Welcome to “A Lacrosse Weekend,” my weekly compilation of thoughts, ideas, history, stories, myths/truths about the great game of lacrosse. I hope you find it interesting.

As you may recall, last week I wrote this blog from somewhere in Iowa as I drove across the country. I had planned on pulling over to watch the Denver-Albany game somewhere along the way and then I had a great idea when I crossed the Illinois border. I called Kevin Corrigan. “Kevin, are you watching lacrosse or mowing the lawn?” I asked. “Mowing the damn lawn!” was his reply. “Well, I’m driving by South Bend in a couple hours… how about we watch the second game?” So I swung by KC’s house had some pizza and a couple sodas and watched a great lacrosse game. I couldn’t have planned that any better! Great guy, great family, sucks to be a coach home on quarterfinal weekend, but good to have a distraction!

Notes from my week in London

The Rolling Stones are still unbelievable! The sound, the effects, and the set list were everything you could hope for. Midnight Rambler was my favorite song that night! I went with 3 buddies, all of whom I met through lacrosse over the years and are varying levels of lacrosse junkies. We saw a lot of pubs, took a “hop on, hop off” bus tour of the city, did an “Abbey Road” pic walking across the street, saw the queen, and had a great time eating, drinking and being merry.

Talking about Something Else

Many have told me, my wife in particular, that I have a one track mind….. lacrosse! And I wouldn’t necessarily disagree. It wouldn’t surprise me if many of you reading this blog have been accused of the same affliction. On the last day of our London trip I realized that our Fab 4 had hardly talked lacrosse on our trip. We didn’t try not to talk about lacrosse (I hate it when people say that!), the topic certainly came up a few times, but the point is when you put a lacrosse junkie in another environment… like in England at a Rolling Stones show with the boys…. That lacrosse junkie can transform into something else! I’m keeping that in my back pocket! Just because I talk and think about lacrosse 24/7 doesn’t mean I couldn’t talk about or think about anything else. It’s just that if lacrosse is what I’m doing, I’m going to think about and talk about it.

Box Lacrosse in Canada

I write to you today from the Inn at Waterloo just outside Kitchener, Ontario. I picked up my daughter Lucy from the Toronto airport last night and her box lacrosse summer begins today! I watched some games last night and there is no doubt in my mind that this is going to be a better development route than the typical girls lax programming. Box lacrosse is a better environment than field to get better at lacrosse. Said another way: if you took the same coach (good or bad) and had the same amount of practice/game time, that coach would have more success developing his players in box lacrosse than in field lacrosse. Why?

• Smaller sided
• More touches
• Smaller nets/bigger goalie=learn how to move a goalie/better shot selection
• Boards and glass keep the ball in play
• Shot clock makes you play faster
• It’s a picking, cutting, and feeding game

The downside of being in Canada this weekend

You can’t watch the Final 4 games in Canada! You can’t even get ESPN3! I’m going to have to go to Buffalo on Monday to watch the championship, but I will have to depend on twitter updates today. I’m having my editors put together game breakdowns for me so I can do a Live Training on Sunday night breaking down the semifinals.

Yale-Albany

It’s tough to beat teams twice.

Yale looked fallible in Ivy tourney and 1st round, now they look rock solid.

Scotty Marr seems like he would be AWESOME to play for!

Face offs: advantage Albany

Goaltending: advantage Albany

Team D: Advantage Yale

X’s and O’s: advantage Yale

Mojo: advantage Albany

X factor: Connor Fields if he’s close to 100% Albany will be tough to beat

My pick: Yale

Maryland-Duke

Maryland has been the best program in the nation for the past 5 years.

Tillman is a GREAT recruiter and coach …. Look at his time at Navy… they were great then he left.

Duke assistant coach Ron Caputo is one of the smartest coaches in DI lacrosse by far!

Duke develops it’s players! They all have a diverse repertoire of moves, shots, and fakes that grows throughout the season.

Duke has run the same 2 offenses for years: Pairs and a 132 that morphs into a 141 with Big/Little 222 weaved in.

Duke’s defense is athletic but can beat itself.

If you judged teams on the least amount of flaws, Maryland would be the best team.

My Pick: Maryland

Thoughts 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 at what you’re best at!
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 to be able to throw the ball to X with your weak hand, roll back to your weak hand, dodge to your weak hand, shoot a question mark to your weak hand, shoot a 7 yard shot on the run with your weak hand.
4. Coaches will recruit the player with one GREAT hand and one OK hand before he recruits a player with two good-really good hands.
5. Dodge Physically: Count the number of times you initiate contact on your man / turn the corner on your man versus when you don’t. It will tell you if you are a good dodger. Good dodgers retain angle by initiating contact and turning distinct corners.
6. On defense be in an athletic posture, turn your head every few seconds, approach with the chopping of your feat and lowering of your hips
7. If you get beat 1v1, make sure it’s not on one move, but rather 2, 3, or 4 moves to beat you.
8. Be GREAT off ball! Here’s a challenge for you: go back and count the off ball movements from your last game. Then think about the movements you could have / should have done. It’s interesting!
9. Faking is the difference between good and great!

JM3 Video Assessments

I’ve created a really cool assessment tool that I would love for you to check out. Consider this: most serious players/families are spending a ton of time and money on lacrosse, and yet most players do not have a clear understanding of their own game’s strengths and weaknesses, they regularly pass up on easy opportunities for successful plays because they don’t recognize them (especially off ball) and don’t stay away from their weaknesses. The result is less productivity. Check out www.JM3Video.com

The two handedness conundrum

It is ideal to be two handed, but the process of being ultra two handed can get in the way of development. Super one handed players become experts at getting their strong hand. “he’s all left” has been yelled by many coaches about left handed players, yet they always seem get their left! if you over play their left they’ll go under and still get their left! They’ll roll back, rocker, Z dodge, step away, hitch, face dodge…. and still get their left! My opinion is their IQ of how to set up their left is more important than how good their left actually is. Over coaching two handedness can stunt this IQ.