Ok, it’s been a while. Let me ‘splain. No, there is too much.
Let me sum up. (If anybody reads this AND gets that, I’d love to hear it.)
Last we left this thread, I was going into the first couple
scrimmages for my team. I have been keeping notes all along on how this was
going, but as I talked about way
back
in February, I have a tendency to worry about my writing so I was editing
as I posted. So, while my last post on my coaching stuff was in early April and
covered stuff that happened in early March, I still spent time rewriting the
post instead of just putting it up. That worked well until both school and
coaching got into full swing, so I got a bit behind in worddsmithing. Now I’m
catching up. You’re going to see a few posts in the next few hours catching up
about 6 weeks of stuff. Try to remember that time frame, please.
First - I really wish I was better at remembering names.
That is going to be such a big thing for me to work on as a teacher. I don’t think I’ll be able to use the same
technique in class that I use in practice – a Sharpie and a piece of tape across
their forehead.
I continued to run drills and instruct kids on fundamentals
with varying results (more on that in a later post). Some of the kids have sloppy
stick skills. I don’t want to waste precious practice time drilling on stick skills
instead of developing the team and strategy. But you can’t play this game if
you can’t throw, catch and pick up a ground ball. We are working
Our scrimmages were March 10 and March 14.
One skill I worked on during the scrimmages was controlling the
substitutions. Every other time I was an assistant, the head coach wanted to be
the one saying who went in and out. Mike wants me to handle that so he can step
back and look more at strategy. I can see why. If you’re not familiar with
lacrosse, US Lacrosse likes to bill it as the “Fastest Game on Two Feet.” We
sub on the fly, like hockey. Although there are quite a few whistles to stop
the clock, these stoppages usually only a few seconds as it doesn’t matter if
the defense is ready before the referee lets the offense start.
Keeping track of who is tired, who we want to
play together, who we need to get some time to evaluate while also trying to
make sure people get a l
east a few minutes of playing time kinda makes a coach’s
head swim. And there is also that little thing of trying to win. There really isn’t much training to get ready for it, it’s just something
that is going to take practice. And probably a mistake or two. At least I hope
I can keep the mistakes down. One thing I did notice, it’s helping me to learn
the kids’ names. By the second scrimmage, it was going well enough that Mike
let me run most of the JV portion by myself. Of course, it was freezing that
day so maybe it was more of a “made” me run the JV by myself. He was in the locker room. Where the heater was. It's good to be the king.
This different role means one of my concerns about being
able to deal with in game strategy changes is different. Now I’ll need to work
on in game player management. I’ll also have to get used to another coaching aspect
I never used before – game films. That
will be the subject of a future post.
One thing I haven’t talked about in this post is resources I’m
using. I finished my US Lacrosse Level II classroom portion. I’ll need to do a
practical seminar at some point, but they don’t schedule them during the
season, so that’s something for the summer or fall. The course was good in both
content and delivery. There are a ton of videos in it showing things to look
for to help kids improve stick skills to help the ones the proficient kids to
advanced. There were also a few topics that I need to get into with the kids –
like using the midfield line for substitutions – but both the team and I need
some more time together before we can do that. Also, in a sign that either the
world is coming to an end or that I’m learning, I created a twitter handle to
share drills and tips with the team. (Don’t tell Dr. Savery. I don’t want him
to think I’m sucking up.)
Our scrimmages were March 10 and March 14. One skill I worked on during the scrimmages was controlling the
substitutions. Every other time I was an assistant, the head coach wanted to be
the one saying who went in and out. Mike wants me to handle that so he can step
back and look more at strategy. I can see why. If you’re not familiar with
lacrosse, US Lacrosse likes to bill it as the “Fastest Game on Two Feet.” We
sub on the fly, like hockey. Although there are quite a few whistles to stop
the clock, these stoppages usually only a few seconds as it doesn’t matter if
the defense is ready before the referee lets the offense start. Keeping track of who is tired, who we want to
play together, who we need to get some time to evaluate while also trying to
make sure people get a l
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