FLN has prepared this memorandum of understanding for the Lacrosse Club Scene to clarify how FLN will cover and publicize events, tryouts and showcases. FLN seeks to be seen as both neutral in its’ actions and its’ perception throughout the lacrosse community, both for editorial and business reasons.  We look to provide information to readers, participants and the community at large.  We see FLN as spreading word of upcoming events but will not place ourselves in a position where we are showing a favored view of one club versus another, one showcase versus another, one national program versus another, etc. FLN has three missions; to celebrate and facilitate the growth of the sport in this state, to help community members who need the help of the community, and to help vendors to reach our very attractive demographic.   

One immediate change that FLN is putting into effect is that we no longer will utilize a Club picture in our Submit Recruit Articles.  The point of the Questionnaire is to highlight the player’s accomplishments as they transition from their high school to their choice of college.  Submissions will not be accepted unless they show the player in the high school uniform or plain clothes.  As part of this, you will see a new questionnaire when we go live with the updated site that will add more personal information and social media contact data.

  Community Help Club teams, like their high school counterparts, will have members that are faced with financial need due to illness, accidents, natural disasters, etc.  Many times, FLN is asked to lend a hand in publicizing a needy cause through GoFundMe and other similar fundraising efforts and we are committed to continuing that focus.  Please email us at lee@floridalacrossenews.com to notify us of the cause and please provide all the appropriate links to the fundraising page, Facebook page for updates, etc., so we can place an article up to assist in the cause, as well as giving us a note when updates are available.   Celebrating & Facilitating the Growth of the Sport First, let us lay out what FLN is NOT.  It is not a website that will publish highlight videos that are used to produce recruiting videos for individual players.  We are not more connected or more capable of helping the athlete to find their proper college placement than your high school coach or club coach and we are not even close to being able to grade a player’s chances or their quality of play.  Articles are mostly of our opinions of what happens during a game and while we are confident we bring a lot of value to our readership to what happened during a game or in our polls, etc., we are not full-time experts who do this for a living. FLN also is not a website dedicated to looking the other way when we see something wrong and CAN DOCUMENT IT, but we are not a national media organization that is going to act like a 60 Minutes-style investigative organization.  We do not have those resources and are not full-time journalists, so don’t come to us with complaints about disagreements you have unless there is clear PROOF of criminality or the like.  I have had a few anonymous parents in the past attempt to get us to cover as criminal or immoral nothing more than philosophical disagreements with their child’s coach.  Although stories like our recent ones dealing with racial slurs on the field are not ‘criminal’ they certainly fall into the category of helping to grow the game and certainly worth investigation. Where FLN can help the Club scene is to provide ourselves as a central place for information, for tryouts, tournaments, showcases and training clinics & individual instruction, while giving the attendees a way to have fun while at them.  FLN has a long-held policy of not covering the final results of the club tournaments (we will make an exception for a national event where a Florida team wins the event) and that will continue, as we transition into a more player-centric focus at these events.  FLN has finally purchased our own 10′ x 10′ tent and will look to attend as many weekend events as possible.   FLN is ready to provide for the Clubs the following: We are finalizing a re-design of our web site and there will be a Club/Youth drop down menu that will be broken into sections, one for the Clubs & their events and one for Youth Instruction   1) Club Drop Down Menu A Club Calendar that will host ALL events statewide so that the planning of events are easy to work with.  This is for FLN’s benefit as well as yours, since it allows FLN to plan our attendance in advance.  There are plenty of events we would like to attend but DO NOT KNOW ABOUT in advance.  The calendar will reside on the Club Page and will have front page coverage of the next 4 weeks to come.  Please contact Mark Geddis at the info listed at the bottom of the page for inclusion. Club Announcements – a Word document press release with a picture that states the time, location and date, as well as what the event is for (Please, do not just send a PDF!) Club Tryouts – the same format Tournaments Looking For Teams to Sign Up – a similar format with more information National Club Team Tryouts – Will Be Given ONE Release All of these press releases will be put up for free, limit ONE per event   2) Youth/Instruction Drop Down Menu Training Clinics – FLN favors these, we will include on their own calendar and have both the original notice and a follow up notice.  When we have our daily email up and running, we will keep it fresh. If you have a website for publicizing individual instruction please let us know and we can talk about a relationship.  If not, we can help you by hosting one.  Again, please contact Mark Geddis at the info provided at the bottom of the article.   Attending Events While at the event FLN will look to balance the need of the Organizer and the need of FLN.  Given that we are publicizing the event up front for no charge and are willing to help the event be successful while helping you to create something above solely playing games – helping make it fun for parents and players – we would expect to have our booth placed in an appropriate place at no charge. Event Organizers will be interviewed should they desire on our Periscope/Twitter platform or similar Any Vendor you welcome will be given a one-minute sales pitch on the Periscope/Twitter platform Any ‘celebrity’, such as a professional player, college player, parent, etc. who is a public figure can be interviewed at your discretion. As FLN’s broadcasting becomes more sophisticated we can help you with hosting broadcasting during the event. FLN will be happy to discuss these changes should you have questions.

Please also note that should you want to discuss anything beyond the press release, such as banner advertising, you should be contacting Mark Geddis at mark@floridalacrossenews.com & 954-566-7388