2. Thesis Statement
Lacrosse has been such a huge part in my life and
without it I do not know how I would have gotten
into college. I want to be able to figure out the
best way to coach lacrosse, so I will hopefully be
able to help make young athletes become better
players and better people off the field. If I can
help one young athlete become a outstanding
person in life through the game of lacrosse, than
all the time and effort I put into it has been well
worth it.
6. What is Coaching?
What exactly is
coaching?
We have all had
coaches before, but
what do they do besides
just go to practices and
games?
7. Styles of Coaching
There are multiple styles of coaching that range
from being a friendly and laid back coach to an
intense and extreme coach to a coach who is in
between the two.
Shelly Field, a nationally recognized motivational
speaker, talks about a fine line between friends and
coaches and her motivational speaking engagements
in many of her award winning books. She is a great
example of someone who is a friendly coach.
http://www.simplylacrosse.com/lacrosse-coaching.html
10. Dom Starsia
Father figure
Team= Family
Gaining Respect
http://www.virginiasports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?
DB_OEM_ID=17800&ATCLID=1133557
11. Jim Beardmore
•All American Goalie
•First Team All-
American as a Player
•Winning Atmosphere
http://www.examiner.com/
a-833721~Controversial_Beardmore_important_atmosphere.html
12. CARL RUNK
• Author of “Coaching
Lacrosse”
• Best Methods of
Coaching
• Staying calm
• Having Fun
http://pressboxonline.com/upload/131_gps_200.jpg&imgrefurl=http://
www.pressboxonline.com/story.cfm
%3Fid3D4413&usg=__DAbo2pdJu2feluVOfb2sd5J6E88=&h=300&w=200&sz=18&hl=en
&start=4&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=TRMUeHTBQfdtXM:&
16. Awesome Book!
Author of Fundamentals
of Lacrosse
Award Winning
Successful Coach
His method of Coaching
http://img.infibeam.com/img/4251b736/718/0/9781568000718.jpg
17. What’s in the book?
How to Dodge
Stick Skills Rules of Lacrosse
and Make Moves
How to Play Team Offense Individual
Quality Defense Formations Defense
Skills and Drills Different Types
to Become a Team Practices of Defenses and
Great Goalie Offenses
18. Hitting the Books
Other important factors to the game:
Ground Balls
Left and Right Hand
Field knowledge
31. Young Athletes
When you were
little how were
you thought to
play a sport?
Did the coach use
something that
you could relate
to at a young
age?
http://blog.nj.com/njsports_impact/2009/04/large_valax402.jpg
33. Keys to the Game
Proper Nutrition
Weight Lifting
Having Fun
Winning
http://blogs.nyu.edu/blogs/gc69/stdin/Keys.JPG
34. Proper Nutrition
Its not all about skills
when it comes to being
the best.
People have to take the
right steps by eating
correctly and by
working out everyday to
become the best.
http://books.google.com/books?id=LrMjRXtmcFUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Ray
+Heitzmannutrition&source=bl&ots=jQSmMvYLHV&sig=jAS--9Q_G07Hp6DG04RRPbWEG1o&hl=en&
ei=xrSPS7vgLZT98QaznLGoBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBMQ6AEwAg#
v=onepage&q=&f=false
35. Hitting the
Weight Room
http://www.gaylehatch.com/HatchingAChampion.htm
36. Having fun
Importance of having
fun
Brings kids back again
Excites
http://www.ecacsports.com/lacrosse/images/loyola/loyola_hug.jpg
37. Winning
! Our world thrives upon
being the best. Examples:
! Olympics ! !
War
! Power/ Money
http://managingdylan.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/09_syracuse_cornell_ncaa_4.jpg
38. 7/8 Grade Lacrosse
In order for someone to coach 7th and 8th
grade boys lacrosse you have to understand
the concept of having fun in order to keep the
kids interested in the sport so that they may
pursue it longer.
The different techniques of coaching young
adults.
49. Teams
Fran Tyler
Rahul Jackie Josh Jamie
Jake Kellie Trez Madi
Alex Gabby Arjun Marlena
Kevin Maryssa S. Shiv Steph
Desmond Laila Richie Angelina
Marissa T. Alia
50. Work Cited
Beardmore, Jim. "Atmosphere." Create a Winning Atmosphere 76.10: 61-62.
MasterFILE Premier. Web. 1 Dec. 2009. <http://search.ebscohost.com/
login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=25473500&site=ehost-live>
Field, Shelly. "Coach (College, University)." Ferguson's Career Guidance Center
3rd ser. (Apr. 2004): 1-5. http://www.fofweb.com. Web. 30 Nov. 2009.
<http://wf2dnvr13.webfeat.org:80/XI8FN12465/url=http://www.fofweb.com/
activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE34&SID=5&iPin=Sports34&SingleRecord=True>.
Bloom, Grodon A, and Todd M Loughead. "Team Building." Team Building for Youth
Sports (Nov. 2008): 1-4. JOPERD--The Journal of Physical Education.
Web. 30 Nov. 2009. <http://wf2dnvr13.webfeat.org:80/kF1FN12472/
url=http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/
Heitzmann, Ray, Ph.D. "Sports and Athletics ." Careers for Sports Nuts and Other
Athletic Types. By Ray Heitzmann, Ph.D. 3rd edition ed. N.p.: McGraw-Hill,
March 24, 2004. 94-124. Print.
51. Works Cited
King, Douglas. "Backyard Lacrosse." Backyard Lacrosse Coaching: 304-338.
MasterFILE Premier. Web. 2 Dec. 2009. <http://search.ebscohost.com/
login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=44199384&site=ehost-live>.
Lamonte, Bob, and Robert L Shook. "In Search of Excellence." Winning the NFL
Way: Leadership Lessons from Football's Top Head Coaches. Kansas City:
Harper Business, 2004. 108-133. Print.
Todd, Terry. "First Strength Coach." Al Roy: The First Modern Strength Coach 79
(Jan. 2007): 14-16. ERIC. Web. 26 Nov. 2009. <http://www.aahperd.org/
aahperd/template.cfm?template=johperd_past_oct_2008.html>.
52. Conclusion
By coaching with all of the styles I talked
about today, I believe a coach can change kids
to become better people on and off the field
so they make correct decisions in life.
Editor's Notes
I have always admired my father since I was a little child. Before I can remember, he was coaching me to become the athlete that I have become. I want to follow in his foot steps but bring it to a whole new level by becoming a college lacrosse coach. I love the game of lacrosse so I think if I can learn the different strategies that other coaches use from all sports I can become a fantastic coach.
I choose to do my senior grad on coaching because of my coach. Last year when I got in trouble one of the people helping me out and talking to me everyday was my lacrosse coach Brady McCormick. He was disappointed in me at first but knew that I was going to be getting yelled at and having the same talk with about a million other people on why I did it, so he never asked me that question, instead he started to help me out by thinking of ways to make it up to my family for putting them through what I did. Then he started to help me out think of ways to make it up to the team. I let the team down because they made it to the playoffs and I was unable to participate in the biggest game of Upper Merion Lacrosse history.
Another reason why I did chose this topic is because my coach showed me that there are more important things out there than just winning a lacrosse game or playing the game. He taught me a life lesson that I would have never learned from the incident if it never happened, and it is that you cant worry about what you did in the past its what you do in the future to make up for what happened in the past. To me that is a outstanding coach. A coach who can not only help one of their players through the game but can also help them outside of the game. I thought if I could be like him I would, so I chose coaching to be able to teach kids how to play lacrosse and to teach them some life lessons along the way.
Coaching is a method of directing, instructing, and training a person or group of people, with the purpose to achieve some goal or develop specific skills. Now when I was little I would think of a coach as my dad just out there telling us what to do, but I never thought about all the hard work he put in after practice. I found with working with the 7/8 grade lacrosse team, that once the team breaks it down at the end, it doesn&#x2019;t stop there. I could be at home relaxing watching TV then start thinking about what if we moved a kid here and put another one over there. This is what a coach should be doing if he cares about the team he is trying to put together.
Shelly Field is one of the greatest motivational speakers when it comes to coaching. When becoming a great coach she talks about how you have to understand the fine lines of becoming a friend and a coach. To become the best you have to earn the respect of your team and fellow coaches, and in return they will work harder and become more of a family than just normal old team.
Shelly Fields is an outstanding motivational speaker. She travels the United States speaking to all different kinds of people and has written a lot of books on all topics. In a few of her books about how to become a successful coach she likes to talk about how there is a fine line between friendship and coaching and where there has to be a separation.
Dom Starsia&#x2019;s method of coaching is unlike other top coaches in college. He Is more of a father figure to his players then he is as a coach. He teaches the players on his team to become more of a family than just a team. Shelly Field relates to him because when she gives her motivational speeches on becoming a better coach, she talks about the exact way coach Starsia coaches his team. The reason why he coaches in such a way he says is because he feels like he earns and gets more respect than to just be a coach. He teaches more about life lessons because even though all of his players are outstanding not all of them will go pro. Shelly Field talks about Dom Starsia the head coach of Virginia's lacrosse team, and how he uses a strange method of coaching.
Jim Beardmore was an outstanding goalie who won tons of awards and is now a head coach of an MLL lacrosse team.
Coach Beardmore talks about how important it is to create a winning atmosphere while coaching any lacrosse team.
Coach Beardmore was an All-American goalie at the university of Maryland, where he was awarded NCAA goalie of the year, first team All-American, and player of the year. He coached a few college teams and then became the head coach of an MLL team. When he talks about creating a winning atmosphere he is talking about how you have to start with there attitudes and make sure the players know that you have to be the best to win. He would push his players to the limits but in return they would dominate teams because he made practices hard but fun. Beardmore tells his players he will receive respect from him when he sees them giving their all in practice and in games.
Talks about the best ways of coaching from youth lacrosse to college lacrosse and what you have to do
Carl Runk was a very successful coach, he coached from high school lacrosse to college lacrosse. In this book he talks about how in youth lacrosse to be a great coach is to stay calm. They are just learning the game and are trying to figure out that the game is a lot of thinking and knowing where to be then just running around hitting kids. He also stresses a lot about fundamentals and how they have to learn to throw left and right handed, so they become naturals throwing and catching lefty and righty. This stage of lacrosse should be fun for them so they want to keep playing and become better.
Carl Runk then talks about high school and college lacrosse, and the difference from youth lacrosse
High school lacrosse is a lot different from youth lacrosse because now kids are fully developed and work out. So they are a lot stronger and faster than they were in middle school. The players also get smarter by knowing where and when to go to a spot or by knowing what to do in a situation. When you get into high school the coaches should push the players very hard because they should know what to do by now. Into college lacrosse the players are usually recruited and expect to have a left hand, right hand, be able to know what to do on the field all the time, and being able to keep good grades. In this book Carl Runk talks about how a lacrosse player can not only be a great player they have to be a great student and a great person in the public.
Carl Runk explains how to deal with problem with parents in one of his chapters
What to do and what not to do
Now you wouldn&#x2019;t really think about parents being a problem as a coach. Well one of the things he talks about is that he never thought parents would be a problem until it did. He said in youth lacrosse you will have more parents complain about there kids and playing time than you would ever think. The best thing he said was to walk away if they start to become heated and tell the president of the club or the athletic director. Also Carl Runk said as the players get older from youth age to college parents stop coming over and complaining about there kids and in college he only had one incident with a parent.
I stumbled upon one of David Urick&#x2019;s greatest books that he wrote. I wanted just to give you a little information on him to show you what a great coach he is and that everything in his book is an out standing source read and try and be like David Urick as a coaching.
David Urick can go down as one of the best division 3 lacrosse coach ever.
Head coach of the 1986 world champion USA lacrosse squad.
Award as Division III Lacrosse Coach of the Year in 1980 and 1981.
I was looking for the final book that I wanted to read and I came across the book called The Fundamentals of Lacrosse. After reading this book it blew my mind on how great this book was written. This book have everything about the sport of lacrosse and anything you need to do know on how to coach on all different levels. It covered all of the different topics I have read over my senior year and couldn&#x2019;t put the book down. It has ways to become a better attack, midfield, and defense all on different chapters. Anything you need to know about the game is in that book to become the best coach. The only thing David Urick does not have in this book is off the field and how to change people and to become a better person.
These are the main chapters in one of the greatest books on lacrosse and in these chapters he touches on his methods of coaching.
Explain all of the boxes and what David Urick says about them in the outstanding book.
From the different books from what i have read these are some important things that i have gathered from the books.
In every coaching book I read about lacrosse there has been a chapter stressing about how important ground balls are in lacrosse.
-Explain why a ground ball is so important
-What happened when you get a GB
-The expression the team with the most GB&#x2019;s wins the game
Also in every book when teaching youth lacrosse they say to make sure they develop a left hand and a right hand.
-Explain why you need a left and right hand
-If you can&#x2019;t switch hands then the defense will figure that out and get the ball every time
Explain what the field looks like and where the players have to be.
In lacrosse there are tons of different strategies coaches have to figure out. It could be as easy to even out the midfield lines where if our first midfield line is to strong and our second one is weak, we would have to switch it up by moving kids around. Another way is by subbing kids on and off the field to take a breather (explain how to sub faster so we aren&#x2019;t wasting anytime.) Finding out the other teams weakness and exploding it by setting up a game plan around it. Or if they have an outstanding player we could lock him off so he never touches the ball.
No one really thinks about subbing as a huge deal because it doesn&#x2019;t involve the score or anything to control the out come of the game, or does it? Sometimes subbing is durning a dead ball or after a team scores, but a lot of the time it involves subbing on fast breaks. People can sub out of the box on fast breaks to get the defensive middies off so the team on the fast break can get their shooters on to be able to catch the other team off guard.
Within the first few minuets or even before the game if you can get a scouting report you need to find what they are not good at, so you can prepare your team to take advantage of them. Once you find the teams weakness you need to be able to make a play or something to take control and score off of it.
If you get a scouting report on the team again or find out who their best player is you can put your best defenseman on them to shut them down. If the player who we are trying to shut down is dominating us badly then we attempt to take him out of the game and face guard him. Face guarding is when one defenseman locks the other player off so its impossible to catch the ball. A team does this as the last option!
Coach K from duke&#x2019;s basketball team talks about a fist and how a fist is like a team. It has to stay together to deliver a power full punch but if its one finger than it wouldn't do much. &#x201C;Leading with the heart&#x201D;
Weather a coach wants to think it or not he is a role model in tons of peoples eyes. If the coach wins a lot and does things for their community and interacts with the public, people are going to look up to him, wanting to be exactly like that. Coaches have to live up to many things, and one thing that is huge is being a role model. Kids of all ages look up to coaches as inspiration.
This means coaches have to act their best on and off the field, or court.
In our township we have BIDDY basketball and UMBA baseball, where there is a draft almost where kids go out for two weekends and be evaluated. Then all the coaches sit down one night and have a draft to see what team gets what kids. This is a great thing to do because it keeps the kids split evenly and makes the games fair. Also everyone on the team has to play the same amount of playing time to be fair. I think the township out together outstanding programs for the kids so they get to be able to play in a fair environment and test out and see if they like the sport or not. This allows everyone to come out and try and see if they enjoy the sport and prepare for middle school and high school where they have cuts.
Everyone has to start somewhere and learn how to catch a ball, to kick a soccer ball, or even to shoot a basketball. Well as a little kid we didn&#x2019;t know all of the sayings as we do now, for instance post up in basketball is to seal your defender off so you can catch the ball in the low post and lay it in. In baseball a double play, if it&#x2019;s a throw to second, then first base. As little kids someone had to teach us the basics, and the way they did this was to come up with funny sayings so we could relate to it. When I interviewed Kevin Flansbury, he talked about when he went to a baseball coaches clinic they taught him to relate to the kids. To teach a kid to throw the ball to first base before the runner gets there, you want to throw the ball then release the ball when you hand is pointing at the target, or another way to tell a kid this is to throw the ball as hard as you can to knock the first baseman head off. There as so many different ways of relating things to kids all of have to do is think back to when you were a kid and remember what they could relate to.
What I have learned for the past three years of playing high school lacrosse is that it takes more than just skills to partake in the fast moving game. Dedication is defined as being committed to a task or a purpose. One of the first things that lacrosse takes is dedication because when practice is over you still have to work on the fundamentals of the game. It is also very time consuming with practice everyday and games mixed in there as well. The next thing that it takes to become a high school lacrosse player is motivation. Motivation can be described as an inducement or an incentive. Motivation to lacrosse players is the chance of being able to receive a scholarship to a college to play there. Inspiration is another key to be able to play high school lacrosse because the player gets inspired to work harder and become a better lacrosse player and a better person.
Ray Heitzmann is a professor at Villanova University, and wrote the chapter, Sports and Nutrition, in the book Careers for Sports Nuts. In the chapter he writes about how to become the best at any sport you have to work on and off the field. Off the field starts with taking care of your body by eating correctly so your body can recover and be in better shape than it was from the beginning of the day to the end of the day. He has made up different diets for all different kinds of sports because every sport is different and use different body parts. Professor Heitzmann talks about when a person takes care of their body they are more unlikely to get hurt and be in much better shape.
Alvin Roy was just one of the main people making his team go into the weight room and start making them work out to become stronger and faster. Once people saw a major difference in lifting weights the new idea of Alvin Roy exploded to colleges, and high schools all around the country. This changed every sporting event because people were becoming faster, jump higher, and a lot stronger. Another thing lifting weights did was make injury&#x2019;s less prone to athletes because it toughened them up so they could take harder hit or recover from faster.
Alvin Roy was the first coach to bring his players into the weight room and everyone laughed at his foolishness.
Lifting weights is essential to becoming stronger and faster making you a better player.
When I did my research I kept reading the same thing over and over again, make sure they are having fun! Have fun was the biggest thing the authors kept preaching in their books. They said when kids have fun they want to come back and have more fun. Well in practice there are games you can come up with that are fun and make kids better at the game. In baseball there is a game called pickle, where one kid is bunting and three kids and on tossing the ball to him and the kid with the bat has to bunt the ball back to the person who threw it. In soccer there was a game like money in the middle where there is a box and three kids who are on the out side of the boxing moving around with the ball, then there is a person in the middle where they have to try and steel the ball from them. In soccer we use to play would cup where there would be 4 or 5 kids on a team and would have a tournament between the whole team. This game not only gave you a conditioning work out but also help you communicate with the kids on your team. Making kids have fun at a young age is huge because they will make friends and want to keep coming back to play some more the next year.
I know sports are just for fun and all but, come on who doesn&#x2019;t love that feeling when you win. Well yes having fun is a big thing but when you get older having fun is winning. When your team is winning games or competitions everything is connecting and people are having fun! But when you team is losing and cant seam to pull things together things at practice are terrible, team chemistry just is not there. Well during my interview with Kevin Flansbury, he said he could see at a young age that the snacks after the game were more important than the actual game, and I think we can all agree on that we all loved the snacks at the end of games. Well when the kids got older he could tell that the kids who didn&#x2019;t win during a season would slowly stop showing up and not play the next year. This is a could be terrible thing to happen because this could be the start of the kid just stop playing sports and just sitting at home becoming over weight, but also maybe this could be a good thing too for the kids because they might pick up a different hobby something they are better at like painting or an instrument.
The very first day I showed up to the Factory where we were starting indoor practice I was extremely excited. When I got there myself and the other coaches were ready to get out on the field and start to have real practices, but the problem was we still had about two feet of snow still on the ground, so we had to work with what we had. It wasn&#x2019;t the greatest place to play but you could tell every kid there wanted to be there and have fun playing lacrosse. Now we had all of our different skill levels from having a left and right hand to just having a right, but there was this one kid who never played before and walked in look very nervous but eager to play the game. After the coaches and I where watching them do ball lines we could tell that he needed some help, so I offered to teach him how to catch and throw for a little.
I don&#x2019;t want to use his real name in here so I am going to use the name Joe. So I took him out to the open area in the Factory and I asked him questions about catching and throwing and he said he has never even picked up a stick before. So I knew there that this was perfect to start a kid out learning how to use their right and left hand the proper way instead of developing bad habits. I started teaching him the box method, and the box method is how we teach new kids where to have their head on their stick when catching and throwing. (explain to the class where and what happens in the box area) I then had to teach him how to cradle and pick up ground balls, and let me tell you I forgot how tough it was when I was first learning but watching him made me remember how difficult it was. I started to show him the way to pick up the ground balls and saying I will never forget two butts down. Two butts down means exactly how its said you get the end of your stick or known as the butt, and you butt as low as you can to the ground and scoop threw the ball and tuck. Then I had to teach him how to cradle and oh boy was this a sight to see. I asked him to cradle for me and when he attempted the ball flew out before I could correct him on how to do it. I then explained to him how to do it. (teach kids in class how to cradle) Joe is learning very fast and picking up the sport faster than what I thought he was going to do.
The young athletes on this team are awesome people. They have so much more to them than just playing lacrosse. If you are in a bad mood all you have to do is come to one practice and the things they say make you laugh and you end up being in a great mood by the end of practice.
Paul Volkmer is the head coach of the 7/8th grade boys lacrosse team, and one heck of a coach. This man knows everything about lacrosse and has played for championship teams through out his life time. I have learned so much from Paul just talking to me about when he played and the plays he&#x2019;s thinking of in different situations.
Dave Fugelo and I are both the assistant coaches on the 7/8 grade team. Dave and I never met before this season and we hit it off great! I could tell that him and I were going to work together great. Myself and Dave coach the defense and teach them what to do and when to do it. Now our players are not dumb they just are inexperienced and just need some help and we are there to make them better as a team. Dave was the head coach last year until he had to go over seas to serve in the military. He didn&#x2019;t want to give it up so he came back to help coach when he can.
Video of what we do durning practices.
The games we have played and scores of each game.
Their attitudes after all four games were all a little different. The first game they were upset because they got killed and went into the game with to much confidence. The second game they played alright but ended up not playing a full game and lost it in the second half. The third game was awesome! they played great but because we had such small numbers on our team we just got tired. THRILLED! The last game against Methacton was great to say the least. They played a great game and everyone connecting.
If you look at the scores every game got closer and closer then we won our last game. The reason for this is because the teams attitude was laid back and joking around way to much but once they lost practices became more intense with each other not because we were making them more intense. Every week they were getting more upset and angry about losing and it came together and now they are like the first coach K talks about, they play as a whole team.
After I get done presenting I am not going to stop coaching i plan on finishing out the season and keep in touch with the kids on the team and can hopefully come back next year and coach again. I would not trade any other project because teaching these kids has been an amazing experience and i want to keep the experience going.
