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!  

Colleen Magarity Joins JM3

I am thrilled to announce that Colleen Magarity is joining JM3 Sports to work with JM3 Athletes and JM3 Coaches as well as to help host, manage and grow the Women's Lacrosse Coaches Training Program and the Virtual Lacrosse Summit.  Check out Colleen's bio below!

Colleen is simply the best.

As a mentor, Colleen has a perfect balance between having fun, working hard and playing to win.  Colleen is an incredible role model for girls - amazingly positive, a fierce competitor and confident leader. She can be tough and will tell you a hard truth, but has a way about her that motivates kids to be better.  Never making it about herself, Colleen displays the ultimate in what it means to be a great teammate and does what's in the best...

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!  

A Year in Review

Everyone is happy that 2020 is over, "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out 2020" they'll say.  And I agree, in that there has been so much suffering and so much loss of life, jobs, and opportunity.  In the Munro family, we were lucky only to lose lacrosse seasons.  While it was heartbreaking to see the Georgetown season come to an abrupt end and the ThunderRidge HS girls' team that I coach and my daughter plays on, barely get started, I have to say that 2020 had much to appreciate and be thankful for.

Family Time: The time I spent with my wife and kids during March, April and May were precious.  We hunkered down, played sports in the backyard everyday, ate together, hiked, and took an epic RV trip across the nation with the destination our bubble in Narragansett,...

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!  

X's & O's with Bobby Benson

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone!  While 2020 has been crazy, this is always a good time of year to take a step back and be thankful for all we have.  Lacrosse is a sport that has provided me too many relationships and opportunities to list here.  My time at Hopkins was incredibly special.  The early 2000's were a great time to be at Homewood as I got to be part of the team and success built by President Bill Brody, Jerry Schnydman, Tom Calder, Dave Pietramala, and many others.  I am equally blessed to have moved on to Atlanta as this has provided a huge opportunity for my wife and our family.  Lacrosse is growing rapidly in the southeast.  I have met many great people already and I can't wait for this spring.

Throughout the transition,...

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! 

Top 10 Things To know on How to Get Recruited

1. Know your strengths and make them stronger. Coaches want to recruit players who are special. Figure out how to be the best in the class with a combination of your talents.  Example: be the best 6'3'' LH attackman who can Post up on the Island with his head up to fake, feed and shoot, with a 3.8 GPA from a NE boarding school, a 31 on the ACT and doesn't need a lot of scholarship who can also play 2man game - in the nation!
2. Understand how to leverage to the fullest your strengths. If you're really good at something, figure out how to that thing even more!
3. Understand and mitigate your weaknesses while putting time in to turn them into minimum proficiencies. Example: you don’t need your weak hand to be as good as your strong hand. But at the least, you need...

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! 

X's and O's with Bobby Benson

A new segment in the "A Lacrosse Weekend" blog will be thoughts and videos from Bobby Benson, former Offensive Coordinator at Johns Hopkins and a new member of the JM3 Sports team!  Coach Benson is a lacrosse savant and will drop knowledge for us regularly!

How Hoops Transformed the Blue Jay's Offense

By Bobby Benson

As some of you heard on last week's Phi-Lacrosse-ophy Podcast, in 2014 we changed our offense at Hopkins to a basketball style motion offense.  My high school basketball coach at McDonogh, Matt MacMullan, once asked why no one in lacrosse has a motion offense like they do in hoops.  In 2008, I put pen to paper with Dave Allan to begin to develop the offense.  (Coach Allan is one of the best coaches and mentors I have ever been around.)  However, we...

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! 

Phi-Lacrosse-ophy Podcast

Bobby Benson, long time John's Hopkins Offensive Coordinator, is simply one of the most erudite lacrosse coaches on the planet and you will get a glimpse into the way he thinks about the game in this podcast!  A 3x All-American for the Jays, Benson is one of two JHU players ever to lead his team in goals all four years!  Bobby was an assistant and Offensive Coordinator to coach Pietramala for 14 years, was a part of the '07 national championship team with Paul Rabil and Stephen Peyser, and has produced consistently excellent offenses in Division I in terms 6v6 and Extra Man Offense.  

We discuss Bobby's lacrosse journey, his mentors, his philosophy on offense, extra man, Zone offense, player development and recruiting.  I especially loved his concepts on motion...

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! 

Podcasts

Flying Solo Podcast Series, "What I Learned" from Dom Starsia: I've started a new podcast series titled "What I Learned" and I'm really excited about it!  My first one was with my college coach whom I have known since I was a young boy, growing up in Providence, RI.  Dom had a profound influence on me as a person and as a coach and it's fun to think back to the old days and give some credit where credit is due!

Future "What I learned" Podcasts

• PLL Chaos Head Coach Andy Towers
• Yale Coach Mike Waldvogel, brilliant lacrosse mind who I coached for for 8 years
• Legendary Indiana Basketball Coach, Bobby Knight
• The Late Great Dave Huntley

Click here to listen to this podcast!

Pat Spencer Using Hesitations to Initiate Contact

In my opinion, physical dodging is one of the biggest indicators of a prospect's...

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! 

College Lacrosse Recruiting - Highlight Videos

This is the last weekend of November lacrosse and it's almost time to get those highlight videos together!  Highlight videos have always been critical to the recruiting process, and never more than in the remote recruiting Covid world we are  now living in!  Coaches used to spend 95% of their time watching players live with 5% follow up on film whereas in this NCAA Dead Period coaches are watching 100% film and as such they are diving deeper and noticing every detail! 

Wow Factor: You're using your highlight video to get coaches to want to see more and you need to "Wow" them!  Keep your vide to 3:00-ish minutes and make it incredible.  If coaches love the way you play, they will dive into your...

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! 

 Phi-Lacrosse-ophy Podcast

This week I had a great lacrosse conversation with Northwestern Women's Assistant Coach, Scott Hiller!  Scotty and I came up through the ranks together: he was a 4x All American Attackman at UMass while I was playing at Brown, he coached at Harvard while I coached at Yale,  and we both played in the Major Indoor Lacrosse League for the Boston Blazers.  Scotty and I reconnected about 7-8 years ago as I started coaching girls lax and my daughters' teams, and we have kept in close touch over that time with frequent and often epic lacrosse conversations.  

This conversation will not disappoint as we touch on his lacrosse journey from men's lacrosse to women's lacrosse, the development of women's lacrosse in terms of rules and stick technology, and some great...

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! 

Phi-Lacrosse-ophy Podcasts

Brian Brecht, Head Coach Rutgers, In this podcast, Brian and I start out talking Rutgers fall ball and how things are pretty normal in NJ!  One super interesting fact, is that at RU they don't count practice on the field in contact tracing!  They contact trace extended in-person contact, within 6 feet, with no masks.  I hope other organizations follow these protocols and realize on the field is not where the virus spreads! 

Coach Brecht takes us through his lacrosse journey, the coaches he's had a chance to play for and coach with and what he learned from his mentors.  We talk a lot of Rutgers Lacrosse, how he has built the culture there, and his lacrosse philosophies on defense, offense and transition.  Brian talked about some of his...