HIGH QUALITY, HIGHLY EXPERIENCED COACHES

If your son or daughter plays for another club is he or she being coached by a recent college grad, or maybe even a college student? Does the program lack consistency? Did the Director tell you things at tryouts that are very different now that you are on the team?

These are common issues in club lacrosse, but not at Thunder.

We have one of the top coaching staffs in the area with over SIXTY highly tenured high school or college coaches serving our boys and girls programs. They understand how to develop athletes, how to communicate, and how to build the character traits that you as a parent expect from your athlete playing a competitive team sport.

Make no mistake, “who is coaching your kid” is the most important question that you need answered when selecting a club lacrosse program. Nobody answers this question better than we do.

PLAYER DEVELOPMENT IS THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS

Let’s clear up the most common misconception in club sports. Playing club lacrosse in NOT about winning games. It is instead about developing student-athletes to be the best they can be. The wins then come as a result.

We aim to play the best competition we can find for our top teams, as this accelerates development at the youth level, and creates higher chances for exposure to college coaches at the high school level. We would rather play close games against great competition to accelerate player development. This is why over 90% of Thunder athletes go one to play at the collegiate level. Simply put, they are well prepared.

We get it … teams need to win, and we do, but it is because our athletes are being properly developed.

WE OFFER “#THE-MOST” … FOR LESS

#TheMost. We use this hashtag for almost every internal communication as it is a core value that we live by.

Name any club in any sport that offers nearly FIFTY fall/winter indoor workouts that are fully accessible to you, and at no additional cost whatsoever. There are not any, except here at Jersey Thunder Lacrosse.

Welcome to “Weeknight Workouts”, which run on weeknights in Sep-Feb at multiple locations. These sessions are focused on lax technique, IQ, and skill development, and are offered in addition to our normal team practices.

Why do we do this? We believe in multi-sport athletes, and we recognize that in the fall and winter, many of our players have commitments to other sports. However, lacrosse requires consistency in practice. Our “open workout” concept acts like a gym membership in that athletes can show up and practice when they have time. If they cannot make these sessions, no worries, parents, you don’t pay a dime for these anyway. We fund these workouts 100% from other revenue streams like tournaments, leagues, and clinics. You pay $0.

No other club offers anything like this. Most are programmed to charge you for everything. We would rather charge nothing, and reinvest everything we can solely into the development of our athletes. This is fundamentally who we are.

30+ YEARS OF EXPERIENCE

A lot has changed since we incorporated in 1992, when lacrosse in NJ was only played by a couple dozen high schools statewide. We are proud of our contribution towards the development at NJ as a national lacrosse hotbed.

Over 30 years, we have seen a couple dozen clubs in this area either fold or sell their businesses. This often happened because they made promises they could not keep to their parents. This is unfortunately a bit of “The Wild West” of club lacrosse where clubs make exaggerated claims that they cannot back up.

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

OUR #1 DIFFERENTIATOR … YOU ARE OUR BRAND

Many clubs make “building their brand” their 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 brand, you will automatically excel … because the marketing says so”. While perhaps a few athletes can prosper in this type of environment, most are left behind.

Jersey Thunder has one simple rule for building our brand … “develop our athletes to their fullest potential”. That’s it.

We have proven that by focusing on our athletes our brand is now recognized as one of the top clubs on the east coast. However, we flipped the formula! We build the athlete, and the brand equity follows. In other words, your athlete comes first at Jersey Thunder. After all, this has defined who are are … for 30+ years and running.