Changing Philosophies in Coaching Lacrosse

Changing Philosophies in Coaching Lacrosse 1

By Mike Muetzel, LaxCoachMike.com

I am of the steadfast belief that coaches need to continue to grow and progress in their craft. Thus this brings up an age-old debate, "Do the coaches need to change due to the changing nature of kids today?" Or do the coaches stay with what has been successful and ultimately the kids will conform and get in line?"

The correct answer is probably a little of both with an emphasis on the former. In an interview I recorded with Bill Tierney, a legendary lacrosse coach from Denver, I was taken with his radical change in philosophy going into the 2009 season when he was at Princeton. The point is that after 35 years of success, including six NCAA Lacrosse Championship appearances, he decided he had to make a significant change in the way they planned and conducted lacrosse practices. The traditional methods were no longer successful, the players were frustrated and he as a coach was frustrated. What does this say about our own individual coaching styles?

Understand that the kids have changed; they come from a world of over positive reinforcement, they live in a world of micro sound bytes, instant information, instant results and gratification, immense multi-tasking and real world information delivered instantly. They have been raised to be independent and live in an evolving culture where people do not trust leadership including coaches simply because of a title. Those are the simple facts.

So as a hypothetical comparison try this… Often we scout our opponents or even scout our own teams. Then we adjust out offense or defense to address specific areas where we might help our players be more successful against opponents. Or we might continue to tweak for a different opponent with different characteristics

Is it such a big stretch to suggest that the same philosophy might serve us well in changing the way we plan and conduct practice? By integrating these characteristics into our coaching styles we have an opportunity to put our kids in a position to be more successful?

It is not a matter of "Who bends or conforms first, but rather how do we put our players in the best possible scenario to be successful." College lacrosse coaches have learned to change to capitalize on the unique and different characteristics of the players and the same principle holds true for us as coaches.

1. More Positive Reinforcement

2. Constant Movement and Action, drills limited to 7-10 minutes

3. Running different drills at each practice, not repeating the same drill 20 minutes every day

4. Integrating multiple skill sets into all drills (multi-tasking)

5. Relating the critical skills of each drill directly to a game scenario

6. Continue to stay updated and educated as a coach

There are two challenges we need to overcome, The first challenge we need to overcome is understanding that things are changing and we need to change as well. The second challenge is that you can integrate the changing nature of kids into your practices and coaching without sacrificing your position of leadership.

I would love to get your feedback, mike@laxcoachmike.com