A Lacrosse Weekend 3.13.21

Uncategorized Mar 13, 2021
 

Welcome to "A Lacrosse Weekend" my weekly compilation of thoughts, ideas, stories, myths, truths, about the great game of lacrosse. I hope you enjoy it!   

If you are a men's or women's lacrosse player, coach, or parent, I think you will love the weekly content, videos, and analysis! 

Podcasts This Week

The Inside the 8 Podcast with Colleen Magarity this week we focus on college lacrosse recruiting and the topic is "Reclassing."   This phenomenon occurs all the time in men's lacrosse and has been happening in women's lacrosse as well, but now with the NCAA Dead Period having effected so many kids' recruitment combined with the NCAA granting an extra year of eligibility to four years of college athletes , we will likely see more of it.  Colleen and I go into depth on how it works, how college coaches view Reclassing, and we cover frequently asked questions.  Click Here to listen to this podcast!

Below is the who, what, when, where, why of Reclassing

  • Who: athletes who feel like they're at the level of playing at their dream schools, but for whatever reason, were missed
  • What: Reclassing is when you play in a recruiting event or club team as the class below the class you are in allowing a coach to recruit you for that class. 
  • When: Fall or summer of junior year, or when the spots at your dream school are filled
  • Where: any recruiting event, highlight video, questionnaire etc
  • Why: College coaches want the best players relative to the class and you might be willing to take an extra year to go to your dream school
  •  How: simply sign up for a team or an event in the class below and if you get recruited to a school that you would do an extra year for, you either do a PG year or a Gap year.

Click here for a podcast more focused on Men's lacrosse Reclassing  that I did last March with Matt Rowley, Director of 3d NE and Head Coach Nobles & Greenough. 

Colleen's Corner: Reclassing

This week Jamie and I did a podcast on reclassing to help parents and coaches understand the benefits for the athletes. We go through the process and what exactly reclassing means and how to go about it. Leading up to the podcast, and going through the process with my own players, I spoke to a few college coaches about their thoughts on the reclassing process. 

While speaking to Devon Wills, Harvard Head Coach, she was extremely interested in any of the girls reclassing from 2022 to 2023 for this next recruiting class. She actually "preferred" that as they have a ton of experience and typically the academic profile that they are looking for. I have had many conversations with Pitt, USC, Villanova and more about reclassing and all of them want the best player for that class and more times than not, a reclassed athlete is more appealing. 
 
This podcast and information is to help everyone understand that this is not a negative process. Reclassing gives talented athletes the opportunities they deserve to get, and the exposure that they may have missed. Everyone's path is different and some lacrosse players just need a little bit more time, and this process creates that opportunity for them. 
 

The Around The World Feed

Is the Around The World Feed a legit skill that has usefulness beyond looking really cool!?  I've seen lots players using Around The Worlds while having a catch, but rarely do I see this pass used in live play.  When and why would a player use this skill?

An Around The World (ATW)  is a deceptive pass that opens up a new angle for the feeder.  Similar to a Backhand Feed, an ATW is often times initiated from a Face Dodge posture, in fact I sometimes call it "Face Dodge Feeding" when players use their back hand or their ATW from this posture.  When a player winds up and face dodges, it is a trigger for the defense to get ready to help and collapse therefore is a great way to feed deceptively. 

The "New Angle" part is simply that when a player has faced dodged by a defender, it opens up the backhand angle.  When the defense over plays the backhand feeding angle, it opens up the Around The World Angle. 

Watch video examples below of two of the greatest players of all time using the Around The World Feed.  First, Casey Powell on Extra Man Offense while pushing the left side from behind in a masterful draw and dump to the lefty shooter, 

Next watch Paul Rabil in the first ever PLL All Star Game as he uses his Face Dodge to set up his Around The World  in a beautiful 2v1 draw and dump situation!

How Do You Learn To Feed Around The World Feeds?

If you want to learn how to use this skill, there is no better place than in a pick up game where players naturally and intuitively find new ways to fake, feed, dodge, shoot and move without the ball.  In this case, the dodger Face Dodges and begins pumping back hand fakes and invites the defender into her hands in order to pop an ATW feed behind her.  If you want to learn more about how to get lacrosse going in your neighborhood, check out the Backyard Curriculum!

In this example, we were playing some 4v4 Box on the Field and you can see another great example of how an Around The World pass can be used.  Similar to example above, the dodger is looking for and pumping his backhand when he realizes the Around The World angle is better.  Nice handle and finish by NLL player Andrew Kew!

 

JM3 On Clubhouse

Have you heard of the Clubhouse App?  A new social media platform that is all audio?  Kind of like live interactive and group podcasts.  

Inside Lacrosse CEO Terry Foy and I are creating great content with awesome speakers and conversations on this platform every week on College Lacrosse Recruiting, Men's Coaching, Women's Coaching, Youth Lacrosse, Lacrosse Entrepreneurship, and hot topics!

Last Wednesday, the topic was College Lacrosse Recruiting and we had an amazing panel of speakers: Ty Xanders from Inside Lacrosse, Jono Zissi from West Coast Starz, Matt Rowley from 3d Lacrosse, myself and Terry!

One of the coolest thing about Clubhouse is anyone who enters "The room" can be invited up on stage to speak and we had PLL Redwoods players Ryder Garnsey, Sergio Perkovic, Eddy Glazner, and Nick Ossello all join the discussion in a really cool impromptu manner, sharing stories, experiences and laughs with the group!

Tomorrow morning, 9am ET I scheduled a room for men's coaches with a topic: Offensive Principles vs Sets / Motions.  I've invited some high school coaches from all over the nation to join us and I hope you do too!

 

The Lob Pass Give & Go

If you have listened to my Flying Solo Podcast on The Give & Go, you may have heard me refer to the fact that when you make a pass, defenders will naturally watch the ball in the air and this becomes an opportunity to cut.  For that reason, a longer pass or a skip pass end up being phenomenal opportunities to bait a defender into watching the ball in the air, setting up a give and go.  One day while playing pick up, i realized that if I threw a loopy pass, I could set up my give and go.  Kind of like the old two snowball trick!  Check it out!

 

The Most Important Ability is Availability

Each Week Christopher Newport Head Coach, Mikey Thompson contributes to this blog with videos or insights that I think you will find very interesting!

This week I listened to Phi-Lacrosse-ophy guests, Mike Boyle and Tony Holler. Both are super smart, outside the box thinkers that have flipped traditional speed and conditioning training methods on their heads. One of my biggest takeaways was the quote, "the most important ability is availability." 
 
Tony and Mike both talk about the importance of developing "happy and healthy" athletes that come to practice for the best part of their day. "If your class wasn't mandatory would they still come?" They also note that the foundation of high performance is rest, recovery, and sleep. 
 
As coaches we need to understand that sometimes less is more. Games should be the hardest day of the week for our players physically. Some coaches like to work their players so long and hard in practice throughout the week that, "game day will be easy." When game day rolls around would you rather have a team that is tired, injured, and mentally drained... or a team that is fresh, healthy, and fired up? 
 
These are some of the things that Tony and Mike talk about that are worth considering. We obviously want our teams to be in great shape... but there is a huge difference between being in lacrosse shape and being in running shape. Give these guys a listen and you might rethink those post practice runs! 
 
Have a Great Weekend!

 

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