2008 High School All-Americans

If you don't believe me, then look at the list of All-Americans over the past few years. There is a ridiculous number of All-Americans, as even states in the Midwest like Illinois, Minnesota, Indiana, Michigan, etc all have numerous AA pics, and I believe that most if not all of them have 10+ selections. While there are some talented players in these respective states, there are not 10+ players in these states that are at the level of the best players in Maryland and LI. I have played against and with all of the best players from teams like Upper Arlington (OH), Worthington Kilbourne (OH), Brother Rice (MI), etc, and I will say that a select few of them are just nasty, but only maybe five players total from all of these best teams in the Midwest can play at the level of LI and Maryland guys. So what does this mean when looking at AA selections? This means that different states are using these selections to nominate players from their state that stand as the best representation to how far their state has grown from a lacrosse standpoint. These selections are players that Wisconsin chooses to represent Wisconsin lacrosse to the rest of America. Players deserve this opportunity to represent their state, why are you trying to deny them this opportunity?

gfields5 wrote:

These selections are players that Wisconsin chooses to represent Wisconsin lacrosse to the rest of America. Players deserve this opportunity to represent their state, why are you trying to deny them this opportunity?

We can't deny them anything, just stating our minds.

Fields trust me I get what your saying. All American is an over used title. Just because other people over use it why should we? Jordan makes a good point, All State teams are made for the best players. Have a Attackmen/Midfielder/Defenseman/Goalie of the year for the state. I completely understand what you're trying to say, I'd just like to see Wisconsin do things the right way. And it's not an opportunity we're denying them, you don't need titles to prove yourself. Wisconsin will be seen as a joke if some kid goes to a D3 school labeled as an AA and gets cut or underperforms. My bad if I'm more worried about the image of the state as a whole than some hs kids need to get an award.

First off, I think having All-State selections would be sweet. I don't know how it would/could be done, though I would be a huge proponent of having Attackman/Midfielder/Defenseman/Goalie of the Year awards.

However, regarding High School All-Americans, I believe too many of us are clouded by our understanding of College All-Americans, that we fail to realize the purpose of the HS AA award. The term High School All-American is not overused, rather, it just means something different than many of us believe. It is not an award solely for the best of the best players in the country, but instead it is an award that each state is allowed to give to players that they believe are worthy of the praise as the top players in their respected state. A state selects players as AA because the state wants these players to stand as representations of the certain state's lacrosse to the rest of the country.

Butters, you're last comment frustrates me the most. The image of Wisconsin lacrosse? First off, what image are we trying to uphold? Half the country doesn't realize that we play lacrosse, and of those who do know we play lacrosse, we are viewed as cheesehead wearing meat-heads with metal shafts. Whenever I would travel out east for a camp, people would be like, 'wow, i had no idea Wisconsin had quality lacrosse.' Second and more importantly, why should the politics of Wisconsin lacrosse's image be more important than giving players the respect they deserve? Is lacrosse so politicized that we are afraid to recognize our most talented players out of the fear that the rest of the country might view them as subpar? I think we need to take a step back and look at what's most important in High School lacrosse. The award of All-American is an honor that the most talented players in Wisconsin deserve to be given. We ned to stop letting the politics of lacrosse blind us from realizing the true importance of the award.

SiouxLax wrote:

It loses its luster when you want to call people AA just because that area is able to select some. If you would only select the best players for AA then it wont lose it's luster. Who cares if every single AA player is from a hot bed...that's the way I would expect it to be.

Agreed.

No, you're image is clouded. Let me break up the words for you. All = meaning everyone included with selected group. American = all states within US. To combine them, to be an All American is to be the best of the United States. Thus, All State is best of the state, All Conference is the best of the conference. And I'm not even talking about out east, let's not even consider our image there. I'm talking about our representation in Illinois, Minnesota, the area states. They'll play us if they respect us. Why do you think Verona only gets Minnesota's club teams to come to the Bullrush? There's no respect. Trust me man, I shared your views 100% in high school. But when you graduate and look back, you'll look at the big picture of the growth of the sport, and not just what accolades being given.

Butters wrote:

No, you're image is clouded. Let me break up the words for you. All = meaning everyone included with selected group. American = all states within US. To combine them, to be an All American is to be the best of the United States.

Thanks so much Butters. I guess I forgot to grab my dictionary and check the definitions of the words "All" and "American." Wow, my view is completely changed now that you treated me like a 10 year old...how can I ever thank you?

Though NO, if you actually would read my posts, you could actually understand the logic behind them. There are "All-Americans" as nominated by each state, and then "Under-Armour All-Americans," selected by a certain group of highly intelligent and informed individuals. UA AA's, similar to McDonald's All-Americans in basketball, are considered the best of the best players in the country. Regular All-Americans are selected by states as representatives of that states talents to the rest of the country. Even if your understanding of the term "All-American" holds more dictionary merit, my understanding of the term AA is the one that is actually used. How else can you explain that every state in the country has numerous All-Americans? Are all of these players of equal level? No.

And regarding the image of lacrosse, maybe that's the beauty of a high school mind, its not corrupted by the politicized views of others. I understand the importance of the award because of what the award stands for. If you don't, well that's your problem. However, believing that who we select for this award will determine how local states view us is an absolute joke. If we don't have comparable talent, then maybe they shouldn't respect us. They will respect us when our state's top teams can compete with their state's top teams. Does this lack of respect mean that we shouldn't honor our top players with awards that they deserve? No.

The ironic thing about your "pure high school mind" train of thought. Is that politics is the reason the name All American is thrown around. Without politics, it has it's intended meaning. To be the best in the nation. Also if you'd look back in my posts, you'd realize, I understand that it's taken differently in different states. My opinion is that just because other states do it, doesn't mean we have to. Why can't we do things the right way? I think that you, and these other states, don't get the meaning of the award, because you think it can be thrown around and given to players who probably don't deserve the title. Seriously though, neither of us will win this argument, because it's an opinion, so let's stop trashing the forums with it.

haha agreed. I think we have exhausted this discussion. I guess we will just have to see what the WLF or whoever makes the decisions regarding this topic will choose.

Don't you think the better Wisconsin schools should try to get more games against some of the tougher competition from other states? There are teams in the Chicago area and Michigan that are highly ranked. Arrowhead is the highest rated Wisconsin team on laxpower.com, but there are 941 teams ranked higher than them. According to their ratings the highest ranked team in the country (Gilman, MD) would beat Arrowhead by 12 goals. Even to get beat by 10 goals by a top 100 team would at least show us where we need to make improvements. Maybe take some early season trips to Maryland, Georgia, Texas, or California when the weather here sucks? Otherwise travel to a midseason tourney somewhere? The highest ranked team that Arrowhead played was Andover, MN (#544) at the Bullrush tourney in Verona. By the rankings they should've lost by 3 but won by 1. Waunakee also played Andover in that tournament. Andover was favored by 4 but won by 7.
Marquettee did play 3 out of state teams, the highest ranked being St.Louis Jesuit at #179. They lost by 3 even though Jesuit was favored by 5.

Anyone from Marquette, what kind of things did Jesuit do that made them so good?

Didn't some of the Wisconsin teams get ranked higher a few years ago (Verona & Middleton)? Did they play any highly ranked teams to get boosted in the rankings?

When we played SLUH, the things that separated them from us, and the rest of the Wisconsin teams that we have played, was their ability to control the tempo of the game. They struggled against us a little bit, but for the most part, they did a much better job of setting up on offense, slowing the game down, and honoring their possessions. While they were more deep then us in terms of lacrosse talent, their top players were not any better than out top players (actually everyone in the stands, such as the Brebeuf players, thought that a few of our players, such as goalie Alex Gradecki, were much stronger than SLUH's players in the same position). The main difference between SLUH's players and Wisconsin players is not just the overall stick skills, but more of their knowledge of the game. SLUH knew when to push the ball in transition and when to slow the tempo down and work the ball around; SLUH knew when and when not to send the slide and they were very disciplined defensively. To me, that's what made the biggest difference.

I would've guessed that they emphasized ball control. Anybody that watched the college championships last weekend could see that at the higher levels ball control is what it's all about. I'm sure many of the Wisconsin players that take the sport seriously and drill and practice year round are as skilled as the top players in the big lacrosse states. The thing that Wisconsin probably lacks the most is top notch coaching.

In this AA argument, most have failed to realize that each state selects its nominee to represent them. From this pool consisting of "All Americans”, they select a 1st team, 2nd team, and 3rd team. All these are All State players; this is kind of like the All State selections you have to make All Conference to be All State. Players are nominated or “put on the list” to be All State but do not always become team members. Everyone else who is not selected is an AA honorable mention (where us form Wisco will end up). The true AA are the 3 selected teams most hailing from Maryland, LI, up state NY, and other places. So for those who say we don’t deserve and AA selection is saying we don’t deserve to even get nominated. I know it will be a long time before a kid from Wisco makes a team, but it is cool opportunity for us and the kids who get there name thrown into the mix.

Verona in 2005 played Minnesota's defending state champion Eden Prairie, Kentucky's defending and '05 state champion Trinity, also we played a top ten ranked St Charles team from Illinois. The year prior we faced a top 15 Glenbrook South team from Illinois. If I'm correct that team was the highest ranked team Wisconsin's had according to laxpower. We actually got high praise from all those teams, and a couple players were pretty much offered scholarships from Bellarmine (a startup D1 team the next year) based on their play in the tournament we were at.

Edit: in checking laxpower that Verona team was power ranked at 383, Appleton the following year 485, Arrowhead last year 984, this years current number one team Arrowhead is ranked 942.

Butters, did you go looking for competition in 2005? Did you travel out of state or did those teams come to Wisconsin? Do you know if there a website to find teams in other states looking for games or open tournaments?

We went to a "Best of the Midwest" tournament. We got invited based on the fact we had won state the previous year. It was the defending state champions from MN, WI, KY and then St Charles. Other than that tournament, we struggled to get the competition. Back then Bullrush only attracted Madison, maybe Milwaukee or GB teams. The Glenbrook South team was really the only one we got to come up. We actively tried to go placed and get games. It's hard. We had a real good reputation as a great team which helped a ton.

Thats really cool what was the result of playing the top minnesota team?

Lefty019 wrote:

Thats really cool what was the result of playing the top minnesota team?

Eden Prarie beat us 9-5 in that game. It was Verona's second game of the season and I think EP's fourth or fifth. EP's goalie, Dan Gnazzo who's at D1 Air Force, was absolutely filthy in that game...lots of doorstep saves. I think that if we had played EP in the middle/end of the spring, when we were in full stride, the outcome may have been different.

You can check all that stuff out at http://www.laxpower.com/update05/binboy/XVROWI.PHP.

Trinity from KY was actually the team we anticipated to just be nasty. We thought Eden Prairie would be a team we could beat. We probably should have beaten Trinity, but our coach elected to choose that game (with a small 2 goal lead) to play the 4th/5th/6th liners. That was the year Trinity was featured on the cover of lax.com's magazine and was just dominating Kentucky lax.

Hopefully, this will illuminate some of the mystery on this and clarify some of the opinions expressed in the posts.
Essentially, Mr. Fields is right on point per my several discussions with Mr. Hall at US Lacrosse; who oversees the program.

First off, for WI:

All American selections will be voted on, selected and announced on Saturday at the State Finals in Middleton.

Each conference will be submitting up to two nominations; with minimum criteria being the player must have secured first team All-Conference Honors. Beyond that the Conferences, have the discretion of advancing the player or player(s) they feel are most deserving.


Per US Lacrosse:

Seniors will be given preference over Juniors in the case of a tie.

Each Conference Rep will have a vote and Robin Buckley WLF President will also vote.

Also, if you review the US Lacrosse Website the criteria is set forth for selection.

This is NOT a contest on how we stack up against other state's top players.
This is reflective of our top talent in WI and WI only. All American status was designed to ackowledge the top talent from each US Lacrosse member state; having a requisite number of varsity teams. We only get two selections based on the number of high schools who award varsity letters and treat their programs as varsity sports. However, kids on club teams are eligible for selection and they have no bias against them in selection or voting.

So, if you guys want more AA slots, get your ADs and schools to recognize you as a varsity sport. Easier said then done, I know.

The National Senior Showcase is designed to pick the top talent in the country and that may very well support the arguments many of you have made in your posts. WI does not have anyone represented in the West Region, though we had 7 players nominated. This is the highest award bestwoed by US Lacrosse and designed for the purpose many of you very eloquently argued for.

Finally, we will be also picking an Academic- All American. This ,in my mind, is the most prestigious of the two awards as it combines the top player on the field and gthe classroom. We get one selction for all of WI.

Rich Poirier, Sr.

Green Bay Representative to the WLF

So really these selections are really just All-State selections glorified with the AA status?(since you said, "This is reflective of our top talent in WI and WI only.")

Yep, which is why I thought it was dumb. In the sense that this is how US Lacrosse does it, yes we do deserve two. In the sense of what All American means, US Lacrosse is degrading the meaning. The Academic All American on the other hand, I do like very much.

Who are the 6 different nominees? From Milwaukee, Joe Botticelli (Senior Midfielder, Eastside, #23) and myself (Senior LSM, Marquette, #5) were selected as the two nominees. Does anyone know who the other four are?

the bay val are me Matt Ernst (Junior #2) and Wausaus dpole Rich Poirier Jr. (sp) (Senior #28)

neenah do you know how the bay val pick the two or did they just let you know you were selected. Congrats on first team and the AA thing.