Torero Lacrosse

The person who taught me the most about coaching (and lacrosse in general) is John Hughes. I was fortunate to have good coaches in both high school and college, but I didn't realize how simple my understanding of the game was until I was part of Coach Hughes' coaching staff at UCSD, from 2004-2006. For myself and my group of friends, John is without question one of the top two or three people when it comes to being responsible for growing the sport of lacrosse on the West Coast. I know that there have been hundreds who have contributed, most particularly a great man named Norm Webb, who taught John, my father, and myself how to play the game the right way. But, with apologies to Mr. Mike Annala, John is most responsible for making Sonoma State into a nationally recognized program, and while he was at the head of UCSD, we took a team from the unranked to three years later finishing ranked #7 nationally. John is the most organized leader I have ever met, and he is still a great mentor to me now. Even though he got out of coaching a few years ago, he is always there for strategic ideas I might have about an upcoming opponent, or to help me with questions about my own team. Over lunch a few months ago, when I was just starting to come up with "The Spread" offense, Hughes mentioned a blog might be a smart idea. I was skeptical, but usually any advice he gives me is good advice. So, with that being said..........

Being a Head Coach is a crazy thing. YOU BARELY COACH! You organize, you set everything up, you deal with all of the administrative paperwork, and you design the systems and game plans the team is going to use. But, the Asst. Coaches are the ones who do the real coaching; they have the more personal interactions with the players, they are the ones teaching the fundamentals, and they are the ones putting those game plans into place.

We have a LOT that we need to get into place during these next few weeks. We open the season at Chapman (Pre-Season ranked #2), in three weeks. For us, that means that we only have 9 practices to get ready. At USD we are only able to practice on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, for 2 hours and 40 minutes each day. As challenging as that schedule may be, those are the rules that the University of San Diego has for its club teams when it comes to practice. So, we make sure that we don't use it as an excuse or a crutch, but instead we make it work for us. We do a lot of unique things with our team, we call this the "The USD Way," and how we practice is just one of them. That being said, it really hurts us when we miss a practice, and yesterday was a difficult practice.

San Diego is being blanketed by a ridiculous rain storm, and yesterday, the Nike turf that we play on was literally like a water bed. At 4:10pm we started practice, it was an absolute downpour. I was not worried about the guys on the team, I was worried about the coaching staff. We try to do a good job at practice of always keeping the guys moving, so I knew they would be a little bit warm from constantly being in motion. However, our budget limits our coaching staff to pretty poor rain gear, and they were freezing their you know what off.

After practicing for about 20 minutes, there was a more important problem then the rain, the lights on the field wouldn't turn on. It was Martin Luther King day yesterday, and the school was shut down, so we couldn't call anybody to come fix the problem. I blew the whistle signaling the guys to gather around me. "What was the first act of God our Creator as we know it?" I said. Mikael Rosenberger, our smartest defensemen chimed in first, "Let there be light." "Right," I replied, "and we don't have any. So you can go home."

Last year this would have been more then enough for them to get out of there and not practice. But, as is a testament to the changes taking place with the young men on this lacrosse team, they were not having it. Several of them said, "Lets go 6's until the sun goes down!" They all started to yell and scream and run back onto the field. I remember thinking to myself, "AWESOME!" If they were going to stay, I was for sure going to stay to. We decided to go full field instead, and ended up scrimmaging for 45 minutes. The guys seemed to have fun, and got after it quite a bit.

As I quickly gathered my gear and retreated to my car at the conclusion of practice, I was pleased with the attitude change that seemed to be taking place. However, as excited as I was to see the enthusiasm and effort from the young men on my team, the bottom-line is that we basically lost a day of practice. That means we now only have 8 left before our first game. We are going to have to work that much harder, and be that much more focused these next few weeks, if we hope to take down one of the top ranked teams.

This year I told myself that I will try to stay focused on three objectives: 1) trust in God's plan for this team, 2) not stress about things the way that I did in the years past, and 3) try to be more positive (I have a ways to go). These three objectives may or may not result in a championship this season, but I have no doubt that they will lead to success. As my stress and excitement levels start to rise in anticipation of this first game, I must remember to stay focused on these objectives, and trust that we will be prepared come game day. The weather and time constraints these next two and a half weeks will be an interesting challenge. I look forward in seeing how our team and our coaching staff respond.

All thanks and glory to God, and to his Son