welcome to the secrets of college planning i'm your host anthony uga and today we're going to get some insight in lacrosse and my guest today her name is amanda fuchs and she's the c e o of interact with welcome to the show thank you very much for having me today no problem so i mean i usually start i guess with a with the code so would you go to school so i went to the college of new jersey ok and i love my experience there and i'm from new jersey's kind of  freshman year or sophomore year senior year when did it all start for you so i actually started playing lacrosse when i was in middle schools around eighth grade and that i played three sports throughout my high school career and then i realized that i really had a passion for lacrosse more towards junior year and that's what i also joined an elite team out in new york so it's a travel on our each way just to practice about once or twice every month and so that's why and i really started focusing on ok if this could be a college opportunity for me because i'm competing in elite team i'm going to twenty minutes of college coaches watching us and sell junior you there was really a puddle moment for me to really get out of cade did you get recruited i did and i had a few opportunities to look at a bunch of colleges and and look at a few different places that recruited me and what it boiled down to was really with the type of school that i wanted to go to that was my number one i do occasionally is always first and then  settings and but i wanted to be on a team where it was still competitive for me as well where i continue my passion for cross so i know what was the process in high school for the people who are watching the show what's the only two thousand and so that's going to be a very different experience from what kids are doing now maybe in terms of more of the channels that the coaches would reach you now of course e mail is a huge communication  maybe social media to look at your stats and on the websites but for me it's going to be a little bit different so for me attending torn immense was a very huge critical way for me to be able to stand out in front of my coach is so that's one way so i reached out to coaches and let them know ok i'm going to be at this tournament i saw them a letter like actually mailed them and also send a few emails but telling them what my schedule was and then from then if they were interested that i would actually get a letter not even an e mail so i had to check my mail every day and then that's when you would have to start going through the recruiting process visiting the things just like if you were looking for job it wouldn't just be well do you fit this role it would be how how would you play with with our team are you going to be a good team player are you going to sync with the rest of the team so when i visited schools i first looked at the campus and then i loved you know what the schedule was like and then i looked at the actual school is it going to have the degree that i wanted which was  then when i met with the coach they were really looking at ok we see that you have skills you know are your grades good that's one thing definitely they always want to have scholar athletes of faith that's what they call them and they also wanted us to meet with the teammates to make sure that once we get on the team are we all going to get along are are they someone i could play with than i am i someone they could play with us all right so don't know what type of schools you said visual in two and three when you went to go visit the schools you know what schools we will be looking at you know what were you looking at in school with a like schools like penn state or just all small schools like conchology jersey there were few pennsylvania schools that i was looking at my top were got east burge and the college of new jersey i also got a letter from cornell but i knew instantly that i didn't want to go too far it's all the way upstate new york and i'm not really a cold weather person and i've been a cornell of bunch of science for lacrosse camps so that's where i really narrowed it down to the schools are close and were good in size and also had a very good academic program and had a good business school ok so no how did you end up picking the school where were your mom and that involved her and how did how did the whole process go to on picking the school so my parents definitely had a huge influence on where they thought i would where i would fit in but at the end of the day i was always my choice so they definitely like the schools that i was going towards bergen and the college in jersey my parents came with me sat down with the coach as well which is really important and they too got to really get to know the schools and what it was going to be like i mean for my parents of course and i'm sure any other parents academic is going to be huge thing so they were just considering ok is my daughter going to play like games like if it was ok let's take a good look at the business school are you going to get a good education yeah good so know you go to school year at college in new jersey what what's it like what's it like to a place across a school like college in new jersey you know what do you when do you get to school what's the whole process of the whole year you know yes so as a college athlete no matter what division you have to be very focused and you have to be very organized you're not a typical college student that it just goes to class studies and then that's a it's you have this really extra job to do and it's like a four hour job a day so i really had to be very organized every week knew where i was going and knew what i had to do and i had to make sure that i was spending my study time in between those sessions cell definitely requires a lot of hard work and a lot of organization but you just you make it work so unlike the fall seasons where you're probably going to come in a few weeks before to start your pre season practices so for us as lacrosse players we usually got maybe a little workout packet to get us in shape for the summer because really you're making sure that you're preparing yourself all year so although we didn't come in early we had a work up package where we would be working out all of the summer right from when the season and until we go back to we go back to school and then i would go back to school in august but that pre season would start maybe a few weeks later and that's all we would work out with the team and you know is very early before all our classes maybe five thirty am practices and then and once that pre season is over you're back to your workout packets working out on your own all answered even during the break when no one's telling you what to do you have to stay motivated so it's so through the christmas break you're it's the working out yes exactly you know and then when you go back to school in the in the spring and then we went back to school all around i believe i did january february  right then practices starting apres in the starting and that we had double sessions and everything so suddenly a year long commitment there's there's no break and and how many games do you do you play during the regular season i believe it was about consuming sport because all the way around the whole season yes definitely it's amazing so now you're a business major you start thinking about business of course when did this whole thing about opening up interact with what is that and and what do you do with it just so i actually was in a full time career for about nine years before i started this company and so all of that really helped me gain all the experiences i needed good to be able to build a company build a product really learn about sales and i also went to get my m b a during that time so i got my m b a from rutgers university and i concentrate in entrepreneurship so i really made sure that before i took that leap i had all the basics and everything down to really know how to grow a business and so this actually i always wanted to build a brand new business but i wasn't going to just think of an idea and then do it so luckily there was this problem that that i realized right when i was in my last career and what we saw was that there needs to needed to be safer communication between high school coaches and their athletes so right now there's a lot of texting that goes on between coaches and athletes but how do we safeguard that further not just to protect the athletes but the coaches well and so luckily this was like the perfect timing i spoke to my high school to what it director he said you know man to there's this there's a state policy requiring all school districts to create some kind of electronic communication policy for their schools and it turned out which could could be at a disadvantage because a lot of high school coaches need to communicate with athletes and so that's one we came up with ok why don't we make something that's safer but meets that need that administrator and see the relationships and which coaches need this and which athletes need us once they set and decide who gets to use this now the coaches and athletes basically gets communicate through our app just like tax mustn't messaging but there's no phone numbers being shared so that's the number one safeguarding where using school district email addresses but no matter what everything is stored and archives so that's the second biggest part of our safeguarding is that if anything ever happened the administrators how full transparency over and can provide the evidence to the parents the order anybody else that needs it so got it really protects both coaches and the athletes at the same time everything being saved and watched over yeah and it's not you know for big brotherly reasons but everything is saved for that incident that if anything is ever questioned they could provide that information  so are you seeing a lot of schools not just high schools are you seeing colleges doing it as well our interest is really coming from high schools on the college level it's not really as big of a concern terms of safeguarding because now it's and every scene and the coaches are dealing with minors so definitely more on the high school level or dolls or are working with teenagers and texting with them the other entrance where we're also getting anxious is from nonprofit youth organizations so like those volunteer programs where there's volunteers mentoring teenagers or kids and they have to be able to communicate with them maybe through  texting to say ok let's go to a basketball games that a or let's work on your homework together and that's where some programs or actors have been interested in learning more about what we do to safeguard texting and so how long we been doing this so we have been close to a couple years now serving schools and now youth programs and if people want to get in touch with you what's the you know address sure so our website is interact with dot tournament's we we actually i actually see tournament starting at an early age which is middle school so that's when they're really getting their skills and working with teens and working with elite coaches all to be competitive in the game now how do you actually if there's a lot of athletes that are starting to get sixth grade going in these torn ends you don't have to go too far because a lot of these torments if you go and research it on line a lot of the college coaches will come to them so if even if you want to go to a team that's on the west coast they'll actually come to some of the east coast tournament so but definitely a huge thing if you're thinking of going to college or out torments is definitely a great way to be in front of coaches and show show your game yes people usually say tournament's usually try to go to the ones where you are interested in those type of schools that will be definitely tell the coaches ok i see you're going to be there i'll be there as well here's my schedule and tell them about yourself your stats and you know why you're going to be standing out and why you want to go to that school definitely tell them ahead of time that you're going to be there now did you have to do videotapes to just send the water videotapes or how does that work so back when i was in high school we were sending actual video tapes so i was sending packages that w this big and bulky and huge so nowadays it's very different the whole you can even see the use or even send them like a you tube video which is great it's a lot faster to communicate to these it work so you definitely want to be able to show how you stand out so in the beginning maybe put yourself in front of the you know the video and make sure that your clearly stating your name and what you do and your stacks in a little bit about yourself and the rest of the tape will showcase what you think they would want to see so if you're playing attack of course your shooting skills your passing skills everything that they would want to see your left cradling your right hand shooting left shooting right everything on your maybe your speed as well so definitely parts of the game even my brother who actually  was created for baseball also showed himself of himself a practice where ok if it's not i'm not able to get clips from games i can believe show them me doing if i myself and practice great now how about size i mean you really can't tell on t v your size but those that come into effect in a sport like lacrosse or can you be any shape to put across it actually depends on it as an attacker you know i haven't come into any questions about ok how tall are you you know and stuff like that but definitely on the defensive side maybe even want to be a little bit a little bit taller is a huge advantage because you're able to stand up a little bit taller same thing for the call you know you're able to take up more space in the goal but as a defender being tall is the only advantage because you're able to  all all in all the game of the cross has grown tremendously so just as an example when i played in high school i had the only elite team that i could go to was in new york because there was none in new jersey so like i said i had to travel travel about a little more than an hour to go to practice all the way and slow spur new york now you have a lot of options  new jersey to play for many different only teens i i think there's more than a handful now all over new jersey from north jersey to south jersey which is a means and so that's how big it's really really go yeah that's great know in college what's what's the camaraderie with with the team is there any special things that you get it college compared to just regular students go to school as academics or is it is it a little bit different terms of maybe some getting special treatment or anything like that i did not feel that at all i felt like i actually had to work harder because i was a college athlete so even you know with professors you would think ok cut me a little slack because i have a game tomorrow no you work around that you have to talk to your teacher and your professor and say ok i might miss you know class blah what are you going to go over i need know prepare for that class way in advance so there's definitely no special treatment for that but so yeah you definitely have to stay organized and just make sure so do a lot of parents usually say you know it's all about the sport nothing about academics what's your defense on that question well you know with that it's what are you going to do after college you always want to see what's my future goals once college is over you know you might not play professional sports so you really have to think about ok if i'm going to college am i going to get that education that's going to get me to were i want to go in my career so that's when you really have to focus on both because it's not going to be  fun for the rest of her life you have to go into the you know career mode after college so so for kids that are around out there looking to go to to play we crossed at the college level do all those study times that you needed i definitely organize myself like a day in advance or you know week in advance knowing ok i have a game this saturday what are my free times to be able to study so every day i had a calendar very organized and every hour i knew exactly what i was doing each hour or even putting in time lunchtime twelve to one ok and then i even had to put in my calendar i had to go to the trainer you know a couple hours in advance i had to put that in my calendar cell everything was very times and had to be very organized well so you really broke it down to watch exactly y what what type of things at the college level were you looking in in the sport when you looking at the schools is it just the sport or was it you know do i have to play as soon as i get there do i sit the bench you know what are you looking for when you when you choose in the school it was in terms of the spore i wanted to make sure that i was on a team that was competitive i'm a very competitive person and i wanted to make sure that the team that i was on was commit committed and and would challenge me as a player so that was my number one thing i didn't want to maybe go to college that would be a little bit  and usually it's my guess what advice you want to give to the parents out there that their sons or daughters are going to play macross or want to play with course at the college level what advice you want to give them to  tell them you know what happens so i mean i have a couple of advice maybe a little bit more by definitely start off with academically what do you want for your child or for your child to know ok what do i want to do in the future so based on that look at the colleges that are interested in you do they meet that criteria is it a match so has to be a match both for the school and you as well and then that would be really one of my biggest advice i second vice also in terms of being able to reach those colleges would be very creative now with how you reach those college as so back in my day there was no such thing as social media but you have these all these unique resources now and channels to be able to stand out to these coaches and reach them as well so even the use of social media maybe put your videos out there the actual college a lot of the college lacrosse teams all have their own instagram will have their facebook or twitter so how do you maybe reach out to them in that way and show your video of course making sure that you know you're very responsive on social media not putting things that would not make you look very good so that's that's one way to uniquely reach out to them and than the other way would be definitely these torments there are a huge thing  for to be able to stand out and be in front of them so all these different tools to help me try to reach them in a very unique way well thank you very much for coming to thank you thank you for having me no problem so you've been watching the secrets