Okay everyone, I’m back from a terrific cruise and ready for the start of the season! Over the following week FLN is planning on: Today we will catch up on the start of the college season as we already have a big win for St. Leo’s Saturday!  I’ll be posting college press releases later today. Since the high school season starts today I will focus on putting together the FLN Media Top 20 Preseason Poll tomorrow evening; I want to ask around a little before finishing it up.  Those of you who are familiar with Mike Loveday of LaxRecords.Com know he follows the Florida scene.  I taped a podcast with him about 10 days ago for posting last night and I will put up a link to it later today.  One interesting thing to listen for is my surprise prediction for one of the state finalists on the Boy’s side . . . of course I might look a little foolish later . . . or maybe a LOT . . . but that comes with the territory! The District Previews of District 17-32 I am responsible for will be parceled out over Wednesday to the end of the week . . . a number of coaches have still not returned their answers to me and I would rather be patient this week than be incomplete.  Coaches, if you haven’t returned the answers yet, check your Junk Folder to make sure the request didn’t get caught up there.  Remember, it is a nice way to highlight your players and your program.  

One emphasis I want to put on this year is finding a way to increase attendance at high school games.  The big programs usually have no problem drawing fans to the games . . . now we want to increase the depth of that too! One thing I ask for is that the high schools that charge admission think about how to reach out to youth programs in the area and come up with an approach to them.  No reason why, if you charge $5 to attend to the fans, that you couldn’t let the 10 and under participant in for free and maybe a $2 ticket to students of the school.  Sacrifice a couple of bucks this year to make the stands a little fuller!  When I was a youngster I would really look up to a high school athlete . . . I doubt today’s 10-year old feels any differently.

  I will also re-run the previous season’s article on appreciating the referees more . . . parents and other fans need to understand that the rules are NOT black and white and that the referees are given latitude to adjust an interpretation due to the offensive player putting themselves in a bad position . . . in other words, not getting bailed out by a call when the ball carrier generated the circumstance.  US Lacrosse did not make any really major changes this year to the rules, I will seek their annual Interpretation Video for you to watch too. By now most of you are familiar with the exciting news from LSN about televising games.  The first one is scheduled for Friday so check out their web site and take a chance this month by signing up for the subscription!  Give it 30 days, watch a couple of the games online and see what you think!  LSN is considering doing a Florida HS preview segment too and I might be part of that . . . no final word on that yet.  The network also just interviewed new Florida Launch head coach Tom Mariano and that is posted on their main page. It is an interesting listen given the major trade the Launch made while I was away, so we are going to bring you up to date on that one today too! Let’s get it on and have a great season!