Walking on to a college lacrosse team

Preferred walk on versus true walk on

• Preferred walk on: the coach has recruited you and is telling you there is a place on the roster. You get no athletic money, but you arrive as part of the team with a locker, gear, and a spot in fall practice.
• True walk on: you enroll, attend an open tryout, and compete for a spot that may or may not exist. Most programs keep very few players this way, and some keep none in a given year.

The gap between these is enormous and the shared word hides it. A preferred walk on is a recruited athlete without a scholarship. A true walk on is an applicant.

Why preferred walk on offers exist

Lacrosse is an equivalency sport, so a program divides a limited pool of scholarship money across a roster of forty or more. Rosters are always larger than the money can cover, which means a substantial share of any team is on no athletic aid at all.

A coach who likes you but has spent their money elsewhere in your class has one honest option left, and that is a preferred walk on offer. It is not a consolation prize so much as a straightforward consequence of the math.

What to ask before accepting

1. Am I guaranteed a roster spot in the fall, or am I trying out with the recruited class?
2. Do I travel with the team, and is that decided by position or by performance?
3. How many preferred walk ons have you taken in the last three classes, and how many are still on the roster?
4. Has a preferred walk on here ever earned athletic aid later, and what did that take?
5. Do I get the same academic support, gear, and training access as scholarship players?
6. What would I need to do in year one to be in the rotation by year two?

The retention question is the one that matters most. If a coach takes six preferred walk ons a year and none are on the roster as juniors, that is a roster filling practice rather than a development path, and the answer will usually be evasive.

Do the money math honestly

A preferred walk on spot comes with no athletic aid, so you are paying the school full net price minus any academic or need based award you qualify for.

Run that number against your alternatives before deciding. A preferred walk on offer at an expensive private school can cost far more than a scholarship at a Division II program or a strong aid package at a Division III school where you would also play more. Compare four year totals, not the appeal of the logo.

If you are considering a true walk on

It happens, and it works occasionally. Go in with clear eyes.

• Email the coach before you enroll. Walking into a tryout as a complete stranger is the hardest version of this.
• Ask directly whether an open tryout will be held, since not every program holds one every year.
• Ask how many walk ons made the roster in the last two years. A zero is an answer.
• Choose the school on its own merits, because you must be happy there if you do not make the team.
• Arrive in shape. Tryouts are frequently decided on conditioning before anyone evaluates your stick.

The alternatives worth weighing

Before accepting a preferred walk on spot at a program where you may not play, compare it honestly against a Division III school where you would start, a Division II program offering partial aid, or two years at a junior college followed by a transfer with college film.

Plenty of players choose the walk on route and are glad they did. The ones who regret it are usually the ones who chose the name of the school over an honest read on whether they would ever get on the field.