A Lacrosse Weekend 11.16.19

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!

7 DAY FREE TRIAL TO THE COACHES TRAINING PROGRAM (CLICK THE IMAGE)

If you haven't signed up for this, get on it!  This offer won't last forever, but I really wanted to remove the barriers so people could actually see what's in the CTP!  I have put a lot of time into this It's seriously impressive to see both the quality and the quantity of content.  It includes:

• Men's Lacrosse Coaches Training Program
• Women's Lacrosse Coaches Training Program
• 100 Webinars from all of the  Virtual Lacrosse Summits speakers
• Player Academies for boys and girls
• Player Libraries for boys and girls
• Recruiting content for parents

Click here to sign up for the JM3 Sports 7 Day Free Trial!

Podcast on Women's Lacrosse Recruiting

Colleen Magarity is the best!  She's cutting edge as a coach, has a resume that includes 3x National Champion at Northwestern, All-American, assistant coach at Colorado, WPLL, and currently the Head Coach and A.D. at Penn Charter School and Director of HHH Lacrosse.  And as good as her credentials and coaching abilities are, she's a better person! Having lived the recruiting world from multiple angles, Colleen explains what every girl hoping to play college lacrosse should be focusing on.  From choosing a club, to getting better, to what coaches are looking for.  You will LOVE this podcast! 

Click here to listen to Colleen!

Podcast with world renowned Strength Coach, Mike Boyle

A world renowned coach, speaker, writer and thinker, Mike Boyle joined me for a podcast that was one of the most interesting I've ever done.  About 6 weeks ago I read a tweet from Boyle that read something like this, "Timed 10 yard sprints are the biggest game changer I've every seen in speed development."  As soon as I saw this tweet I found a mutual friend who did an introduction.  Mike and I immediately hit it off and have enjoyed talking about a lot of topics!  Mike's son is a freshman lacrosse player and he trains the likes of Kayla Traenor!  He loves lacrosse and as he says, he's got some "skin in the game."  This podcast is a must listen if you have kids or a team that you would like to see become more athletic.

Click here to listen to podcast!

Coaching Lacrosse

Everybody is looking for a new man up look right?  I was watching film from last year's NCAA DI games and came across these looks from the University of Denver.  Offensive Coordinator Matt Brown is one of the brightest minds in the sport and always has smart and interesting wrinkles.  Here's a great example of a simple and smart look I'd never thought of! 

By the way, Brownie's success makes me happy and proud, after all, I recruited him to DU, coached him for 4 years, and he was also my assistant coach.  Now I'm studying his stuff!  Pretty awesome!

Women's Lacrosse Coaches Training Program

We have finally done it!  We built a women's lacrosse coaches training site that has incredible content for coaches at all levels.  I coach girls HS lacrosse and filmed every practice last year and produced a TON of great drill content.  Further, I have conducted webinars with many Division I and HS coaches to give our subscribers cutting edge X's and O's, drills, skills and concepts.  And the best part is, we are just getting started!

One pretty cool aspect to the Women's Lacrosse CTP is that last year was our first with the team which means the subscribers get to see what it's like building a new team, teaching skills, drills and concepts that were totally new to this young team made up of 3 seniors, 3 juniors and 11 sophomores.  

We focussed hard on:

• Fundamental passing/catching/Ground ball skills
• Shooting, dodging, and feeding
• On ball defense and approaches
• Keep Away
• Ground Ball Offense
• 2man game on and off ball
• Transition
• Zone Defense
• Small Sided Games

Here's one of my favorite drills called "9 Lines."  I think you will LOVE it!

College Lacrosse Recruiting

To quote Steven Covey, "The main thing is to make the main thing the main thing."  For everyone who has an aspiring lacrosse player, the "Main Thing" is to be good enough;  Good enough academically, good enough athletically, good enough skill, and good IQ.  

Is your son or daughter tracking to be good enough?

What does your player do very well?  What does he need to do more of?  Is she assertive enough?  How good is his/her off-ball movement?  

In some cases, parents have no lacrosse experience, in which case you absolutely need an expert opinion.

In other cases mom or dad played or coach lacrosse and know the game.  And if you're like most of us, your kids slowly don't want to listen to you! 

A JM3 Video Assessment is the most powerful evaluation of a player you can find anywhere.  Literally everyone says the same thing, "This was the best thing I've ever spent money on in lacrosse!"

Video Assessments include:

• 40-50 minute personalized breakdown of 3 games
• Video analysis with voice over and Telestration
• Advanced Stats (these are incredible!)
• Spliced in examples of HS, college, and pro players executing the skill

Check out the videos below of a couple video assessments I've done for players well past the recruiting process.  These two players quite simply just want to be the best in the world!

 Every player needs a coach!  Every player has things to work on and learn.  Every player needs to get better!

If you're interested in a video assessment for your son or daughter, or you want to see some video testimonials from happy customers please Click here! 

You need to know that there is a limit on how many we can handle.  It literally takes 7 hours per athlete for us to produce a video assessment.  We can take three customers per week.  

College Lacrosse Recruiting Prediction

I have stated several times, even to DI coaches on my podcast, that I believe the class of 2021 is the most under-evaluated class in the history of DI lacrosse recruiting.  The manifestation of the New NCAA rules was that coaches didn't start watching the class of 2021 until last fall and then again through this past summer after their sophomore year.  In this day and age (and this trend will continue) there are more god players, more good club teams and more events with good players than ever.  It is now simply impossible for a staff to get a handle on an entire class of players in six days (eight this year) of fall and two months of summer recruiting.  

I have noticed that really good players were missed over the summer and are being discovered this fall.  And I mean players who played on top club teams and were viewed all summer long.  The reason is because it takes a lot of evaluating and a little bit of luck to get a great evaluation of a player.  If there are 10 Division I caliber prospects on a team, how many games or half games (many coaches just watch a half at a time to see more teams) would it take to get a handle on 10 players?  A player may only dodge 3-4 times in a half.  A defender might only be dodged two times in a half.  The goalie might not even play in the half.  What if your face off man gets crushed? What if you win every face off?  

I'll say it again, It takes a lot of evaluation to get a handle on players!

This is why there is no doubt in my mind that most DI programs will be putting a substantial amount of time into evaluating 2021's next summer, just as the 2021's are the focal point of this fall's recruiting.  Even top ranked programs will have spots to fill, often times purposely leaving openings to find a special player that hasn't emerged or to poach a player from a school lower on the recruiting food chain.

Therefore, the class of 2022 will become the most under-evaluated class in the history of DI recruiting.  Already, the 22's have been evaluated less this fall than the 21's were evaluated last fall.  The trend will continue into summer.

September 1 will still be a big day for the 2022's, and there will still be a feeding frenzy.  Top prospects can be pretty easy to see and just like this fall, coaches will start there.

My prediction is coaches are going to have to rely more and more on trusted sources of evaluation.  The bottom line is DI coaches do not have enough time to get a handle on talent.  The obvious problem is it's hard to know who to trust. Clearly coaches aren't just going to take the word of a high school or club coach and offer a scholarship or spot, but creating and leveraging pipelines from coaches that neither inflate nor deflate a player's ability will become even more prevalent.

This isn't a new concept.  Back when I was recruiting I had coaches like Ted Wolford from Upper Arlington that I knew if they said, "This kid can play." they would be spot on.  It's just a fact that the club and HS coaches know the players much better than a college coach will know them.  The questions is who can you trust?

The moral of the story: have a respected advocate.  It will help a lot!

 Have a great weekend!