Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 2/26/16
From US Lacrosse
Beginning with the 2016 season, US Lacrosse will utilize a new parallel procedure for its annual selection of boys’ and girls’ high school All-America and All-Academic players.Image may be NSFW.
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Among the primary changes, the process eliminates the requirement for coaches to be US Lacrosse members in order to nominate players for consideration. All head coaches will also be eligible to vote on the selections.
Both games will see a change in the number of All-American and All-Academic awards allowed for each area. In 2016, US Lacrosse is allotting one All-America slot and one All-Academic selection for every six qualified teams within a local area.
Additionally, US Lacrosse is introducing a new online nomination process to replace the paper nomination forms used previously. Online nomination forms can be accessed on the boys’ and girls’ All-America pages.
“On behalf of the Women’s Coaches Subcommittee, I want to let the lacrosse community know that we are excited about the updated All-America selection process and believe that, through our collaboration with the Men’s Coaches Subcommittee, we have implemented some real improvements in the procedures,” said Nancy Webber, subcommittee chair. “We are thrilled to introduce a program of value that is now identical for young women and young men.”
Nominations for both boys’ and girls’ players will have a single deadline, and the national announcement of boys’ and girls’ winners will be released on the same date. In 2016, the nomination deadline is May 1 and the national announcement of selectees will be on July 1.
To account for regional schedules, a provision is included for local award recognitions to be made prior to the national announcement.
“With so many all-star teams and recognitions now populating the lacrosse landscape, we felt it was important that the awards sponsored by the national governing body should be determined by a truly transparent and open process,” said Caitlin Kelley, women’s game senior manager at US Lacrosse and a formerPhilly high school and club coach.
To enhance the new process, the US Lacrosse Coaches Subcommittees that help manage the All-America selections were restructured to have more equal representation from the eight US Lacrosse regions. In addition, term limits have been established for the local Area Chairs in order to facilitate greater rotation in area leadership.
US Lacrosse defines an area in many ways; it could be an entire state, part of a state, a county, an association or a metropolitan, regional or chapter area. All areas are approved by the Coaches Subcommittees.
“We want to thank and congratulate our Women’s and Men’s Coaches Subcommittee Chairs, Nancy Webber and Chip Flanagan, for their leadership in unifying our national awards processes,” said Rick Lake, men’s game senior manager at US Lacrosse. “They committed significant time to collaborate in developing a more open, democratic, and streamlined structure.”
In addition to the All-America and All-Academic awards, the revised process will also govern selections for the boys’ and girls’ head coach of the year awards, the Bob Scott Award for boys and the Jackie Pitts Award for girls.
Eligibility guidelines and criteria for all of the US Lacrosse high school awards can be reviewed in the Awards Handbook.
US Lacrosse has managed the high school All-America awards since its inception as the national governing body in 1998.