Go to sleep
What women’s lacrosse just figured out - and what it says about a recruiting culture that needs to grow up
Women’s lacrosse quietly made a sensible rule change recently. Their contact date - the equivalent of our June 15 - used to open at midnight. They’ve moved it to noon.
That’s it. That’s the whole change. And the fact that it needed to be made at all says something important.
The midnight circus
In sports with high-volume recruiting - football, basketball, and to a lesser extent lacrosse - the contact date opening at midnight has produced a genuinely bizarre ritual.
Coaches sending texts and emails the moment the clock ticks over. Some calling players on the phone. Families sitting up waiting to see who reaches out, treating midnight like New Year’s Eve, except instead of champagne there’s just anxiety and a phone screen.
Field hockey isn’t as extreme as some sports. Coaches calling players at midnight isn’t standard practice here the way it is elsewhere… yet. But the energy around June 15 - the staying up, the waiting, the checking the phone - is the same, as many send their first texts or emails at 12:01am.
And it’s worth asking whether any of it actually makes sense.
What drives coaches to do this
I’ll be honest about the incentives, because they’re real even if the behavior is slightly unhinged.
Coaches contact players at midnight because they’re afraid. Afraid that being second signals lesser interest. Afraid that by the time they reach out at a civilized hour, a player has already fielded multiple offers and mentally closed her list. Afraid of missing their shot entirely.
There are cases - rare, but real - where a player has committed before a coach even gets to talk to her. And there are cases where a player’s first day is so full of conversations that programs who reached out later never got a look-in. So the fear isn’t completely irrational.
But think about what this logic actually produces. A coach who has spent two or three years watching a player, building her case internally, carefully crafting her June 15 list - and her strategy for the most important contact moment of the recruiting cycle is to send a text at midnight because she's worried about being beaten by eight hours.
The part that bothers me
Here’s the thing that’s always bothered me more than the coaches’ behavior, though: what it requires of the families.
These are teenage girls. The night before June 15 is already one of the most anxious nights of their young lives - the culmination of months or years of work, uncertainty, comparison, waiting. What they should be doing is trying, against all those nerves and butterflies, to actually get some sleep. So that when the calls and texts and requests start coming in, they’re rested, clear-headed, and able to handle what might be a very full and very important day.
Instead, some of them are sitting up until midnight to see who reaches out. And then not going to sleep because more texts are coming. And then realizing that some coaches operate on West Coast time, which means midnight their time is 3am on the East Coast. And suddenly a teenager is awake at 3am, exhausted, trying to process information about the most significant decision of her athletic life so far.
You wouldn’t text a colleague at midnight in most cases. If you knew they were sitting up waiting for it, you’d feel uncomfortable about that - because it’s not a reasonable thing to ask of another adult, let alone a 16-year-old.
There’s a lack of respect baked into the midnight culture that the lacrosse governing body has now, quietly and correctly, decided to do something about.
What I actually did as a coach
I scheduled my texts and emails to send at 8 or 9am.
Not because I was trying to be noble about it, but because it made more sense. A player who’s slept, who’s had breakfast, who’s sitting with her family and actually present for the day - that’s the player I want to have a first conversation with. Not the one who’s been awake since midnight running on adrenaline and notifications.
The coaches who reach out at midnight aren’t more committed. They’re more anxious. And that anxiety, while understandable, isn’t something families should have to absorb on top of everything else they’re already carrying.
June 15 has passed for this cycle, so this is less about this year and more about putting something on record.
If you have a younger player - a freshman or sophomore - file this away. The night before June 15, the most useful thing you can do as a family is agree, together, that you’re going to sleep. The right coaches will still be there in the morning. The texts that matter will still be there when you wake up. An offer that only exists if you respond at midnight isn’t an offer worth having.
Go to sleep.
This piece is an example of the post-June 15 madness; if you want a guide through it, or just want to ask all your recruiting questions with non-judgmental answers, The Recruiting Advisor is available 24/7, is trained specifically on field hockey recruiting, and can help you strategize your next steps.