Friday, May 30, 2008

For Your Viewing Pleasure

Have a good weekend everyone. We will be marketing all weekend. We have 50 people out there walking around in LacrosseRecruits.com t shirts already!


Thursday, May 29, 2008

Progress

Chris has really been crushing me in terms of number of blog posts and this is something I pledge to fix. So here I go.

Today was a great day at LacrosseRecruits HQ. We received our first batch of brochures after working on them for about a month. We have heard other start-ups say this, but little things really do take a lot longer than you expect. The work paid off as we are really happy with how they came out. Our first batch was sent this afternoon to our new Head Of Regional Marketing Sean Wheeler, who will be helping us out in the Pittsburgh area.

We also received our T Shirts. 150 White shirts, 25 grey shirts and 25 pink shirts (which are in HIGH demand heading into the summer).


Testing of the site has continued and our developers certainly have their hands full the next few days. We are very happy with the product and with a little work, we will be thrilled and ready to hit the ground running. It has been a long road and to have the launch in our sites is very exciting.

More tomorrow...

From the Basement - MLL Draft & Tech


Lacrosse

Last night, the Boston Cannons selected Paul Rabil as the #1 pick in the MLL draft. It was an exciting evening, as more and more quality players graduate and want to play in the MLL. Click here to see the entire list.

More importantly, LacrosseRecruits has some friends who were selected in the draft. Shout out to...

#10 - Jordan Levine (Albany) to New Jersey - Scary thing, he might be a better trangleball player

#45 - Ryan Heath (Cortland) to Long Island - D3 represent!

#46 - Tony Tanzi (SHU) to Boston - Good luck dealing with Zummo's shenanigans on midfield

Please shoot me an email if you want to come to the Boston Cannons/Long Island Lizards game on Saturday night...

Tech


Straight from the mouth of Steve Jobs, well fake Steve Jobs, "What could be cleaner, more Zen? More Apple. than solar powered iPods, iPhones, and laptops?" MacRumors reported on a recently published patent application that uses solar power to power different Apple devices. Click here to see what MacRumors had to say...


On a personal note, I suggest everyone starts using Twitter. Although, they have been experiencing some growing pains, the application allows people to connect using short "blog" entries or IMs through a group of people. Please join and follow me at www.twitter.com/chrismeade for updates and some classic banter.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

LacrosseRecruits T-Shirts: Summer '08





After our first t-shirt debacle, we went forward with another t-shirt company. Please be on the lookout for LacrosseRecruits t-shirts for the summer of 2008.

Monday, May 26, 2008

Morris-Adams' All-Wedding Team Announced

After careful consideration, I am pleased to announce the Morris-Adams' All-Wedding Team selections.

The groomsmen headlined the honorees with five selections.

First Team All-Wedding

1. Brad Wasik*
2. Brendan Hoole
3. Trevor's Friends
4. Glen Lenihan
5. Nick DiNardo

Second Team All-Wedding

1. Chris Meade
2. Adam Hodge
3. Miller Morris
4. Bernadette Doykos
5. Matt Wheeler

Honorable Mention

1. Brent Taylor
2. Mike Hines
3. Chris Knacke

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

An Oracle of Oil Predicts $200-a-Barrel Crude & What it Means for Summer Recruiting


This morning, the NY Times Business Section featured an article about Arjun N. Murti, a commodities analyst/"Oracle" at Goldman Sachs. He believes that the increasing demand for oil throughout the world will keep crude above $100 a barrel through 2011. He also expects the price of crude to break $200 a barrel which could result gas prices as high as $6 per gallon. Please click here to read the article.

Below is a hypothetical summer recruiting camp/tournament schedule for a D3 school like Hartwick College. Hartwick is based in Oneonta, NY. Their coaches will travel by car to seven camps or tournaments besides the individual and team camps at the school. I calculated the mileage from Oneonta to a number of "premier" recruiting stops using Google Maps and researched MPG for a 2002 Toyota Camry and a 2000 Jeep Cheerokee on automotive.com.

Mileage from Oneonta, NY

New England Top 150 - Portsmouth, RI: 538 miles RT

Elite 180 @ Keene State - Keen, New Hampshire: 344 miles RT

Long Island Lacrosse Classic - Hempstead, NY: 378 miles RT

Chocolatetown Shootout - Hershey, PA: 464 miles RT

Blue Chip 225 - Fairfield, CT: 382 miles RT

Champ Camp - Towson, MD: 622 miles RT

Top 205 - College Park, MD: 702 miles RT

Total Mileage = 3,430 miles

2002 Toyota Camry
Gas Used: 3,430 miles / 29 mpg = 118.2 gallons @ $4 per gallon = $478.20
If the "Oracle" is correct: 118.2 gallons @ $6 per gallon = $709.20

2000 Jeep Cherokee
Gas Used: 3,430 miles / 17 mpg = 201.7 gallons @ $4 per gallon= $807.40
If the "Oracle" is correct: 201.7 gallons @ $6 per gallon = $1210.20

I do not know if we will reach $6 per gallon, but I am confident that gas will not drop below $4. These prices will severely strain coach's budgets. Coaches will have to look for more efficient means to identify and evaluate high school lacrosse players as their regional coverage decreases due to cost restraints. LacrosseRecruits.com will fill a crucial need for coaches as they look for alternate ways to recruit lacrosse players. Our tool allows coaches to see game video/highlights/academic information of players throughout the country from their office in Oneonta or wherever they may be located.

Look for an official launch of LacrosseRecruits.com on June 1.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Icahn is Pissed at Yahoo & Predictable Lacrosse Results


Tech

Icahn’s New Board: I thought everyone would enjoy reading Carl Icahn’s letter to the Chairman of Yahoo, Roy Bostock. My favorite part was when Icahn states “it is irresponsible to hide behind management’s more than overly optimistic financial forecasts.” Click here to read the full letter.


Marketing


Matt and I have been working on our press release with some help from the people at Motionbox. We are grateful for the variety of resources on the internet and friend’s guidance. We are trying to post on our blog everyday and add some interesting links. We are getting "hip" to the idea of social media marketing. Watch out for some video clips through Seesmic and more tweets. This is a great article from AdAge, “Listen Before Engaging Your Audience.”

Sidenote: This past week, I had heartburn for the first time. I understand Knacke’s love for Tums. I am not happy that the same teams play Championship weekend every year. (Duke, UVA, Syracuse, Hopkins, Tech, LeMoyne, Cortland, Salisbury)

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Week in Review

Few things make a five hour flight from JFK to Salt Lake City as enjoyable as watching NCAA Quarterfinal previews on ESPNU and the Jazz struggle against the Lakers. It seems fitting that I tried to set aside some time to relax and think about something other than lacrosse, when I noticed another passenger watching highlights from the Navy v. UNC game. (Shout out to Navy LSM Zack Schroder who tucked a sick goal last week). I had to watch… I couldn’t help myself.


This past week was another big week at LacrosseRecruits. Some highlights: 1) Through one of my good friends, I was referred to Ned Bowen of Ned Bowen’s All Out Lacrosse. After a solid conversation about West Coast lacrosse, he told me that he would help out anyway possible. 2) We have the go ahead from Coach Raba to set up a tent and handout our Recruiting 101 booklets at the Cardinals Future Tournament. 3) Most shocking highlight, Coaches actually RETURNED our phone calls and emails. 4) There has been great facebook banter in response to our LacrosseRecruits Office Space Photo Album. 5) Matt is back in cage, taking shots and prepping for Glastonbury


We are testing the website and still on schedule for a June 1 launch. As we move towards our launch, we are constantly asking friends to help get the word out and refer us to their lacrosse friends. I want to thank everyone who has been eager to lend a hand.


Go watch lacrosse!
Major League Lacrosse Games of the Week
NCAA Playoffs

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

LacrosseRecruits Office Space: Much better than the 11th floor of 51 W. 52nd Street



Here are a few photos of our basement office suite at the Wheeler residence... Click here!

Monday, May 12, 2008

Recruiting Q & A with Matt Zash

Attached is this past Sunday's Straight Shooters article from the Baltimore Sun. Matt Zash, who was a great player at Duke and plays professionally for the Philadelphia Barrage, answers some basic questions about the recruiting process. Recently, Matt opened two lacrosse stores on Long Island, The Lax Hut, to compete with Lacrosse Unlimited. Click here for the Straight Shooters article from the Baltimore Sun

Sunday, May 11, 2008

It's About Time This Blog Goes Public...

It has been awhile since we posted, so I would like to get everyone caught up. In the beginning of April, Matt and I traveled across the country meeting with lacrosse coaches from Utah to New York. We had great meetings in Denver, Chicago, Ohio, Pittsburgh and Upstate New York. Upon returning to Connecticut, we set up our office in the Wheeler's basement. (Matt is on one side of the ping-pong table and I am on the other) We have shamelessly called on all of our friends to talk to everyone they know in the lacrosse community about LacrosseRecruits.com. We have been successful in locking up partnerships with camps in Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts. Each week we are looking to add more camps to our very busy summer schedule. We have our younger brothers working with us to increase our coverage of recruiting events throughout the country. We are inching towards our official launch on June 1st. We had our first testing environment this past week. Lunawebs has been hitting their deadlines on the project plan and we feel confident that we will be ready to go by the end of the month. Please look out for new updates...