By AARON GRAY, Staff Writer
As the sports landscape shifts to an emphasis on year-round club sports, high school athletes who aren't even old enough to drive are increasingly faced with a tough choice.
If they're going to have a good shot at pursuing a sport in college, athletes 15 years old and younger are forced to pick a sport and give up much of their off season in order to chase their dream.
During the summer before an athlete's junior year of high school, making the cut for the varsity team is probably the least of their concerns. That's because these days an athlete's performance in exclusive club tournaments or at college showcases during the crucial month of July can make or break a potential collegiate career.
"The high school sports season is now more like a recreation league," said Chesapeake Club
Lacrosse co-owner Cathy Samaras. "It's not imperative to play club (lacrosse) if you want to play in college. But if you don't, you better be a fabulous player with a coaching advocate in your corner. You pretty much have to be all that and a bag of chips."
Samaras should know.
The Annapolis resident has banked on off season girls lacrosse showcases for the last seven years, developing a multi-faceted lacrosse enterprise as parents with high expectations for their children have increasingly poured money into club and specialty sports programs.
Parents do so with the hope of landing their kid a college scholarship, and for many in the area, it has paid off.
Each year, the rising seniors in CC Lax are divided into three different teams. Two years ago, each of the 21 players from the Black Club, which is comprised of the most elite players, earned
Division I scholarships.
The success rate has held steady since that successful 2006 summer season. CC Lax co-owner
Sue Chittim, who is also the head coach for the Black Club, estimates that at least 45 of the 60

rising seniors within the CC Lax program this summer will be playing some level of college lacrosse next year.
This is going on across the country and not just on the local lacrosse fields.
The landscape has changed for all youth club sports. The players in the equation remain the same but their roles have been altered. College coaches have to worry about their own program so recruiting "in-season" has nearly slowed to a crawl and now the summer is under a microscope.
Parents are willing to pay top dollar, players are willing to compete at numerous tournaments in front of college coaches and club and camp organizers are viewed as the bridge.
For most sports, the days of an athlete getting scouted in a high school game have virtually vanished.
"A parent has become a child's biggest sports advocate and that's what has changed the most in the last 10 years," said Mike Flynn, who created Blue Star Basketball and was one of the first to run tournaments for travel teams. "If you play sports, then the parents have an invested interest in what happens to their child. Parents, these days, view their kids as an extension of themselves and their personalities. To ensure that extension, they will be with the kids every game and in most cases, they're running the program."
Mike Coughlan, who coaches the Maryland Hurricanes girls basketball team on the under-17
Amateur Athletic Union circuit, remembers four years ago when he sat down with the other parents from the team in front of a dry-erase board. The main objective: get the kids onto a college basketball team.
"When the girls were 13, I told the parents that this would be a four-year process," said
Coughlan, whose niece, Brittany, has been with the team since its inception. "I reminded them that we would need a tremendous commitment from everyone in the room. It was a special group."
Coughlan, who has never been the head coach at the high school or college level, then outlined the entire process on the board. Included were which tournaments the team would attend, which college coaches would be at the tournaments, hotels stays and travel itineraries. Then, a big number was circled at the bottom of the board.
"They knew coming in what it would be like," Coughlan remembered. "It's very expensive and when you factor in the travel and the energy put forth, it's a huge sacrifice."
Last summer, the team played in 12 cities in nine different states and had only three weekends off. A similar schedule followed this summer but it looks like all the hard work has paid off. Of the 11 girls on the roster this summer - six of which had been with the team since they were 13 -
Coughlan said five have already accepted Division I scholarships and an additional four more will be playing at some collegiate level.

For the Hurricanes, each player's family had to pay $600 for tournament fees. With all the extra costs (hotel stays, travel, food, equipment, etc.), Coughlan estimated that each player's family paid a combined $4,000 for this past summer alone. AAU teams are considered non-profit and coaches like Coughlan do not receive a stipend. That's not always the case for other AAU clubs that are sponsored by companies like Nike and Addidas.
The financial burden from summer club teams can be excessive but if the program meets its goal and the athlete gets into college, is it all worth it? Is the process speeding up the players' development? More importantly, are the players having fun?
"I think it is worth it," said Theresa Zichelli, a rising senior a Severna Park High School and a three-year CC Lax player. "I love meeting and playing with the other girls from the area outside of my high school. You also get more college exposure and all the different coaches you play for just adds to it all."
Said US Lacrosse men's division director Jody Martin: "For those coaches and tournament directors who get the top dollar, it's worth every penny and I think parents, to their credit, are willing to support their kids' interest.
"What scares me is that some of these kids make verbal commitments before their junior year.
That's just the way youth club sports are headed. It's a tough decision for a 16-year-old. What if another school comes around in the next two years?"
Zichelli just committed to Penn State and said club lacrosse opened that option for her. Her high school team won the Class 4A state championship last spring but it was her performance during the All-Star Express and National Draw tournaments that attracted college suitors.
"I just told (Penn State) which tournaments I would be playing in and they came out to watch me," Zichelli said.
Club tournaments during July serve as a one-stop shopping visit for college coaches. Lacrosse college coaches can start recruiting July 1. For girls basketball, coaches can only attend events from July 5-15 and July 22-31, which can mean that athletes are sometimes playing up to two, three tournament games a day for a solid month.
"We played 18 games over 11 days in three different states with nine nights spent in a hotel,"
Coughlan said. "During 'the break' in between, we competed at the Junior Nationals. This year, it was in Washington D.C. so I guess we caught a break."
The month of July routinely offers more games than an entire high school regular season.
"The highest level of Division I coaches brought this problem on themselves," said Flynn, who also directs the Philadelphia Belles, the only Mid-Atlantic national travel basketball team sponsored by Nike. "About 15 years ago, players would go to camps to learn and compete.
College coaches got tired of watching drills and demanded more tournament play. Now, there's a big push for these teams to win the tournaments and the evaluation process is different."

Still, the overall competition that summer club teams offer helps establish the sport.
"More and more players are getting involved, and they're willing to put in the extra effort during the summer to get better and that's good," said Broadneck High School boys soccer coach Sean
Tettemer, who doesn't currently oversee a club team but encourages his high school players to join one. "Club soccer is a good thing and it's always had a niche in this area. You see a lot of players traveling to Baltimore or competing with Freestate programs, but the important thing is that the local players are striving to improve."
Of the 24 players on last year's varsity roster, Tettemer estimated that only five did not play some form of club soccer. He said the cost to play always depends on the team and what it offers. Like many club sports, individual training sessions, specialized coaches and team equipment can alter the overall price tag.
It's the bottom line that has irked some parents. More than 6,000 players paid $125 apiece to play in the annual All-Star Express girls lacrosse showcase on Kent Island last month - an event that attracted more than a 100 collegiate scouts.
"I mean, just do the numbers," said Brad Cole, whose daughter is a rising freshman and competed at All-Star Express. "I personally think it's more about money then helping the kids.
Some of these people get parents to believe that if you want your kid to have a legitimate shot at playing college ball, then you have to go through them and that's just wrong."
On the girls lacrosse scene, there are 18 different tournaments - some mandatory - from June through November that CC Lax players participate in. Individual tournament fees vary from local, one-day events that cost $50 to the two-day Galaxy Nationals in Philadelphia that charges
$150. The annual cost (not including tournament fees) to join a program such as CC Lax ranges from $400 to $1000. In addition, parents still have to pay for travel expenses, hotel stays and food.
In essence, bridging the communication gap between talented high school players and college coaches is big business. Many think the interests of the player and shaping the youngster's game should take priority. Others see an untapped market and have been accused of exploiting it.
Some parents in the lacrosse community have even developed a new term - "laxploitation" - to describe the summer scene.
"There are clubs out there charging huge amounts and promising exposure and that's not right," said David Walenga, the president of Crossroads Sports Inc., a lacrosse organization based out of
Linthicum that provides athletes a vehicle to showcase their athletic and scholastic talents in an effort to expand their chances of a college education. "If you really care about the kids, why charge them? I also have a hard time with the sizable amount of money that people are making off these tournaments. I'm not pointing any figures but to tell them, 'if you don't come to the tournament, you don't go to college' is just ridiculous.

"There's a fine line between making a reasonable sum and gouging parents who don't know any better."
Walenga started Crossroads - one of the first boys lacrosse club teams in the area - in 1996 and the program has since produced 28 college All-Americans. The team has evolved and now recruits talent from across the country and from England with the main focus of helping the athletes get recognized by college coaches. It's a unique club in the sense that players fly themselves in from all over, stay with host families and usually meet their teammates the morning of a game. There are no tryouts because players join on an invite-only basis.
"In actuality, the money that is made is very minor and usually goes back into the program," said
Walenga, whose two sons played lacrosse and graduated from Air Force and Towson. "Coaches don't get paid. We're here just to help the kids."
Flynn thinks successful coaches provide a service and should be compensated. He's been reported as saying, "The bottom line is that everyone needs to get together and make youth coaching a respected profession."
Samaras, who employs 45 coaches at CC Lax, agrees.
"We are way beyond the stage where a parent can put together a club team and compete," she said. "The stakes are too high. Club sports are an added commitment but it requires more than that. I have six kids and I'm a huge believer that when you're young, you should try everything.
The kids will sort it out as they go through middle school. By the time they get into high school, they should know what they want."
Published 08/12/08, Copyright © 2009 The Capital , Annapolis, Md.