I grew up in Syracuse and played lax in high school.
I graduated SU in 1988 and moved down to NJ right outside NYC.
At the time, there were exactly two public schools and a few private schools who were playing high school lacrosse in northern NJ.
Fast forward 20 years. My daughter, who was born in 2000, was the second age group to go through our town's feeder program and that feeder program did not start until 3rd grade.
Fast forward another three years and my son started in our town's feeder program at the age of 7.
Today, the town feeder program starts at the age of 5.
And my son and daughter's high school is now a lacrosse powerhouse in NJ and regularly competes for sectional and state titles.
Now multiply that by every town up and down the east coast and now out into the midwest and other parts of the country and it is easy to see why 10 years ago was the turning point and why such parity prevails today.
And the game is absolutely killing baseball. My son absolutely loves baseball and dropped lacrosse to play baseball in high school but he is by far the exception and not the norm. My son is a three sport athlete, so he is a good athlete but I would estimate that 90% of the best athletes, who play a Spring sport at the high school, play lacrosse.
Put it all together and anyone expecting Syracuse, or any other school, to continue to be the UCLA of the 1960s when it comes to lacrosse is delusional.
One other thing. I still think that the biggest difference between lacrosse at our high school and lacrosse at a place like JD or West Genny is the coaching, not at the high school level, but in the feeder programs.
I think a team like JD would anniliate any public school in NJ and only the very best private schools in NJ, who recruit specifically for sports and, therefore, have rosters stacked with D1 and D3 talent, would be able to go toe to toe with the top NY State schools - a school like Delbarton as an example. I think that, even a top public school, such as Ridgewood, which has been sending kids to 'Cuse for decades (going all the way back to Mike Springer; the Kennedys are from Ridgewood) would get its head handed to it by JD or any other top NY State school.
My son was fortunate in that his head coach played Close D at Hofstra back in the late 80s and I played in high school but a lot of the feeder teams did not have anyone who played in high school, let alone college.
You fast forward another 10-15 years and all the "Dads and Moms" coaching their kids youth lacrosse teams will have come up through their town's feeder programs, just like my son and daughter have, and will have at least played the game in high school and many will have played in college.
At that point, places like Baltimore, Syracuse and Long Island (the three hotbeds of lacrosse when I was growing up) will no longer have ANY comparative advantage over other areas, at least on the east coast.
