Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="Powellfan, post: 3055318, member: 4819"] Good luck to Hay at UAlbany. It sounds like the move makes sense for a number of reasons, and while it is certainly disappointing to lose a recruit of this caliber, its important to remember there are things outside of life other than lacrosse. If he'd switched to a fellow ACC school or Big Ten, I'd be much more concerned. Hay looks like he'll be a really good player and I think he would have made a big impact right away on the hill. That said, it is really disappointing to read more accounts of the staff not being engaged with their recruits. I think it's obvious that early recruiting has really hurt Syracuse, and the 2020 class has really been decimated by it. I guess the good news is that the era of recruiting high school freshmen and sophomores is over, so hopefully the staff can regroup for 2021. It is still a bit of a mystery how the staff could lose all these kids over a period of a year. Some I understand, Hay and his brother, White and Blake go to Ivys, Zawada and scholarship money ... but, I mean that is still a lot of guys. My best guess is that SU did a very good job of scouting and finding good young players and reaching out early to secure a commitment. Then once those recruits profiles got bigger as they got older the staff did not maintain communication as they should have, other coaches came to them and SU was nowhere to be found. I think this issue was compounded by the fact that SU got commitments so early, and didn't realize that they would have to maintain these relationships for such a long time. I do think Desko is stuck in the past a bit, I think he thinks SU by itself should be enough to entice recruits, and I don't think this comes from a bad place, but I think he wants kids to come to SU, who actually want to come to SU - I don't get the sense that he wants to over pressure and really push kids to come to a place they don't really want to be. This makes me think of the staff's response to Matt Gaudet when he told them he was offered by Yale. Now, that doesn't excuse the way they've done things the past year, I think they need to do a better job of not "pressuring", but making kids actually feel wanted, and not ignored. It's a fine line, one that the staff clearly hasn't mastered yet. It's frustrating, especially considering all the work staff put in with Scanlan to have this happen again, but, I think this really is a special circumstance, and we should try and be patient. I get the sense the staff really does a great job with players once they get to campus, but we really seem to be struggling to get them there right now. I think what frustrates us the most is that Desko is a really good coach on the field and in the locker room, but there seems to be the big hole, that if they could fill, they would really be outstanding. [/QUOTE]

Verification: What is a Syracuse fan's favorite color?