A Lacrosse Weekend 1.23.21
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
Tony Holler, Speed Guru, Feed The Cats, this podcast is an absolute must listen if you are a coach or parent and have kids who play lacrosse. Tony's model, which is both brilliant and disruptive, will make you faster! Click this link to read more about Tony Holler!
"Extreme results never come from centrist thinking." -Tony Holler
- Prioritize Speed
- No Conditioning (it makes you slow!)
- If it takes longer than 5 seconds, it's not speed training
- Do high quality work with maximum focus over the least amount of time possible
- Prioritize rest, recovery, and growth
- Never underestimate the power of being happy and healthy
- People naturally are good at what they like and are OBSESSED with what they love
- Time your sprints
- “Record, Rank, and Publish” to feed the competitive nature of athletes
- "Never grind" in the sense that the classic grind, wake up early, stay up late, do more, more #reps, doesn't help performance. Discipline is required to prioritize rest, sleep recovery,
I am super excited that Tony is going to begin working with my JM3 Athletes! I have dozens of my JM3 Athletes already timing their sprints and now they're going to get a chance to work with world renowned Tony Holler.
A prerequisite for every athlete Tony works with is to purchase and watch his most important webinars on speed development (below). Click the links if you want to purchase them yourself!
Tony will hold "Office Hours" once a week on Zoom to review film of sprinting, warm up drills, and mechanics with JM3 Athletes. I am always searching for the best coaches and coaching models in the world and I've found one in Tony Holler!
If you want to guarantee you get faster, you have to get a timer, click here to order your Brower Timing System!
Click here to listen to the Tony Holler Podcast!
Jim Berkman, Head Coach Salisbury, has won 12 National Championships (probably would have won #13 in 2020), has coached 540 wins, 51 National Players of the Year, and 228 All Americans. Are you kidding me?! This guys record is unbelievable and if you listen to this podcast you will understand why. Jim Berkman is simply one of the greatest leaders I've ever interviewed and you will love to listen to him talk about:. fall ball and what they've been doing with this veteran group, Zone Offense, what makes a great defender, how to facilitate both creativity and discipline in a team, and college lacrosse recruiting. Click here to listen to the Jim Berkman Podcast!
Dan Chemotti, Head Coach Richmond, is one of the finest young coaches in the game! We dive into prepping for a season: how to evaluate your personnel and leverage analytics to decide how you want to play, how to plan for practices and installation, and how to keep a focus on player development simultaneously. We talk about decision making and how to make practices competitive, and Dan gives some great insight on college lacrosse recruiting! Click here to listen to the Dan Chemotti Podcast!
Dave Pietramala, former Head Coach Johns Hopkins University and 2x National Championship coach: Petro is as fired up and positive as ever on his new path! Petro working for Legendary Sports Group and Hall of Fame Coach / entrepreneur Dave Cottle, and is preparing to make another run at college coaching through film study, meeting with coaching staffs, reflecting, and being in the Recruiting Showcase business where he knows the classes of 2023 and 2024 like the back of his hand! We had an awesome conversation about the recruiting process of his two boys who committed to North Carolina and we talked about College Lacrosse Recruiting in this new era, what he's learned and what parents should know. Petro did a breakdown on why Tucker Durkin is so good, as well his thoughts on individual defense, V holds and more! Click here to listen to the Dave Pietramala Podcast!
Virtual Lacrosse Summit
We kicked off the VLS with a different model this year. Instead of doing 25 webinars in Men's Lacrosse, Women's Lacrosse and Box lacrosse over four days, we are spreading them out and doing 1-2 webinars per day for three weeks! The Shark Week of lacrosse just turned into Shark Month! Thank you to Bobby Benson for coordinating the Men's Lacrosse presentations, Colleen Magarity for coordinating the Women's Lacrosse presentations and Jake "Jumbo" Elliott for coordinating the Box Lacrosse Presentations!
Listen to live VLS webinars and recordings FOR FREE at VirtualLacrosseSummit.com!
Next Week's Schedule is awesome!
1/25 Paul Day, Head Coach and GM NLL Wings, NLL Chalk Talk
1/25 Tucker Durkin, Assistant Coach Drexel, Defensive Mindset and Technique
1/26 Pete Tellis, Head Coach Jr Adanacs, 3 Man On-Ball Offense
1/27 Tim O'Branski, Assistant Coach Mercer, Developing a Strong Face-Off Corps
1/28 John Basti, Head Coach Sacred Heart University, Coaching a "Process" Based Program
A Week in Review:
Jamie Munro "Off Ball 2man, Translating Box lacrosse to Field Lacrosse" I've been working on this webinar for 8 months and I'm so excited to have presented this groundbreaking material! I am convinced that this style of play, simultaneous on ball 2man game and off ball 2man games is the future of field lacrosse offense. Penn State was the first team to use this 2man side, 3man side, and Hang up guy at X model that opens up the opportunities for true box on the field. Virginia and Princeton are two teams who showed this style of play in 2020 and I'd bet money there will be a lot more in 2021! This webinar aired live for free on Monday night, but is going straight into the Coaches Training Program!
Brandon Childs, Head Coach York, The little things on offense that make the biggest difference. Brandon has done an incredible job at York and is as bright of a coach as you will ever know! This presentation will make you think!
Michelle Tumulo, Head Coach Wagner, The World of Stickwork. This was a great presentation to see how Michelle incorporates game-like drills to help the stickwork of her players and for herself. She digs deep into how to get a feel for the ball in your stick and making it so that you do not have to think about catching the ball.
Halle Majorana, Assistant Coach Villanova, Shooting Release Points: How to Maximize your scoring. Halle's presentation was a great way to learn how to elevate your shooting game. She really focuses on shooting around defenders, slowing down, and see the opportunity to get the shot off when other teams are playing great 1v1 defense.
Justin Ward, Assistant coach Army, Attacking the Island, Justin Ward was a beast of a player and is passionate about teaching his guys how to operate on "The Island."
Mikey Thompson, Head Coach Christopher Newport, Clearing, Thompson is one of the finest coaches you will ever meet and does a detailed breakdown of the clearing game!
Box Lacrosse Training Program
I am excited to announce that Jake "Jumbo" Elliott and I are creating the Box Lacrosse Training Program! This product will be geared for coaches, players and parents who want to learn more about the incredible game of box lacrosse! The content is in the form of webinars, drills, skills, and short videos with the intention teaching both the basics and the highest level nuances of Canadian Box Lacrosse!
I have a long history with box lacrosse. Although I only played for the MILL Boston Blazers for one season, it had a profound impact on me as a player and coach. Since that time I have been obsessed with this game! As head coach at the University of Denver, I recruited Canadians like Matt Brown, Geoff Snider, Mark Matthews, Jeremy Noble, Cam Flint and many more that built DU into a national power. I have studied and learned an incredible amount from watching Canadian box lacrosse during the 10 summers my son played up north, five in St Catharines, ON and five in Coquitlam BC where he won two Minto Cups with the Adanacs, becoming the first American player ever to win a Minto.
Box Lacrosse Content
As you may know, I've been doing webinars with box lacrosse coaches and players for two years and have created endless box content breaking down techniques, the drill environments that teach them and the critical concepts of the game! the combination of content I've created and the content Jumbo is creating will make the richest box lacrosse content portal on the internet!
Box Webinars:
- Paul day, Head Coach & GM NLL Wings, "Team Offense"
- Jamie Munro, Teaching Box Lacrosse
- Darris Kilgour, NLL Championship player and coach, "Pressure Defense"
- Jason Bishop, Offensive Coordinator and Minto Cup Champion for Coquitlam Adanacs
- Mike Lines, Former NLL Swarm Head Coach, "Game Breakdown"
- Eddie Comeau, Head Coach NLL Swarm, "The ABC's of Offense"
- Christian Delbianco, NLL Champion and Team Canada Goaltender
- Dan Dawson, NLL Forward, 3rd all time in points,
- Tyler Pace, NLL Roughnecks forward
- Jamie Munro, How to teach Box Lacrosse to girls
- More to come from Virtual Lacrosse Summit with Pete Tellis, Paul Day, Jeff McComb, and Kyle Sorenson!
This video is the raw video from Jason Bishop's breakdown of the Coquitlam Adanac goals in the 2018 Minto Cup. quality of play, the teamwork, the skill are incredible!
Did you know Adanac is Canada backwards?
Check out this video produced by Jake Elliott with some Power Play Set Looks. Jake is creating about five of these per day with tons of great videos and insights into the game of box lacrosse!
Check out this video I created three years ago for the JM3 Coaches Training Program to try teach field lacrosse coaches how to leverage and integrate the important concepts of box lacrosse into their practices!
A Free Play Miracle
Last March, just a couple weeks before Covid shut down the world, an 11th grade girl showed up for try out for the ThunderRidge High School Varsity Girls Lacrosse Team. I was a volunteer assistant coach and I had heard this kid was a good athlete, but honestly, how often does a brand new player to a sport as a junior ever really produce immediately? Well, this girl is a pretty special athlete and in our first game on March 13th, she was a starter on defense, and we won 23-1. Her speed and burst are elite, she's really strong and is a high level soccer and basketball player with IQ, vision, and field sense, but she had very little lacrosse skill. Sadly, we never played another game in 2020 and I didn't see her again for several months.
As many of you know from reading my blogs, my own kids, my HS team, and my JM3 Athletes play a lot of pick up games! We have created a pick up game culture where the love of the game, the camaraderie, and development are incredible! Since June, This girl as played over 50 days of pick up games, often times coming over to our house like in the video below! Street pick up games with a small net, a tennis ball, a boys stick and 6-10 players is the best!
One day in late September, I asked her a simple question: "What have I taught you?" She hesitated a little trying to think of something I had taught her, but a little embarrassed that she couldn't think of anything. I said, "Don't worry, it was a trick question. I intentionally haven't taught you anything."
"Why?" she asked.
She was my ultimate experiment! I replied, "I wanted the game to teach you. I didn't want to saddle you with any preconceptions of what you should or shouldn't do or how you should do it."
Wouldn't you think I would have taught a brand new player how to hold the stick? Or to cradle? A dodging technique maybe? Surely a girl who has never played lacrosse must learn the basic skills before she can play right?
Wrong! Let the game do the teaching!
Last week this girl committed to play DI Lacrosse at Arizona State University. Here's her highlight video:
Commentary From Colleen Magarity
I'm excited to announce a new segment to the blog! Each Week Colleen Magarity will share with us knowledge, facts, and tips on women's lacrosse!
College Lacrosse Recruiting: What Should 2023's be doing?
Many 2023 girls start to go into panic mode or stress out about what they should be doing now that the 2022 class is almost complete and it is now their turn. This is some information we talk about with my HHH athletes and also the JM3 Athletes to make sure they are putting their time and effort into the right places.
1. Focus on getting better and your academics!
2. Watch game film to LEARN and GROW your game while also compiling a very good highlight film.
3. Make it your goal to be a top player on your Varisty High School team.
4. Start to create a list of schools ( A, B, and C list). From there you will need to start to plan your summer to see what camps you can go to. Make sure you get to your top school's camps to really work one on one with that coach. As you create your list consult with your club coach to make sure that list is appropriate for your level.
5. Do not flood college coaches ' inboxes with emails right now. Most coaches ' main priority is their team right now and there is still a D1 recruiting dead period. So you have time to really focus on your game and getting better until they can watch you in the summertime.
6. For the Summer season make sure you don't overdo your schedule. When you play in front of the coaches at tournaments you want to be well-rested and ready to perform at the best of your ability and you can't do that if you never have a break!
HAVE FUN WITH THE PROCESS! Do not stress about what other people are doing or saying. Follow your path and get better every day.