Practice is a wonderful thing. Don't get me wrong, games are obviously the most fun, and the reason for having practice. But I love the way you work and try to get just a little bit better everyday at practice; and then all of those little improvements hopefully add up to a major difference by the end of the year. I often refer to this philosophy as, "Baby Steps." You might be familiar with Baby Steps by Dr. Leo Marvin, played by Richard Dreyfus, in a movie that also featured Billy Murray in arguably his greatest role, What About Bob. (By the way, if you haven't seen What About Bob in a while, go rent it immediately. So much better then this Dane Cook/Carlos Mencia crap that they try to pass off as comedy now a days.)
Every once in a while though, something clicks for a player or for the entire team, and you make a huge improvement in a single practice. That happened tonight. We are considerably better as a team after tonight's practice.
I say this for two reasons: 1) our goalie for this season, Chris Castleberry, is really starting to feel comfortable in the cage. He is making some saves that he just has no business even being involved in. Chris is a 26 year-old freshman, who served in the Marines for 8 years, and is one of the better athletes on the team. He played goalie growing up, but obviously hasn't played for a number of years. He is a mid-semester transfer, and started off his career at USD as a Defensemen. We put him back in the cage after about a week. Thank God that we did! Initially he was doing well, but was considerably rusty. Tonight it clicked a little bit for him. There was a stretch where he got dialed in, and was an absolute wall! It was awesome to watch from the sideline.
I know that he might not be like this every practice, nor every game, but he is such an improvement from what we had last year. The other exciting thing, at the risk of being cliche, he is only getting better. By mid-season, right around the time most of our division play begins, I really think he could be a difference maker for us.
2) we put our new ride, "Costanza," in tonight. It puts an enormous amount of pressure on our opponents clearing team, and fits our teams strengths perfectly. We will get burned a couple of times this year because of it, and will give up a few easy goals. But I believe the risk/reward is absolutely worth it, because the pressure that we are putting on the other team should create numerous turnovers and easy points for us.
I have noticed that most of the top teams in the MCLA have a great ride. Last year we were a good riding team. This year I hope to be a team that is known for the pressure it puts on you, and for how well it rides.
With these two huge strides that the team made tonight, I am even more excited for our scrimmage this weekend. Finally a chance to see how a different opponent will defend the Spread and handle our defenses. We will fine tune our special teams during this Friday's practice, focusing on face-offs and man-up/man-down, and then look to put everything together finally come Saturday.
There are few things as sweet as knowing that you are siting on something special before everyone else does. Just saying it though won't make it a reality, we MUST go out a perform and win big games this year. However, I can say with great confidence, that this team is going to really surprise people. Not only can I feel it, but I see it coming together with each practice. The only possible "roadblock" so to speak, is if the guys on this team will have the mental fortitude to play a full, 60 minute game. Not 40 minutes, not 50 minutes, not 58 minutes. We need to be on our game, playing to our strengths, and running our systems, from the first whistle to the last whistle. Can we do it? It is hard to get a group of mostly 18-22 year-olds to focus on anything. We will see........
4 practices to go before the opening lights at Chapman, got to make sure that we don't have any let-downs, got to keep it going in the right direction.
All thanks and glory to our Creator, and to his son, the Christ
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
No Excuses, No Explanations
We put in a new mantra for our team today, "No Excuses, No Explanations." Tony Dungy made this phrase (and his subsequent coaching style) famous while he was a Head Coach in the National Football League.
Since becoming a head coach, I have noticed that I am very similar to the way I was as a player: loud, sarcastic, intense, and fiercely competitive. As a player, practice was always a time for me to concentrate, be loud, have fun, piss off my teammates, and really focus on getting better. I loved practice, and really tried to get after it everyday (probably one of the reasons that I coach now).
But as confident as I am that we are doing things the right way, and have the correct plan for this program to have success, I have come to realize that both myself and this team need to change. If I am going to expect there to be no excuses and no b.s., then I am going to have to be more of a teacher, and less of a motivator. We have a problem on this team of underachieving and making excuses. This HAS to stop immediately; it is a cancer that has been allowed to spread for much too long. My hope is that by not yelling or putting pressure on the players, they will start to do things better and realize their potential.
After one day, I think that we are off to a good start. We had a pretty simple practice today, a lot of drills on the fundamentals, and then 6-on-6. Our defense is really starting to come together; I am really anxious to see how they do against a different opponent.
Offensively, we are doing good, but the guys on the team just cannot figure out that they don't have to shoot on the first or second dodge. This has been our problem since day one of Fall Ball last year. We have several offensive schemes, all of them with different options and numerous drive spots. However, we for some reason feel the need to almost shoot of force a pass on the first drive all the time. It is starting to get beyond frustrating........Just something that we will have to continue to teach I guess.
We have two practices left this week, a scrimmage this weekend, and then the three practices next week before our first game. After today's practice, although very happy with the effort and mentality, I realized we are really cutting it close with having everything in place before Chapman. Time to stay focused and trust in the plan for this team.
All thanks and glory to God and to his Son, The Christ
Since becoming a head coach, I have noticed that I am very similar to the way I was as a player: loud, sarcastic, intense, and fiercely competitive. As a player, practice was always a time for me to concentrate, be loud, have fun, piss off my teammates, and really focus on getting better. I loved practice, and really tried to get after it everyday (probably one of the reasons that I coach now).
But as confident as I am that we are doing things the right way, and have the correct plan for this program to have success, I have come to realize that both myself and this team need to change. If I am going to expect there to be no excuses and no b.s., then I am going to have to be more of a teacher, and less of a motivator. We have a problem on this team of underachieving and making excuses. This HAS to stop immediately; it is a cancer that has been allowed to spread for much too long. My hope is that by not yelling or putting pressure on the players, they will start to do things better and realize their potential.
After one day, I think that we are off to a good start. We had a pretty simple practice today, a lot of drills on the fundamentals, and then 6-on-6. Our defense is really starting to come together; I am really anxious to see how they do against a different opponent.
Offensively, we are doing good, but the guys on the team just cannot figure out that they don't have to shoot on the first or second dodge. This has been our problem since day one of Fall Ball last year. We have several offensive schemes, all of them with different options and numerous drive spots. However, we for some reason feel the need to almost shoot of force a pass on the first drive all the time. It is starting to get beyond frustrating........Just something that we will have to continue to teach I guess.
We have two practices left this week, a scrimmage this weekend, and then the three practices next week before our first game. After today's practice, although very happy with the effort and mentality, I realized we are really cutting it close with having everything in place before Chapman. Time to stay focused and trust in the plan for this team.
All thanks and glory to God and to his Son, The Christ
Friday, January 22, 2010
What is the solution
I realized tonight that we are missing something, and I am not sure what it is. There is something that we are not doing right. The team lacks a certain intensity. It is my fault as the Head Coach.
We do our best to keep the kids motivated, we do our best to constantly keep them moving at practice, we instill systems that we believe will give them the best chance to succeed, but outside of 6-on-6 at practice, we just lack that "it."
I realized two things tonight:
1) the guys on our team, again outside of 6-on-6, treat each other as friends. That is great and all, but when we are dealing with drills and competition, those friends are the ones that you are competing against. Any time that you compete, no matter who it is, you need to play with a certain level of emotion.
2) I realized tonight that we are playing too many guys. For now........We ideally want to play between 20-22 guys. But just because that is what we want to do, that doesn't mean that we can. We have aspirations and goals to be a Top 12 team this year. Therefore, at the risk of being cliche, the guys who will get the majority of the time need to be playing at a Top 12 level. However if we only have 14 guys playing at a high level, they we are rolling with 14 guys.
I mentioned before that we need everybody to get better. It just seems that everyone is so satisfied at just being okay. How do you only think about lacrosse during practice? When I was in college, whether it was right or wrong, I think that the "image" that I mostly identified myself as was being a "lacrosse player." Everything I did was about the game.
Although I am a bit concerned with where we are as a team, it is however a long season; one that actually hasn't started yet. I don't need us playing our best in 2 weeks, I just need us ready to beat Chapman. The smart play is to have us playing almost at our best when division play starts, and then we need to be completely on point when play-offs start.
Like I said, I blame myself as the Head Coach. I have often thought of the art of coaching as an equation. Each year requiring a different set of calculations to get to the correct answer. I know the equation for this year, I hope that we are starting to use the right proofs to find the answer. We certainly will find out soon.
All glory and thanks to God and to his Son, the Christ
We do our best to keep the kids motivated, we do our best to constantly keep them moving at practice, we instill systems that we believe will give them the best chance to succeed, but outside of 6-on-6 at practice, we just lack that "it."
I realized two things tonight:
1) the guys on our team, again outside of 6-on-6, treat each other as friends. That is great and all, but when we are dealing with drills and competition, those friends are the ones that you are competing against. Any time that you compete, no matter who it is, you need to play with a certain level of emotion.
2) I realized tonight that we are playing too many guys. For now........We ideally want to play between 20-22 guys. But just because that is what we want to do, that doesn't mean that we can. We have aspirations and goals to be a Top 12 team this year. Therefore, at the risk of being cliche, the guys who will get the majority of the time need to be playing at a Top 12 level. However if we only have 14 guys playing at a high level, they we are rolling with 14 guys.
I mentioned before that we need everybody to get better. It just seems that everyone is so satisfied at just being okay. How do you only think about lacrosse during practice? When I was in college, whether it was right or wrong, I think that the "image" that I mostly identified myself as was being a "lacrosse player." Everything I did was about the game.
Although I am a bit concerned with where we are as a team, it is however a long season; one that actually hasn't started yet. I don't need us playing our best in 2 weeks, I just need us ready to beat Chapman. The smart play is to have us playing almost at our best when division play starts, and then we need to be completely on point when play-offs start.
Like I said, I blame myself as the Head Coach. I have often thought of the art of coaching as an equation. Each year requiring a different set of calculations to get to the correct answer. I know the equation for this year, I hope that we are starting to use the right proofs to find the answer. We certainly will find out soon.
All glory and thanks to God and to his Son, the Christ
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Cats and Dogs
I have never understood exactly what it means when people say that "it is raining cats & dogs." But whatever that means, I'm pretty sure that it was happening in San Diego this evening, and we practiced in it. I experienced two years of rain while living in the Pacific Northwest, and went through one flood while living there. This is pretty damn close.
We got some good news at the start of practice tonight, our mid-semester transfer from Chapman University (the same Chapman that we play in 2 1/2 weeks), Alberto Gonzalez, was accepted to USD. Alberto will see time this year, and I expect will be a good contributor by the end of the season. The kid definitely has ability, we just got to help him put it together. Alberto grew up playing Attack, and since coming to USD we have moved him to midfield. Once he gets the nuisances of the position down, as I said, I think he will definitely help us this season.
When we started practice at 4:10pm it was only slightly raining. "Maybe we will get lucky," I thought. After reviewing several administrative items with the team, we got underway. After warm ups, we went to four corners of 2 vs 1, groundball drills. The effort was sub-par at best. One of my biggest pet peeves is when the guys are doing a drill and they have to eventually shoot on an open goal (as was the case with this groundball drill). Why do kids lob the ball or roll it into the open net? Why wouldn't they shoot like they would in a game? I don't understand it.
To make matters worse, I caught one of our Attackman who is particularly lazy not rotating through the different stations. So, the whole team ran for the remainder of the time we had allotted for that drill. After they ran, I quickly brought the team in and expressed to them how weak of an effort they were giving. I think one of the differences between great players, and simply average players, is that great players use ever chance they have to get better. Most of our guys do not, they instead do just enough to coast, or just to get by. Average production, for average personal expectations.
I blew into my whistle to single us moving on to the next drill. However, before we moved on, the Captains had a few words for the team. I generally walk away and let the guys go in situations like these, there are some things that they must come together on, on their own. For the second time though in as many practices, I have been pleased to see something different from this team this year. Last year all of our Team Captains were more reserved, lead by example type of guys. This wasn't a bad thing, in fact I REALLY appreciate the job the Captains did last year; we needed guys who hustled and did things the right way, and thus, tried to get their teammates to do the same. But I firmly believe any team will do better if they can motivate themselves, and this starts with the Captains of the team. I am not sure exactly what they said in their conversation, but it worked. Around the same time that they were chewing out their teammates, the sky opened up. It started coming down in buckets, and the wind was swirling around the field. We could have easily let up and had a poor practice, instead practice after that point went very well.
We put in a lot of defenses tonight, and the guys are definitely getting better. Coach Rob Warner is really finding his groove as our Defensive Coach, and the guys seem to be responding well. We are going to be tough on both sides of the field.
There was one other thing that I noticed tonight though that I always find interesting. I am sure that all of us that coach have players who come up to us and declare, "How can I show what I can do as a player when I am playing with the second unit?" Well my answer to that is, "Why aren't you dominating the second unit defense that you are also matched up against?" Our first 19-20 guys who play have the potential to be very good, after that we fall off of a cliff with ability and talent. I know that those other 20 guys are going to be needed at some point during this season. I hope that they realize that as well. We have 24 games this year, we need EVERYBODY to contribute. It is up to me as their coach to help them become the best player that they are capable of. Everyone is different, and all of us have different ceilings as players, but anyone playing at their best can tremendously help our team. As I said, it is my job as their coach to find out how to get them there.
Friday is supposed to be one more day of rain, although I HIGHLY doubt as bad as tonight. 7 practices to go before the big game. We are starting to look like we might be ready. If we can play this well in a monsoon, I am curious to see how we can perform on a nice evening.
All thanks and glory to God and to his Son
We got some good news at the start of practice tonight, our mid-semester transfer from Chapman University (the same Chapman that we play in 2 1/2 weeks), Alberto Gonzalez, was accepted to USD. Alberto will see time this year, and I expect will be a good contributor by the end of the season. The kid definitely has ability, we just got to help him put it together. Alberto grew up playing Attack, and since coming to USD we have moved him to midfield. Once he gets the nuisances of the position down, as I said, I think he will definitely help us this season.
When we started practice at 4:10pm it was only slightly raining. "Maybe we will get lucky," I thought. After reviewing several administrative items with the team, we got underway. After warm ups, we went to four corners of 2 vs 1, groundball drills. The effort was sub-par at best. One of my biggest pet peeves is when the guys are doing a drill and they have to eventually shoot on an open goal (as was the case with this groundball drill). Why do kids lob the ball or roll it into the open net? Why wouldn't they shoot like they would in a game? I don't understand it.
To make matters worse, I caught one of our Attackman who is particularly lazy not rotating through the different stations. So, the whole team ran for the remainder of the time we had allotted for that drill. After they ran, I quickly brought the team in and expressed to them how weak of an effort they were giving. I think one of the differences between great players, and simply average players, is that great players use ever chance they have to get better. Most of our guys do not, they instead do just enough to coast, or just to get by. Average production, for average personal expectations.
I blew into my whistle to single us moving on to the next drill. However, before we moved on, the Captains had a few words for the team. I generally walk away and let the guys go in situations like these, there are some things that they must come together on, on their own. For the second time though in as many practices, I have been pleased to see something different from this team this year. Last year all of our Team Captains were more reserved, lead by example type of guys. This wasn't a bad thing, in fact I REALLY appreciate the job the Captains did last year; we needed guys who hustled and did things the right way, and thus, tried to get their teammates to do the same. But I firmly believe any team will do better if they can motivate themselves, and this starts with the Captains of the team. I am not sure exactly what they said in their conversation, but it worked. Around the same time that they were chewing out their teammates, the sky opened up. It started coming down in buckets, and the wind was swirling around the field. We could have easily let up and had a poor practice, instead practice after that point went very well.
We put in a lot of defenses tonight, and the guys are definitely getting better. Coach Rob Warner is really finding his groove as our Defensive Coach, and the guys seem to be responding well. We are going to be tough on both sides of the field.
There was one other thing that I noticed tonight though that I always find interesting. I am sure that all of us that coach have players who come up to us and declare, "How can I show what I can do as a player when I am playing with the second unit?" Well my answer to that is, "Why aren't you dominating the second unit defense that you are also matched up against?" Our first 19-20 guys who play have the potential to be very good, after that we fall off of a cliff with ability and talent. I know that those other 20 guys are going to be needed at some point during this season. I hope that they realize that as well. We have 24 games this year, we need EVERYBODY to contribute. It is up to me as their coach to help them become the best player that they are capable of. Everyone is different, and all of us have different ceilings as players, but anyone playing at their best can tremendously help our team. As I said, it is my job as their coach to find out how to get them there.
Friday is supposed to be one more day of rain, although I HIGHLY doubt as bad as tonight. 7 practices to go before the big game. We are starting to look like we might be ready. If we can play this well in a monsoon, I am curious to see how we can perform on a nice evening.
All thanks and glory to God and to his Son
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
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
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
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