Jacob Atkins '19 Recruiting Profile

Hello, my name is Jacob Atkins.  I live in Mechanicsville, VA and I am looking for the school that would help me to achieve my student and athletic goals. 

Academically I want to take the Criminal Justice course for my junior and senior year of high school to eventually move on to college for a degree in Criminal Justice.  My choice to become a Law Enforcement Officer is to become a protector.  Defending is in my nature. This is why my position fits me so well.  I will protect my team.

My dream and goal as a student athlete is to work for the degree that will assist me in my future and to find the family atmosphere with the lacrosse team that is like what I have now. I feel I have the capability to form to whatever the team needs, to be successful. 

To give you some background of my athletic ability, as a child I grew up playing Baseball, Basketball and Football.  As an athletic person, sports came easy for me.  Football had a significant impact in my life. I played through my freshman year of high school. The coaching I received in football was not about developing the team as a whole.  Their main focus was to individual players and how the team affected them.  Because of this I always felt the coaching was lacking and this is what drove me out of the sport. Looking back, I regret stopping because I realized that it made me push myself harder to be greater than they wanted me to be or thought I was.  I became interested in Lacrosse through football.  A lot of my teammates played.  At 10 years old, I played Blackhawk Lacrosse which is a local youth league for 3 years.  I wasn’t confident in the sport so I stopped but picked it back up my freshman year. I started as a midfielder with a short stick but half way through my freshman year my head coach asked to see me with a long stick.  At that point, I went from lacking in confidence about my ability to absolute comfort and felt like a completely different player. The support I received from the team and coaching staff made me work harder and defend stronger. The realization that the lacrosse community is more than a team it’s being part of a family. This led me to earn a starting position my sophomore year as a long stick defender and I have played as LSM when needed.  I was awarded 1^st team all-conference and 2^nd team all regional my 2017 season and look forward to playing the 2018 season.

A big obstacle for me was laziness and thinking I didn’t need to work to get where I am.  As I said sports came easy for me and I didn’t realize how important practice was.  I thought that everything would be handed to me.  But I quickly realized from my parents and coaches that’s not the case.  In order to become a stronger player, it takes time, energy, effort and focus.  This has been my motivation to work harder.

I look forward to hearing from you about any opportunities that may be available to me.

Sincerely,

Jacob Atkins