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Conventional Wisdom: A Blog
Jan. 12, 2007 The 2007 US Lacrosse National Convention is underway at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in downtown Philadelphia. Mike Pressler is here. Dom Starsia is here. Dave Cottle and Dave Urick are here, too. Jen Adams and Katie Chrest and Kyle Harrison and Ryan Powell are here. The U.S. national teams are here. Paul Cantabene, Gary Gait, Jack Reid, Josh Sims, Crista Samaras, Quinn Carney and Lindsey Biles -- all here. POST CONVENTION Coaches Education in Action Lacrosse's explosive growth means that the demand for qualified coaches can outstrip the supply. As a result, one of the convention's most popular events is the US Lacrosse Coaches Education Program Level 1 Instructional Clinic, targeted at coaches with limited or no experience who work primarily with beginners. Dozens of new coaches - men and women, in a wide range of age and personal fitness levels - stood patiently in circles around more experienced instructors. Working with a group of boys' coaches, Towson coach Tony Seaman encouraged them to have players use their non-dominant hands when first learning to cradle, and offered a unique off-the-field training suggestion. "Have the kids take the ball home and go to their mothers' mirrors," said Seaman to the all-male group. "I know you guys don't have a mirror, but your wife does, to see how big she's getting - and practice cradling in the mirror." There was basic coaching stuff, like shaking hands with the stick, sandwiching constructive criticism between words of praise, and the three P's of shooting (power, pizzazz, and placement, if you were wondering). And a live demo certainly has advantages that no instructional video or X's and O's drawing can replicate. But there's also a certain zany, meta quality to the process of teaching teachers. "You're nervous here," said US Lacrosse Youth Council Board member Melissa D'Angelo to a group of girls' coaches. "The kids feel the same way." Wearing protective goggles and chewing on a jawful of mouth guard, an adult can look a lot like an awkward school kid at a tryout. Without clipboards and whistles, and the authority that such accessories can impart, the coaches dutifully practiced the exercises they'd eventually take home to fields across the country. Watching grown men and women twirl around in dizzy circles trying to do complicated stick tricks is a terrific sight - something like a cross between whirling dervishes and players scrapping for a tough pass. The drill's purpose is ostensibly to improve stick skills and emphasize the creative aspect of the sport, but it's also a lot of fun to see and do. - submission by Clare Lochary Men Coaching Women In my extremely important capacity as a vital cog in the US Lacrosse machine, I was assigned to hand out name tags and welcome packets. The most complicated part was to remember to ask if the attendee was interested in the men's or women's game, and give out the appropriate packet. In doing so, I learned two important things. Firstly, "Do you prefer men or women?" is not the best way to phrase this question. Secondly, there are a lot of men who coach (or referee) the women's game. While men coaching women is hardly a new phenomenon (Georgetown and U.S. Women's Elite coach Ricky Fried come to mind), it can still be a daunting prospect, especially for a new coach. With that in mind, I attended the "3 Concepts Every Male Coach Should Know" session, presented by Greg Courter, who has had tremendous success as the head coach at the Kent Denver School in Colorado. Courter centers his coaching philosophy on four principles: * Being thorough, professional, and fair * Showing accountability by apologizing for mistakes * Honesty, and an absence of false praise * Inclusion and egalitarianism The last point on this list seemed to have the most resonance when he specifically discussed coaching girls. In his experience, girls are far more intuitive and aware of team dynamics than boys typically are, so creating and maintaining team chemistry is key. "Building a team culture is a long but important process," Courter said. "You have to groom kids to be leaders. You can view kids as empty vessels to be with knowledge, or walking potential that needs to be brought out. I prefer the latter." - submission by Clare Lochary SATURDAY, JAN. 13 Wrong About Ward It's been a long weekend. I'm standing in the live field demonstration area of the US Lacrosse National Convention, sweaty feet and bleary eyes, dreading the no-name presenter I must soon introduce as the designated emcee. Who the heck is Mark Ward, anyway? LacrosseGoalieVideo.com? Yawn. Then I meet the guy. He's huge, about 6-5, I'd say. And, it turns out, he is the assistant coach at his alma mater, Binghamton (N.Y.) High School. Mark's sunken eyes make me think of John Mack, the 17-year-old lacrosse player there who died in late November, two days after he collapsed on the field due to a stick check to the chest. "Devastating," is all Mark can say. It was the second lacrosse-related death involving a Binghamton area player in less than three years. Cornell University's George Boiardi died of commotio cordis (an unexpected cardiac death that comes as a result of high impact to the chest at certain points of breathing) in 2004 during a game against Binghamton University. As for Mack's death, Mark can only wonder at its inopportunity. "He was probably the most well-covered player on our team, in terms of equipment," he says, "like a one-in-a-zillion chance." Mack's death has put things in motion, however. His father, Jim Mack, also attended the convention. He is spearheading a campaign to raise funds for defibrillators onsite at lacrosse facilities. And Mark, wrong as I was about him, is totally on board. As is Binghamton head coach Scott Faulkner. I reconvene with Mark after his presentation on goalie drills for agility and stopping power. Drenched in sweat, he wipes his face with a tee shirt, and asks me how he can donate his honorarium payment as a presenter back to the foundation funds for John Mack. Then he shakes my hand, thanks me for the opportunity (as if I had anything to do with it) and walks away. I'm glad I got to meet Mark Ward. FRIDAY, JAN. 12 Team USA Talk As the lacrosse masses trickled into Philadelphia on Friday afternoon, there was plenty of closed-door talk about two U.S. national teams. On one hand, there's the U.S. men's national team, which as you probably know by now, relinquished its 28-year stranglehold on the gold to Canada in the 2006 ILF World Championships. I ran into Chris Hupfeldt, general manager of the 2006 U.S. men's team, who was pleased by the conversation he had at an earlier meeting. "You never want to lose," he said, "but sometimes a loss re-energizes a program." According to Hupfeldt, a big topic has been the selection of the 2010 team, and allowing more leeway to drop and add players as the championships approach. As opposed to selecting the team a year in advance, Hupfeldt said, some are proposing that an expanded roster be utilized through the exhibition schedule -- to account for injuries and the players' development in the professional leagues, and maintain a competitive environment among them. The other conversation I had was with Kevin Finneran, Graham D'Alvia and Jacques Bagley of U.S. Indoor Lacrosse, the group tasked by US Lacrosse to manage Team USA in the 2007 ILF indoor championships this May in Halifax, Canada. Finneran said they are about ready to announce a 40-man roster, after a series of tryouts included over 100 players. Ultimately, that will need to be pared down to 23 players, but the group would like to keep the team open to potential players who were tied up in NLL training camps at the time of tryouts. Ryan Boyle, Ryan Powell and Kyle Sweeney were among those Finneran mentioned. But, he added, if other prospective NLL players "don't want this 110 percent, then Tommy Ryan is not going to have them." Tom Ryan is the head coach of the 2007 U.S. indoor lacrosse team. Rock, Paper, Scissors -- Top, Clamp, Rake? Paul Canatabene is working overtime. Today, he presented a faceoff clinic for the US Lacrosse Coaches Education Program. Tomorrow, he'll do the same thing for the convention-going public. I can listen to this guy talk about faceoffs all day. He really appreciates his craft, and it's fascinating to hear him speak of duels with other professional face-off specialists like Chris Cercy. Without knowing it, I think Cantabene may have stumbled upon a new version of "Rock, Paper, Scissors," the popular choose-or-lose game to decide trivial (and sometimes not so trivial) matters. You always hear about faceoff guys' moves -- the plunger, the pop and plunge, the jam, etc. Cantabene admits he has all of those in his repertoire. But the key to faceoff success, he says, is much simpler. And it can be thought of in these terms: Top beats clamp. Clamp beats rake. Rake beats top. I knew what a clamp was. A "top" is when you use the wide part of the stick's lip to come over the top of the ball and poke it to the wings. A "rake," meanwhile, uses the sidewall to sweep the ball from underneath. These all can counter one another. For instance, according to Cantabene's talk, a rake beats a top because you're pushing the ball out from underneath as your counterpart is lifting the lip of his stick. I can see face-off specialists around the country, settling juicebox disputes over a count of "Top, Clamp, Rake." Try it out. The signal for "top" can be an upturned palm. The signal for "clamp" can be a puppet-like joining of the thumb and your four other fingers. And "rake" can signaled in the form of a claw. If you have time, check out the World Rock Paper Scissors (RPS) Society. (Apparently, I'm not the only one with too much time on my hands.) Odds and Ends * Katie Chrest, the 2005 Tewaaraton Trophy winner at Duke, signed in July with STX. She remains in Durham, N.C., however, as she said she's still involved with the athletic department there in a fundraising and development capacity. She would like STX to "become more fulltime." These days, that's not so crazy a notion. * Jen Adams, now the associate head coach with cohort and head coach Cathy Nelson Reese at Maryland, says she misses Colorado, "although I hear they're getting bombarded with snow." Adams and Reese came to their alma mater in the fall after a successful stint at the University of Denver, which is ranked nationally by Lacrosse magazine. "It's a whole different caliber of player," Adams said, adding that the transition has been "seamless." Coakley Challenges Coaches Keynote speaker and noted sports sociologist Jay Coakley used his Friday night address to challenge the attending coaches to be active participants in the shaping of the culture of lacrosse. "You are all participants, either by default if you are passive, or by intent if you are active. The choice is your's," Coakley told the audience. While citing many of the different historical factors that influence the culture of lacrosse, Coakley highlighted three areas of impact that coaches at all levels can have on the future of the game. "Coaches, and those with power in lacrosse, should make the sport more accessible to everyone, more humane in the way the game is played, and more democratic in how the sport is organized," Coakley said.
- submission by Paul Ohanian
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