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Your Guides on This Journey…. Matt Striebel.
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Matt Striebel "I play lacrosse because I love it—the speed, the intensity, the teamwork, the sense of fulfillment and satisfaction that comes when success is achieved over and through adversity. At Trilogy Lacrosse, we approach the teaching and coaching of lacrosse with the same passion and commitment to excellence that we bring to our play. Nowhere else can you find a community of lacrosse players and coaches so dedicated to the singular values of the game." * MLL Rochester Rattlers 2009-Present* MLL Philadelphia Barrage 2001-2008* MLL Champion Philadelphia Barrage 2004, 2006 & 2007* MLL All Pro 2007 & 2008 * Record 9X MLL All-Star* MVP MLL Championship Game 2007* 3X Team USA 2010 -- Gold Medalist Team USA 2010 -- Silver Medalist Team USA 2006 -- Gold Medalist Team USA 2002* NCAA Champion Princeton University 2001* NCAA 2X All American Princeton University 2000 & 2001* 3X All Ivy League * Academic All American* Assistant Coach Princeton University 2005 * Color Analyst ESPN Lacrosse
Mitch Belisle "Lacrosse has given me so much; an opportunity to obtain an excellent education, lifelong friends and a chance to see the world. My passion is to grow the sport by teaching young players both on and off the field. Trilogy Lacrosse allows me to give back to the sport that I love in a professional organization that is committed to getting the most out of each and every player." *NLL Minnesota Swarm 2011-present *NLL Boston Blazers 2009 -2011 *MLL Boston Cannons 2009 -present *NLL New York Titans 2008 *MLL LA Riptide 2007 – 2008 *2011 MLL All Pro *2011 MLL Champion Boston Cannons *NCAA Division I Defenseman of the Year 2007 *2X All-American at Cornell University 2006 & 2007 *2X Academic All-American *2X All-Ivy League *Lowe's Senior CLASS finalist 2007 *Mario St. George Boiardi Leadership Award 2007
1. What is the perfect player? What are the components that go into making the perfect player? Athleticism – No explanation necessary… Lacrosse specific skill –Includes (but is not limited to): the ability to throw and catch with both hands, the ability to shoot and pass accurately with both hands, the ability to pick up groundballs, the ability to play on-ball and off-ball defense, the ability to play on-ball and off-ball defense… Lacrosse Specific IQ – Includes (but is not limited to): having an intellectual and strategic understanding of the above mentioned skills on both a “micro” and “macro” level… General Sports IQ – Includes (but is not limited to): having a basic intellectual and strategic understanding of how sports—in general—work and function on a strategic basis. I.e. possessing the ability to understand that a 2v1 is a 2v1 is a 2v1… Character/Intangibles – See athleticism…
2. What the heck do you mean “micro” and “macro”? • The sports brain should be composed to two intertwined and equally important “sensibilities” the “micro” and the “macro”. • Micro – For simplicities sake we will define micro as an individual, player based awareness. A player’s micro sensibility refers to their ability to understand and grasp the nuances and functionalities of their own behavior… “As a player I am aware of my own dodges, my own passes, my own shots, and why (how) I do any one of these things…” More simply understood as a player’s unique and individual skill-set. Macro – Given our understand of a “micro” sensibility, we will thus define a “macro” sensibility as a players ability to understand how their micro sensibility interacts with greater lacrosse context of a team, a game, and a given play… “As a player I am aware of how my own dodges, passes and shots, function within the greater context of the team concept or whole…” More simply understood as a players ability to be understand why a team does what it does and how the individual’s decisions on any given play participate with and affect the team’s.
3. The perfect player…what does he look like? Does he exist? Yes…and no…
4. Lacrosse, as in any sports, offers a wide variety of definitions for what “perfect” is and can be… A player can be a “perfect” asset to a team for any number of reasons, be them positional—i.e. as a fogo, or LSM—or purely skill based—i.e. as a feeder, a shooter, a dodger… No one skill is that much more important—in the grand scheme of things—than any other, in that they all function together in order to succeed. Shooters need feeders, feeders need dodgers, dodgers need…face off guys... Part of being a good youth lacrosse coach is helping your players to develop as many of these skills sets as possible, while also—and at the same time—determining what skill set or role represents them best. Putting players in a position to succeed requires both.
1. The Perfect “Offensive” Lacrosse Player* *At the youth lacrosse level (and even at the college to a certain extent), players simply play offense. Versatility is far and away the most valuable asset in a lacrosse player.
1. The skills of the “perfect” offensive lacrosse player Athleticism – Speed, agility, balance, strength, coordination Lacrosse specific skill –Passing, Catching, Shooting, Scooping, Dodging Lacrosse Specific IQ – Understanding off-ball movement as it relates to on-ball movement, understanding balance and spacing as it relates to a team offense, understanding how the “micro” and “macro” interact (a.k.a.: why we do what we do when we do it.) Character/Intangibles – Intelligence, unselfishness, patience, composure, all-round dedication to being a PHD player (poor, hungry, driven).
Play…play…play…run…run…run… That’s it. • Make sure that you’re keeping your players and practices as active and up-tempo as possible. The more running the better. • Don’t be afraid to take your practices and your players outside of the traditional lacrosse concepts with your games and drills. • Foster competition. Every drill has a winner and a loser (that’s ultimately why we play). • Demand, yes, DEMAND, that your player play other sports. Don’t be a sports-specific tyrant. • The rest is out of your control.
The most important skill we teach (no joke)… The fundamentals: • The feet (this is where it all starts): The feet should be perpendicular to the intended passing target. The front, or lead, shoulder should be pointed at the intended target. No hips. No “dudism”! • The hands: Top hand controls at all times. Stick sits in the finger tips of the top hand. Bottom hand on the butt. Top hand ten inches above (encourage players to use tape). • The “laser” pointer: The butt-end of a lacrosse stick serves as a laser pointer. Wherever that thing is pointed, that’s where a pass is going. • The 180 Degrees of Kevin Bacon: The stick must be flat and parallel to the ground at the start of a lacrosse throw. Too many younger players start between 180 and 90 and “push” their passes. At the end, the stick must cover then entire 180 degrees until it is pointed at its target. • The “Paul Pierce” Wrist: The wrist snap, much as in throwing a baseball, is where the last “snap” of power on a lacrosse pass or shot is achieved. Lacrosse sticks are designed with this “snap” in mind. • Self-diagnosing skill: Teach your players to self-correct. • Target practice: DEMAND that players hit the target.
The second most important skill… The fundamentals: • The hands (this is where it all starts): The top hand should slide up to the plastic whenever a player is learning to catch. As they progress with the skill they can learn to slide that hand down. (Note: players should always relocate the top hand before throwing.) • No snapping or cradle catching: The most frequently seen mistake players make. Snapping leads to missed passes and the extension of hands out of the triple threat position. • Give with passes: Obviously. It’s an egg. A water balloon. Pick your analogy, metaphor, similie. • Triple-threat/Box: Whatever you want to call it, teach your players the value of keeping their stick in the optimal position. Elite level players do things quickly—more quickly than everyone else—keeping the stick at the ear helps eliminate valuable seconds and wasted motion. BE EFFICIENT WITH YOUR MECHANICS.
Shooting*: *Yeah, shooting is essential as important as these and it is ALSO nothing more than passing at a higher rate of speed.
The most fun skill we teach (obviously)… The fundamentals: • The feet (this is where it all starts): The feet should be perpendicular to the intended passing target (at the start). The front, or lead, shoulder should be pointed at the intended target. • The hands: Top hand controls at all times. Stick sits in the finger tips of the top hand. Bottom hand on the butt. Top hand below where it would be for shooting. • The “laser” pointer: The butt-end of a lacrosse stick serves as a laser pointer. Wherever that thing is pointed, that’s where a pass is going. • The 180 (or more) Degrees of Kevin Bacon: Just as with passing he stick must be flat and parallel to the ground at the start of a lacrosse shot. Unlike with passing, it can go beyond that depending on how strong a player’s wrists are (or how capable he is with using, and taking advantage of, his stick’s technology) • The “Paul Pierce” Wrist: This is where it all comes into play, the stronger a player’s wrist the better a shooter he’s going to be. • Overhand (at the start): Teach your players the fundamentals of an overhand shot, but expect (know) they’re going to want more. So train it! • Don’t over coach: Some players (lefties) just get it.
Key Points/Things to Remember Make this fun: Keep a stop watch. Do this in short segments (two minutes). Do something else, come back to it. Don’t let the kids make it boring: Kids want to make this drill boring. It’s not. And shouldn’t be. Count passes: Get players in the habit of counting passes, setting goals for themselves, breaking records. This will help build those intangibles. Keep track of the victors: Reward the players who excel, but every once in a while… Force people to switch partners: You don’t want the same kids dominating each time, but you don’t want them to get bored or frustrated throwing with lesser talented kids (or vice versa for the weaker players). But every so often, doseydo (slide everyone one partner to their right. Focus on the pass: This is (still) most important.
The biggest hurdle we have as coaches are… 1) Teaching kids to properly handle their stick without losing our minds: We are trying to develop “two-handed” players, but we’re frustrated by their lack of facility with their weak hand. They can’t switch hands. They can’t execute dodges. They don’t know how to move. 2) Developing “good” muscle memory: The key to building perfect lacrosse players is reps, reps and more reps. Too many drills require us to stand around in lines while not getting repeated reps that will effectively develop our skills. 3) Keeping kids active busy: Idle hands are the devils…yeah, you get the idea, a kid standing around yawning is a kid not doing anything productive.
So how do we deal with these problems… Put kids in drills where they are repeating the same rep over and over and over Keep lines short Develop drills where players repeated multipleskills in every rep BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. BALLS. 3) Keeping kids active busy: Idle hands are the devils…yeah, you get the idea, a kid standing around yawning is a kid not doing anything productive.
Attack Moves From X This drill is set up for a right to left split (at the first cone), into a roll-dodge (at the second), into a right-handed attack-dodge. At the island, coaches can determine what sort of move they want attackers to use: hard topside, inside roll, ? Dodge, rocker, etcetera.
5 on a Die Shooting: Set Up • Set-up This is a great drill for teaching middies how to shoot on the run. There are a number of variations that can be used in the same drill set up (with slight adjustments). We will use 2 of them here. A split shooting drill and a split/roll-back (Sproll) shooting drill. Set up five cones in the shape of 5 on your basic set of dice. Two up top, two low, one in the middle. A line of players starts at each top cone. A set of balls is placed at each cone.
5 on a Die Shooting: Execution • Execution This drill is designed to get two players two shots simultaneously. A player from the front of each line picks up a ball and places his stick to his inside hand. He then dodges at the cone in the center and splits (switching to his outside hand). At the next cone the player should shoot using the proper overhand technique. Hands and arms back, overhand, hips swiveling through the shot, finishing in the hip pocket. After the player has shot he returns to the back of the next line. Players should switch lines. The goal is to get as many reps as possible, so as soon as the first two shooters are splitting, the next shooters should be starting their dodge. **If you have a goalie in the cage only one shooter can shoot at a time.
Again, this drill is about reps. Don’t have too much space, don’t lag. Go, go, go. Stay on them. Switch lines after every shot. Middies must be threats righty and lefty. 5 on a Die Shooting: Set Up #1
4. Midfield R&R Drill (Rollback & Re-Dodge)
Some thoughts on shooting on the run… 3 Steps More: The best way to teach shooting on the run is to insist kids take at least 3 steps after every shot. Don’t let them stop their feet. No shuffle, shuffle, shot, shot: Kids have a tendency to want to get their feet into a crow-hop, or shuffle step, much as in shooting time and room—don’t let them! ALL SHOTS MUST BE OVERHAND: On the run HAS to be taken overhand. Think about the upper and lower body doing two different things: Lower body runs, upper body, turns, twists, shoots… It’s actually more of a bend than just a twist: A good shooter on the run gets exceptional torque on their shot from both twisting at the waist, bending (or arching back) on the shot, and snapping the through with the aid of the driving leg. Plant the outside leg first:The next stride is key.
2. The Perfect “Defensive” Lacrosse Player* *At the youth lacrosse level (and even at the college to a certain extent), players should probably play both offense and defense. Versatility is far and away the most valuable asset in a lacrosse player.
On Ball Basics Approaching the ball: Come in at an angle, take away “the most dangerous area of the field”. Break down: into good body positioning. Butt down, chest up, stick in front. Footwork: First three steps are always back. Think of yourself as a DB in football, drop step, give ground, then engage! Limit Stick Checks: A 1v1 match-up is, in many ways, a staring contest, don’t blink first. In other words, don’t be the one who makes the mistake. T If you are going to throw checks: Keep your feet moving at all times. Be physical: Initiate contact with your dodger before he can get up to full speed. Close ground: If you’re guarding an especially quick offensive player, engage them before they can take a run at you. Dictate Where the Offense Can Go/ Protect the middle of the field: : A good defender plays an aggressive positional style. Dictating where an offensive player can and cannot go will make slides and defensive packages more efficient and predictable. Breakdowns occur when the offense dictates play.
