A Lacrosse Weekend 11/3/18

Welcome to “A Lacrosse Weekend” my weekly compilation of thoughts, ideas, history, stories, truths/myths about the great game of lacrosse. I hope you find it enjoyable.

November Recruiting

Since it’s the first of three recruiting weekends where Division I coaches are permitted to evaluate prospects, I am going to share some thoughts on fall recruiting. First, everyone needs to prepare themselves for the reality that November lacrosse is usually ugly! Unlike summer where players are sharp from their high school seasons, fall ball is the opposite: sloppy. Kids are playing other sports in the fall, rosters which might be full and packed with talent in summer are depleted because of football / soccer play-offs, fall sport injuries, etc. November Rain is a great song by Guns and Roses, but is a crappy environment to evaluate players! You’ll get the occasional field closures leaving 2 turfs for 60 teams resulting in each team getting one 15 minute game…. That will make you lose your mind when you flew 2000 miles to play lacrosse! With fewer daylight hours in fall, tournament organizers have to jam in as many games as possible in less time, so be prepared for shorter games.

I share this with the parent reader of this blog so you can appropriately set your expectations! The last thing you want to do is go into November recruiting thinking it’s going to be like last June when you had that magical run to win the “so and so” tourney! Although November can be brutal, there are some great qualities about November recruiting too! Shorter days means you’re done no later than 4pm and the bar, dinner and a reasonable bedtime await you! Teams get 3 games per day which is better than summer; You almost always have to go to Baltimore and that means great seafood! Make sure to go to Ocean Pride in Towson and have some “Torp Soup” named after High Point Head Coach Jon Torpey who claims to have invented it. It’s half cream of crab and half Maryland crab… it’s unreal! And Torp soup is better when the weather is brisk! In the Fall, you your down time is filled with football!

For college coaches, November is an important time to make decisions on players, but it can be frustrating because there’s just no way to see everyone you want to see. With only 6 days of permissible evaluating and literally every kid out there playing, shorter days, and shorter games, it makes it tough to be as thorough as you want to be. It’s kind of nice to be able to recruit in jeans and a sweatshirt as opposed to summer where you’re sweating your tail off, your back soaked with sweat in your disposable chair on some turf in 100 degree weather. Worse than heat is trying to write notes when it’s so cold you can’t feel your fingers, the ink is frozen in your pen and the wind is blowing your notebook pages all over the place. Coaches know that sometimes the lacrosse is going to be like American Pie lacrosse, but they're still fired up to be there. There’s nothing like finding a player, seeing one of your recruits play well, or following around/ stalking the player you really want!

The Little Things

My college coach, mentor, and legendary UVA coach Dom Starsia once told me, “I can recruit a kid on his worst day.” The reason is because coaches are watching a lot of little things: how hard you play, how athletic are you, how well do you run, are you engaged with your coach when he’s talking to you, are you a “Palms up” guy, are you in the huddle or on the outskirts, do you celebrate when a teammate scores, do you retaliate if you drew a flag, how well do you communicate, do you consistently make the right play, what kind of pop do you have in your step, can you snap off a shot on the run, do you beat the crap out of your man, are you in an athletic posture, can you fire a 20 yard rope to X, do you move the ball off the ground, do you make the one more pass. Playing with great energy and IQ stand out and I can assure you coaches are looking for all of it.

95% of the Game

The easiest way to improve your chances of being recruited is to become more productive and focussed on the off-ball part of the game. Whether you play offense or defense, you will be off the ball for 95% of the game, yet many players are almost oblivious to the importance of off-ball lacrosse. 

Defensively it starts with your athletic position/posture and head turns. If you’re on the crease, get sideways, talk to the on ball defender, position yourself to slide and read the 1v1 match up; if you’re adjacent, while covering your man you must crowd a dodger, be in a skip pass lane, help on the crease where you can, and be ready to slide off a clear thru or fee double; if two passes away from the ball, get in, get sideways, communicate with the slider and be ready to 2nd slide.

Offensively, moving without the ball is also critical. In the JM3 Video Assessments, (www.JM3Video.com) we developed a method of evaluating off ball movements in players by categorizing all movements movements and tabulating player's actual off ball movements as well as the movements they should have made or could have made. Wouldn’t you love to know how much you actually move off the ball? 

Here are the movements we look at: 

A) Clearing space for a dodge: clear through, shallow cut, fade 

B) Crease play: most important is spacing ie if the ball behind be high 

C) 2man action when you set a pick for the ball 

D) Movement away from the ball: exchanges, cut the middle, or picking away 

E) Perfect spacing for shooting, passing, being an outlet 

F) Hang ups: for all you X guys, you need to make it hard for your man to come behind to play you as you are an outlet

Dodging

The sad reality is if you can’t or won’t dodge and either draw a slide or get your own good shot, it is going to be really hard to get recruited. Coaches need players to be able to draw slides if they are guarded by a short stick. There are different styles of dodging. You don’t have to be the biggest fastest guy who “Runs by his guy." You can be quick, physical, smart and / or deceptive which sets you up to “Get by your guy.” Many of the best players beat their man with the latter. If you want to see an example of a player that gets by his guy, look at Ryder Garnsey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9RKvMYwbaQ

Three Dodging Tips

1. The name of the game is getting to the middle. It’s all about angles. And you will have more success on your “Natural Side.” Think about a lefty attackman. (“No Ray, no Ray, Hooray!) The one who is all left. The one that opposing coaches always scream “He’s all left!” The one who still gets his left whether it’s top side, underneath, inside roll, Z dodge, rollback you name it! The lefty attackman spends all of his time on his natural side. And when he cuts through, he comes back ASAP. Midfielders on the other hand spend the majority of their life on the wrong side alley losing angle with every step. Wing dodges are the hardest place on the field to defend so head on over to your natural side wing!

2. Be Physical! Here’s the deal: when you dodge either you are going to initiate contact on your man or he’s going to initiate contact on you. If you initiate contact or turn the corner on him, you will retain angle. If he jams you, you will lose angle. Be Physical! 

3. Before you initiate, see sliders and see your outlets, that way you can go hard and not run into trouble, you’ll be able to move the ball if a slide does come, and ideally manipulate the slider by not actually running hard right into him but rather popping away watching him retreat and re-dodging. 

1v1 Defense

It starts with your off ball posture. You must be in an athletic position off the ball so you can move as quickly and efficiently as possible. Approaches are critical and where most players beat themselves. You must chop your feet, approach with your stick out, “Lead poke” and under control. Understanding angles is critical. You must learn to let players run towards X and not over chase them because they are usually coming right back to their strong hand. Using your stick to lift and hold your man allows you to slow him down and leverage yourself back into the play. A strong cross check hold and a strong V hold taking away topside while not overplaying takes skill. Beating the crap out of your man without getting penalties is a plus.

Phi-Lacrosse-ophy Podcast

This week’s podcast with Penn State Head Coach Jeff Tambroni was a treat. I’ve known Jeff for a long time. In fact my wife was in his wedding and his wife was in mine. Our wives were best friends and roomies back in the early 90’s when we were all at Yale. We start the conversation in which he talks about the coaches he played for and worked for: Mike Messere, Dave Urick, BJ O’Hara, Dave Cottle, and Dave Pietramala. Quite a list of mentors! Next Jeff talks about the process of building the culture at PSU, setting the core values, and the individual personal development of each player. We chat about how he teaches shooting and dodging. Jeff reveled that when they’re recruiting at Penn State they have a dodge rating where they are keeping track of whether or not players can draw slides / get their own good angle shot. We finish with my asking him what advice he would give prospects in the recruiting process. Check it out!

Coaches Training Program

If you’ve been following me on Twitter, this blog, podcasts, or YouTube then you know I’ve been furiously producing coaching content. Last February I set out to create the best coaching platform on the planet. For 25+ years I’ve been in a non stop "thinking about lacrosse mode". My wife is like, “Jamie, you think about lacrosse ALL THE TIME!” And I’ll be like, "honey, I just had the best idea!" There is literally no end to my curiosity and I’m trying to bring it all to you, the subscribers, in a way that combines cutting edge with practicality. I’m pumped that some of the top DI (men’s and women’s), DIII, JUCO and MCLA programs have subscribed to the CTP. Many of the top high school coaches and programs in the nation are a part of the program just like upstart programs from non hotbed areas have immersed themselves in the content. If you are a serious coach, you are going to be very happy you enrolled. Just don’t wait to long because there’s a lot to cover and you have to have it ready for the season!

Coaches Certification

I’ve created a really cool model for certification of coaches. Currently, the only certifications out there are knowledge based, where you learn terminologies, concepts, philosophies and techniques, take a test, and get a certificate. This model doesn’t ensure that a coach can run a decent practice, much less a great practice. And what is more important than running a great practice? A great practice defined by both the quantity of reps and the quality of reps.

First, we provide the program with a practice plan and video links for each drill. Next we film practice from beginning to end without stopping the camera. JM3 breaks down your film drill by drill and I'll voice it over with “telestration” which tells you exactly what results your drill environment created and whether it was what we set out to create. Finally, we do stats on your practice by counting the reps of one player throughout the entire practice to get an average for the team. The stats we count: passes, catches, shots, GB’s, 1v1 offense, 1v1 defense and off ball movements. In addition, we also measure how much time is spent in drills and how much time is spent between drills. I believe this method will revolutionize coach training. Stay tuned!

Have a great weekend!