WHY THUNDER LACROSSE?

Jersey Thunder 2021: Lehigh Laxfest Champions

HIGH-Quality, Experienced Coaches

If your son or daughter plays club lacrosse, is he or she being coached by a recent college grad with limited coaching skills? Do they have different coaches every week? Does the program lack consistency? Did the program director tell you things on tryout day that just are not happening now that you are in the program?

This is common in club lacrosse, but not at Thunder.

We have one of the top coaching staffs in the area, including over SIXTY highly tenured high-school or college coaches with proven experience. They understand how to develop athletes, how to communicate, and how to build the character traits required to play at the next level.

Make no mistake, “who is coaching your kid?” is the most important question that you need answered when considering a club lacrosse program. No other question even comes close. We encourage you to check out the “Our Staff” link at the top of this page. This differentiates Thunder Lacrosse from our competition.

30 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE

A lot has changed since we incorporated in 1992, when lacrosse in New Jersey was still a sport that only a couple dozen schools in the area had access to. We are proud of our contribution towards the evolution of Northern NJ as a lacrosse hotbed throughout the last 30 years.

During this time, club organizations have come and gone, almost every year. Many have made promises that they could not keep. This is a bit of “The Wild West” with club sports, where programs make powerful claims that they cannot back up.

Thunder Lacrosse makes a simple promise. We will develop your athlete to be the best player he or she can be. We know who we are, what we offer, and what our training and development protocols yield in terms of player improvement. We have learned a lot in 30 years, and our refined approach is an advantage for your student-athlete.

DEVELOPMENT IS EVERYTHING

Let’s clear up THE most common misconception in club sports. Playing club lacrosse is NOT about winning games. It is instead about developing student-athletes, and the wins come as a result.

We aim to play against the best competition we can find for our top teams, as this accelerates development at the youth level, and amplifies exposure to colleges at the high school level.

Thunder Lacrosse always puts your student-athlete’s development first and foremost. We would rather have our teams play against better competition, to accelerate development, even if it means that we do not win every game. It is why the majority of our athletes graduate high school, and go on to play at the collegiate level. They are prepared. We get it, teams need to win, and we do, but it is because our boys and girls are being developed.

WE OFFER MORE FOR LESS

#TheMost. We use this hashtag for almost every internal communication.

Name a club in ANY sport that offers nearly 50 fall/winter INDOOR workouts that are fully accessible to you, already included in your incredibly reasonable annual tuition. There are not any, except Thunder Lacrosse. Welcome to the “Lax Gym”, which runs every week Sep-Feb in multiple locations. We truly are passionate about accelerating lacrosse IQ and skills with our players.

Why do we do this? We support multi-sport athletes, and we recognize that in the fall and winter, your athlete has other priorities. However, lacrosse requires consistency in practice in order to develop. By including a massive amount of training in the “off-season”, multi-sport athletes can attend these sessions when they have time, with the flexibility of their schedule, and at NO additional cost. NO OTHER CLUB offers anything like this. (We get it, this is not very “profitable”. Remember, 30 years of incredible results are guiding us").

YOU ARE OUR BRAND

Thunder Lacrosse is different than other clubs for many reasons, but this reason may be the most important.

Many other clubs make building their brand the top priority. They develop the equity of their brand by charging and then spending a lot of money on marketing efforts. The idea is that “if you play for this club, you will automatically excel.” Therefore, the brand comes first, and your athlete comes second. While perhaps a select few athletes can prosper in this environment, the vast majority will be left behind.

Thunder Lacrosse has one simple rule for building our brand … “develop our athletes”. That’s it. We have proven that by focusing on our athletes, our brand is now recognized among the top clubs on the east coast. However, we flipped the formula. We do not build the brand to attract the athlete. We build the athlete, and the brand equity follows. In other words, your athletes comes first. He or she always will at Thunder Lacrosse. It is who we are … for nearly 30 years running.