It’s one month from the start of most High School lacrosse seasons.  This is the moment you realize you need to do your cram session to ensure you are ready to go on day one.  If you haven’t started before now you are definitely feeling the weight of the moment sink in.  You cannot change the past, but you can change who are you are going to be these next 4 weeks.  If you’ve been going through the motions up until now, now’s the time to change that.  I see too many players that show up in the off-season, but never improve.  Being there is gr ..read more

Hybrid approach combining Talent and System In our previous post on this coaching dilemma we talked about the benefits of both approaches.  Talent based approach gives your star’s a chance to shine, but is very dependent on their individual effort.  System approach keeps everyone on the same page, but it can become too predictable.  Maybe these ideas aren’t great on their own, but when combined could just be your secret recipe.  I’m all for the hybrid approach and tried my best to incorporate both into our teams.  However ..read more

Every year we step onto the field we know its going to be a different year.  There are fresh young eyes staring back at you and there are players that have matured (so you hope) in your program and in life.  There are strength’s and weaknesses changing everywhere on the field.  So what do you do.  Does your talent dictate your gameplan?  Or do they all conform to your system? This leads me into the discussion of how do you plan for the year.  Do you choose a talent based approach that focuses on the individual strengths of your team, or do ..read more

In the first post we talked about all the wonderful items I found in my basement.  We documented the media that was used and how “game tapes” is such an outdated term.  However, when coaching during this time and this was the media available to you, you had to get creative on how to watch the film with the team.  Part 2 follows some of those fun hurdles and flashback to what you had to do to watch this media ..read more

I’ve been spending some time lately cleaning up some old items in the basement and ran into an absolute GEM.  One of my high school games on a VHS tape.  This by itself would have been an amazing find, but in that same box was an old VCR.  Even better I plugged it in, it fired right up, and then I proceeded to experience a wonderful nostalgic 1 hour of my life.  I will say though I learned to appreciate today’s media even more as I felt quite nauseous after watching the quality of the the video.  It got me thinking about how the “game tape ..read more

TryLax - What is it? I’m ready and so excited for a new opportunity this weekend.  I’ll be taking my kids to and coaching at my first TryLax experience.  If you aren’t sure what that is you need to check out the link attached.   https://www.uslacrosse.org/programs/trylax US Lacrosse promotes it as: “TryLax is an exciting, effective way for programs to recruit new players into the sport and their organization. This grant is for US Lacrosse Member Organizations that want to introduce lacrosse to boys and girls, ages 6-14 ..read more

We talked earlier this month about being successful with your lacrosse budgeting.  Fall is a great time of year to take inventory of what we have and what we need for the upcoming spring training.  It’s also a good chance to look out on the web for the cool new innovative products.  One thing I love about lacrosse is we are getting more and more entrepreneurs in the game of creating new tools to help us train ourselves in a more efficient manner than ever before.  But with all those tools comes a cost. Visit my Recommended Products to see m ..read more

During the first couple weeks its important to install as much of your gameplan as possible. The players should know the offense, defense, rides, and clears. These are very important pieces for everyone to understand. But another important element is ensuring your team is ready to show up for a game. This is why I recommend you practice your gameday. Pregame Warmup It is important to define your warmup and have the players run through the actual pregame in practice before gameday. Having the players run through ensures you don’t waste time and helps the players be autonomous. It ..read more

October lacrosse is all about fun.  At this time of year we are still 4-5 months away from the season and the number one goal is getting kids out to the field with the stick in their hand.  I’m too much of a stickler for fundamentals to get away from the basics, but look to add competition and fun into those.   I also like to steer away from negative consequences at this time, because my number one goal in October is to get a stick in as many hands and as many times as possible ..read more