (most often they were referred to as the Top Gun All Stars). It was 2001 when they came to be known by this name. Before 2001, it was an All-Star team pulled out of our indoor league then in 01 we went to the Hotbeds tournament in Delaware, which is when we first took on the name. We went down and won it. We just went with the one team, which we did for a few years after that, adding a tournament or two per summer. We then morphed into a couple of teams for a few years, and then about four or five years ago it became a pivotal part of our business. Currently, we do a AA team in each class as the top team, then A teams as the overall depth of the program allows. Our plan is not to ever go beyond two Clam teams in any given class, so as not to lose our selectivity.
On how the mechanics of club teams generally have changed:
Club teams used to be the same things you see at a recruiting showcase: You basically just traveled to an event with a talented group. Essentially, at that time ours was just an All-Star Team, most of them were. You didnt really coach them much, in the truest sense of the word. You channeled them a bit; gave a few pointers here and there. But now, development is paramount, largely because the popularity of camps is generally waning. That is the sad reality of the club explosion it has really eroded camps. Camps used to fill the void that is where most of your real learning and development to play in the Summer came from. If players are not going to camps anymore, club has to fill that void, and the best ones are filling that void effectively.
On how players can join the Clams:
First off, you have to be in our indoor league, CELL, to be a Clam. Its kind of fascinating to be as successful as we have, because with very few exceptions, you have to be in our league in Acton. We do two tryouts: One in September and one in December. We have announced that the upcoming tryouts are September 22. We have not announced the December dates of yet; they can vary from year to year. We retain most of our players straight through. That is another model that differentiates us. Some of our competitors have everyone try out again each season. Some are invite-only. We are all different. The Clams are kind of in between those in that we do have tryouts, but the tryouts are not for new teams, really, they are for the few openings that arise or that we intentionally keep open so that there is an infusion of new talent and ability.
On what separates the Clams from other club teams:
I think we are really interested in getting to know and meeting with the kids and their families. This is the biggest thing: We dont really care if you go to Duke or Hopkins or you go to Trinity or Connecticut College. We want our players to go to the best place for them. We dont want our kids to go to Maryland and be on the seventh middie line unless they really, really want that. I am the coach at the Rivers School (MA) in the ISL, so I see myself as more of an educator than a coach in some ways. I want to get a player where he belongs. I want him to go where hell have a great experience. I dont really care what Division that is in. Preferably, that is going to be at a stronger academic school than not. Now, if the player is a mediocre student, I do not see it as my job to wedge him into a strong school if he wont make it there. We meet with the kids multiple times over their course of time with us, and I try to help them figure out what the best fit is.
I try to really steer clear of that cache piece. We want our kids to go to good schools and good programs of course but every bit as important is we want them to go to appropriate programs. We want them to go to a school for the right reasons. For example, if you want to be a male nurse, and if the best nursing program available to you is at the University of Scranton, but you have offers from some other “better” schools in terms of liberal arts or whatever well, it might just be better to go to Scranton. Even if you have offers from some NESCAC schools, if Scranton is a better fit for you, then go there. I use this example because its actually real a player of ours is wanted by a lot of NESCAC schools, but they dont really offer programs for what he wants to do. I think a lot of our competitors may say well, you should go to the NESCAC how do you know what you want to do anyway? But what they may really be saying is we dont want the University of Scranton on our webpage we want, for example, Bates. I really try not to do that. For me, its a slippery slope, because a lot of people still get caught up in the cache dance and they want to go to the name place. Certainly, a lot of our kids go to those places, in fact a disproportionately high number. But the kids that are going those places in our program, almost to a person, I believe are going to the right places for them. I dont feel like I crowbarred them into a place where they may not make it.
We have done studies. Last year I had a huge project for one of my assistants to map-out the success rate at different universities. What we found is that most NESCAC schools like Tufts, Middlebury, Wesleyan really the majority save maybe two every single kid we sent there made it through four years. The Ivy League is also outstanding in terms of lacrosse retention almost every kid made it all four years. But then you go down to some bigger universities, and we are batting around .500. Basically, the larger the school, the larger the program, and ultimately the less likely a player is going to make it through 4 years. That may seem like common sense, but you need to share those realities with the players. For us to be able to show them the numbers is eye-opening. Every program seems to have a sort of standard lacrosse attrition. It is almost designed that way, but like academic attrition at many elite institutions is expected and planned for. To a lot of kids, that is jaw-dropping. So we spend a lot of time trying to find those stats to be able to share those realities.
Be sure to check back for Part Two later today!
_______________________
Follow us on Twitter:
@SpikeMal
@LacrosseRecruit
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/SportsRecruits
 and Director of the Top Gun Fighting Clams, one of New Englands premier club lacrosse organizations. With decades of experience both as a high school coach...Read More){kind=link}