By Rick Woelfel
Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 11/10/11
When Nick Tordone first put on a Team HEADstrong uniform two summers ago he wasn’t sure he could keep up with his new teammates.
“At first I was a little hesitant to get into the HEADstrong program,” he says, “but now I feel like an equal to these guys and able to compete with them in these types of tournaments.”
A junior midfielder at Owen J. Roberts, Tordone was speaking following a full day’s work at the Quaker LaxFest at Radnor High. The event featured 16 teams from the United States and Canada and was attended by some 100 college coaches.
It was a long weekend for Tordone and his mates; they played three games at Radnor after playing three at a showcase in Annapolis, Maryland the day before.
“It’s definitely part of the sport,” he said,” Going to these recruiting camps. “It’s not like I’m on the only one feeling fatigued at the end of the day. Everyone’s beat. Everyone’s trying their hardest.”
In a conversation with Phillylacrosse.com Tordone talked about his development as a player
Question: How does a showcase event benefit a player?
Tordone: “I definitely get more exposure with this than I do with my high-school team. There were a lot of recruiters on the sideline today.”
Question: What’s it like being surrounded by this level of talent?
Tordone: “It definitely ups my game. It’s a higher level of the game, it’s more up-tempo, and I get a lot more lacrosse strategy from the coaches and also get other things from the other players. I try my best to take the good things to learn from these guys and put them into my game.”
Question: How will playing top-level talent help your game develop?
Tordone: It definitely is in the back of my mind when I play with these guys that it might be harder now but for school, it makes it a little easier especially in the Pac-10 when we play Boyertown and Spring-Ford
Question: Is playing in front of college coaches a distraction?
Tordone: “It isn’t a distraction so much as it is motivation to do my best. The good thing about having all these recruiters here is if I have one bad game, hey, there are a million recruiters looking at the next game.”
