A Lacrosse Weekend 2.2.19

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

JM3 Road Trip

This 12 day, 11 school RV adventure was a trip of a lifetime. Thanks to all the coaches and programs that made this tour possible and incredibly fun. Thanks to my crew Matt Noble (Driver/lacrosse spiritual leader), Rocco Romero (Navigator, videographer, and DJ) and Drew Wardlow (blogger, videographer, and all around great guy!). These guys were SO much fun to hang out with! I got the idea for the road trip brainstorming on ways to create incredible new content for the Coaches Training Program. We captured around 50 hours of video from conversations, whiteboard sessions, video and practice. Check out www.JM3Coaches.com for more info.

Virtual Lacrosse Summit

I have created about a year's worth of content in the last 3 weeks. The week prior to the JM3 Road Trip, I executed the first ever Virtual Lacrosse Summit https://www.lacrossevirtualsummit.com the week of 1/14 where I moderated 25 incredible webinars from a phenomenal group of players and coaches from men's lacrosse, women's lacrosse and box lacrosse.

Here is a quick recap of the JM3 Road Trip:

Northwestern:

• New indoor facility is unmatched
• Selena Lasota has a skill set that any DI men's program would want in a starting attackman, she has power, speed, strength, BTB's and BTB fakes, backhands and backhand fakes, hitches galore and she can shoot the @#$* out of the ball.
• Coaches are awesome people and committed, smart, passionate, and always learning.
• The Wildcat's run a box lacrosse style offense with picks, slips, mirrors, cycles, and nations looks

Michigan

• Best lacrosse only facility we visited. No cell phone use in the locker room. Shooting/wall ball room was sick!
• Coach Conry and staff are truly great guys, very professional, have great rapport with players and staff
• Analytics driven planning, review and decision.
• Former Coach John Paul took me to his front row seats to the Michigan - Minnesota hoop game
• Coach Conry hooked up the crew with tickets to this buzzer beater Michigan win!

Notre Dame

• A great staff to be around! Love talking lacrosse, listening, sharing, learning, teaching to anyone and everyone.
• Great to see my former players from Vista and 3d Jake Frane, Charlie Leonard, and Keaton Komatz
• Gerry always has new evolutions to his drills (and "I like them a lot!" Jim Carey voice)
• Impressive size, speed and athleticism and communication at practice
• No program runs better riding and clearing drills / full field work than ND
• Defensive drills are run like the "Pardon the Interruption" show where the athletes are on the clock for around one minute before they're on to the next thing
• A lot of "V" holds
• Coach Corrigan invited the JM3 Road Trip crew and his staff out for dinner which was a blast!

Ohio State

• Incredibly professional, buttoned up, organized meetings and preparation
• Allowed us to view pre-practice meeting, practice, post practice team film, and 1 hour with Coach Myers and 1 hour with Coach Ross and Coach Crane for Q&A, whiteboard, and video review
• Cutting edge skills and drills in the pre-practice time
• 26 degrees at practice, but kids seemed fine. Coach Vossler was in shorts!
• Practice was around 90 minutes and run with great efficiency and energy
• The Buckeyes played 3 rounds of 3 minute full field short field "Trash Can" lacrosse, which is a lot like "Speed lacrosse" for small sided skill reps
• Locker room, meeting rooms, training room and weight room combo is as big time as it gets
• They have a salt float chamber where 30 minutes equates to 8 hours of sleep
• We had a great post campus visit to the Rooster and wings/beers with Teddy and Bill Wolford and Bear Davis

Cleveland State

• 7am practice in an on campus bubble full field facility
• Vikings are very skilled
• Coach Sheridan has a great combination of traits: nice person, smart, great resolve, cutting edge, even keeled, hard working and his staff and team reflect these traits
• Loved the drills for skills, transition, and pre game run through
• JM3 crew and CSU staff enjoyed a great breakfast at the West Side Market Cafe
• A day in the office watching film and on the whiteboard discussing a bunch of rides, zone offense, and keep away games for skill development

Penn State vs Army

• Army is athletic on defense and in the midfield, great 10 man ride, have some outside shooters on EMO
• Penn State is quick and slick on offense and tough, fast and coordinated on defense
• I love Penn State's 2 man side, 3 man side, "X" hang up guy offense and I will be doing a webinar on it soon!
• Coach Tambroni invited us over to his house post game to a little gathering of his assistants and staff. It was a great reunion for me as Jeff's wife and my wife were in each other's weddings! Great folks are the Tambroni's!

Colgate

• So great spending a Sunday hanging out with Coach Karweck and getting to know his assistants John Crawley and Chris Cooper.
• We watched Delaware scrimmage film... Colgate looks good
• I love the motion offense Coach Crawley is running with backside down screens, position-less balancing, and freedom.
• Not surprising, a lot of ND influence on defense
• Watched a light indoor practice with awesome stick work drills
• I gained a critical understanding of shooting that I had not understood before
• Colgate has some really nice players on offense

Albany

• 10am practice Monday morning in a nearby indoor bubble with full field capacity, great lighting, and a sweet Pub in front!
• Coach Marr has a way about him that is a combination of intense and laid back. His guys know that he's going to let them make some mistakes, but he expects full effort physically and mentally and they respond.
• Black Crowe's Live cranked in pregame per Coach Marr
• Coach Merrick Thompson runs much of practice
• This team FLIES up and down the field with stick work drills
• The 5v5 full field short field drill was awesome to watch!
• Albany is VERY skilled
• Hung out in the office with the staff, Coach Thompson and Coach Maloney are quality guys!
• Went out for a late lunch with the staff and had some great wings!

Navy

• As impressive a campus as you will see
• The history and tradition is everywhere and is inspiring
• Coach Sowell, Coach Wellner, Coach Camposa, and Coach Parks are a great group to be around
• Morning meeting was a practice review from the day before, where we looked at all the drills ... some great ones!
• Afternoon meeting was Richmond Scrimmage review, slow start, but impressive once they got going
• I learned a lot about Coach Sowell's patented 141
• I love the way Coach Wellner teaches defense, sliding, and recovery... it is unique and very cool
• Practice was indoors with drills such as: 3v2 keep away "Nations", 3v2 GB's in a tight area, 5v4 scramble with carries/shallow cuts and pressure, 4v4 work with motions.

Virginia

• Lars Tiffany and I were teammates and captains together at Brown for the '89 season
• Coach Kirwan is one of the brightest and down to earth assistant coaches out there right now
• Coach Turner is a great dude and he still has it.... he suited up and played on a chilly day in Charlottesville
• We watched practice film from the day before, talked about a myriad of topics, skills, drills, and rule changes.
• I loved the practice plan with early skill work, two rounds of stations, full field work and "Small Ball" to finish up the day. Small ball is a 3v3 + goalie small sided game with 3x3 nets and tennis balls.
• UVA has weapons!
• Lars is a great defensive preparation coach

High Point

• The last stop on the tour, we were a little fatigued, but Coach Torpey and crew brought the energy and it pumped us right up!
• Coach Torpey was my Defensive Coordinator at Denver for 5 years and it was my first visit to HPU
• High Point has a SICK campus. Now I know why Torp says he just has to get kids on campus
• HPU lacrosse facelifts are as good as it gets and run an awesome sound system / play list during practice
• Coach Torpey is cutting edge in the skills, drills, concepts and organization
• Almost everything was a competition which made practice fun to watch and fun to play
• Asher Nolting is an elite attackman who will be a household name soon!
• Lunch at Typszy's with the staff was a blast! Best burger on the trip!

UNC-Mercer

Today is Carolina's opener versus Mercer in Atlanta, a neutral site game. Life is better when it's lacrosse season and I wish everyone the best of luck, especially the Tarheels!