Stop Drilling Moves, Start Drilling Decisions with Gold Medal Shot Selection

Hello everyone and welcome to the First Class the Cross podcast. My name is Demer Class and today I'm joined by my co-host Matt Dunn. We are excited to get into the next wave of First Class LaCrosse podcasts. This spring we will have some guests, but we are also excited to dive more into player development. on-field topics and off-the-field topics We're excited to see where it takes us. Matt, welcome to the show. Thanks, Demer. Excited to kick off this next phase of the podcast here.

I think it might be helpful just kinda, you know, we wrapped up coach interviews throughout the fall and winter. Our last episode, you and I kind of went through and did our best to summarize a lot of those great coach interviews. DMR, I want to talk about the logic a little bit of what we're hoping to do this spring with the podcast. I'm excited for this. I think uh, you know, one thing we've seen when we've done these podcasts is

There's so many different angles and things to talk about. And I know you and I have a lot of conversations around. you know, everything under the sun from even lacrosse to business to uh to recruiting to, you know, entrepreneurial ideas to leadership to mindset, like you name it. And I think our goal was to be able to use this podcast to now start to dive into more of those topics, you know, maybe bring on some more, some more guests, um, but also give us the space to talk about

More of the things that we're seeing and and going through and uh experiencing. So, you know, I I'm excited. I I'm curious, uh You know, I know we're we have a lot of similar thoughts with that, but curious if there's anything you think I missed there. Well, I I think, you know, just kind of framing where, you know, off the record conversations I've gone with the podcast. I think about a year ago or year and a half ago.

We s we started in we're like, let's give it a go, see how what happens. We that we listen to podcasts, we never did it before. We enjoyed doing and they were like, okay, maybe we'll try to do this a little more. And you know, we bought microphones and now

You got a newer microphone that sits in the camera, you got a surfboard in the back, you repositioned your camera right now, so you're getting the whole studio going on. But I think to your point, it was We have a lot of these interests that we talk about like our Slack conversations, our text, our side conversations that we really enjoy and we wanted to make more content out of and just kind of see.

um, you know, where it went. And we've fortunately gotten some good feedback that our audience has enjoyed it. So I think our goal with this is to keep having those conversations between you and I that we like having and try to get more guests on. And I think In the past, we'd done the head coach interviews, which have been really cool, but that was pretty restricted to, you know, head coaches of men's and women's programs.

And now we're just giving ourselves a little bit more freedom to try to get, you know, different guests on and whether that's covering the season, whether that's having a coordinator on to talk about an interesting topic or just somebody from outside the lacrosse space that we think

is smart, interesting, has a a cool point of view on something, leadership, development, all of those things. So to your point, I guess just giving us a little more of a sandbox to play in here and to see where this next phase of it can go. I think a lot of people have said like, hey, you know, you guys should do a podcast and I think last year was really a good kickoff, you know, with season one of the coach series and then the in season podcast and kind of figuring out

what is podcasting look like? I never really felt like we had the space to do it. And you and I also have so many discussions around all the different types of content that you can make. And so now actually getting to probably be working more toward like regular podcasting where you have some guests, but also you can really dive into different topics. Uh, I think that that free flowing feel is is what I'm hoping for out of this.

They have those memes that were like somebody has a bad take on a podcast and the first caption is podcasting equipment needs to be more expensive. So I think that's our goal here to make sure we don't Yeah, I'm glad you pointed out the surfboard. I uh my wife acquired this in LA. She she drove down with some of her girlfriends to uh

Hermosa Beach, I believe, picked up this surfboard, never left our her apartment in LA, traveled with us to New York. I don't know where we're gonna use it. If uh hopefully we we take it out somewhere, but She's surfed once. I've never surfed. So it's uh but I think it looks good for the uh for the podcast back. It looks good and I think the Hudson River swell picks up in a few months. So it should be nice out there. Yeah. We can get up and down uh the Hudson. I think that'd be great. Um

Well, hey, before we uh kick into some topics here, you guys just had your first game last week. Uh Matt is the assistant coach at Hyland Park. Many know, many also don't know, and he coaches with Coach Presser, uh which has been Awesome. I got to come out to practice uh two Fridays ago when I was visiting you in Dallas. And uh I think you guys have a big game coming up with Culvert as well. How's the early preseason and start to the season business?

It's been great. Um, you know, as I just mentioned before the call, we also got some weather in Dallas about two weeks ago. So Um, I think I learned that there's maybe 150 salt trucks in the whole state. That could be a myth, but it seemed to be true because the snow stayed on the ground for a week. And so we kind of navigated through preseason of missing a week of practice.

But it's been awesome. We start earlier here. Um, our first game against Kasha Prep from Oklahoma. Uh we we won, but it was an awesome first game for us to get. Um a lot of our guys on the field and and just, you know, you can practice all you want, but the game's different. And so preparing for Culver um this week has been a lot of fun.

And it's really cool that for us to get to play these teams from out of state, these nationally ranked opponents. And that's a goal of ours is to be, you know, a top 25 team at the end of the year as well as winning the state championship. Um, so just getting to play these teams is such a great experience for for our players to to compete against some of the best in the country.

So it's been fun. It'll be a big test for us. But we got a new group of guys that, you know, really bought in and having a lot of fun together. Yeah, and first year Culver uh head coach Keith Eucher, former Loyola Don. Uh, you'll get to uh

You get to square off against him. He's he's worked uh a handful of our events in the past and uh looking forward to hearing how it goes. Yeah, we're excited. And Demer was actually, you were in Texas two weeks ago. And it kind of brings us into our first topic here. Uh, we did a camp. And Demer, you brought the idea of this gold medal shot analogy to the camp. And to kind of zoom out a little, uh, the first topic that we had in our soft agenda here was shot selection in lacrosse.

Um, and thinking that shot selection is probably one of the most important attributes uh for any team. You could argue maybe the most, because you could be a great shooter and have great shooting mechanics, but if your team consistently takes bad shots. Um

You're not going to score a lot of goals. And on the flip side, defensively, if you don't understand shot selection, you give up a lot of high quality shots, you're going to give up a lot of goals. Uh Demer, you want to talk a little bit about, you know, where

the gold medal analogy came from the background context and and what made you want to bring it to the table as we were running the camp here? Yeah, it's something that uh that came from Alex Surama of transforming basketball and uh Jamie Monroe has talked about it a lot, you know, and so You know, I think really trying to continue to grow in terms of ways that we're explaining things to players and

every year, every camp, you know, trying to test new things and new ideas that, you know, might be a better way of saying things. And it it did really click for us in Dallas because the idea of a gold medal shot versus a silver versus a bronze, you know, or hey, like just like in the Olympics. If you don't qualify, you know, you're not up on the the stand, like you don't you're you're fourth place or or lower. And it's very similar to a grading scale that a lot of coaches have.

introduced, I'm sure, within their own teams of here's an A shot, a B shot, a C shot. Uh but I thought that the metal concept when we introduced it to even like the middle school and high school players. It's stuck. And I think that's the beauty of coaching and analogies is using things that are memorable and stick out in players' minds. And so it was fun. So I'm glad I'm glad we introduced it. Uh and you know, the basic concept is your using, you know, the different tiers of metals to

You know, try to quantify and assign a value to the type of shot you're getting. So the gold medal shot. Essentially was was something that we were defining as closer than farther. You know, we were using, I think, around eight to nine yards and in.

Uh we were using the crease tangents up to eight yards and in. So kind of creating like what you call like the heart of the defense in a way, like kind of the paint area. We were talking about players getting their sticks to the inside, like six to the middle. And then we were also talking about assisted shots versus unassisted shots. And those qualities were contributing towards like getting to that shot in that spot of the field. And that was the gold medal shot. And I think you

You can really create some frameworks around it. But that was the idea, and uh I think there's a lot to talk about. Yeah, I I loved it. I thought one I think to your point the analogy is great, but also it's it's the right thing to focus on shot selection. And I think when we talk about going to these camps, I mean, I remember we used to do'em. Now we're, you know, I mean, Demer, you and I probably did our first camp together

right out of college in twenty sixteen in San Diego and then maybe one in Pittsburgh. And we did a few of these and over the years we've done a lot. and Shifting the approach. It used to feel like, Hey, we got to do all these things. We wanna, you know, get this drill and this drill and this drill in this skill, this skill, this skill.

And you could sometimes feel like you kind of check the box on everything, but the kids probably left with feeling overwhelmed, doing so much stuff, but not really knowing what was important. I think for us going into our trainings and camps more recently, we kind of want to make sure that there's a consistent message of what the most important thing is and most important things are and show a lot of ways to get them. And that's what I loved about shot selection and gold medal shots is.

we could do them we could do a bunch of different drills a bunch of different concepts offensively we could do you know odd man play even we could do two man game off ball on ball but it all comes back to the quality of like we're trying to generate these high quality shots and these gold medal shots

And it was easy. We could mark off the field and say, This is a gold medal shot. So if we do you know, this five on four tight drill that we got from Coach Thompson um at CNU or we do, you know, this three on two green drill or these things, we're still solving for gold medal shot. You know, which to your point, uh, we kind of marked off as creased tangents and eight yards and in.

I think the important part there is you can kind of determine what your gold medal shot is is probably going to be around that. I want to give a little bit of reference to what Saramma uses in the basketball for for some of these talking about the best shots you can get are free throws, what everybody wants to get. After that that it's, you know, rim fit finishes of layups and dunks or gold medal shots.

Catch and shoot threes or silver silver metal shots, off the dribble threes and paint twos are bronze metal shots. That's what they use for their, you know, uh h his basketball parameters. I think you can change those by your level and your skill ability.

But you can translate those to lacrosse too and just get a framework so the team knows what are those shots you're looking for. Yeah, I think that was that's something that even after the Dallas camp I've tried to do in more of my trainings is Just again, like re explain it, but then try to say, hey, you know, here's Here's what we're gonna value as what is a good shot or the type of shot we're looking for.

And saying, Hey, your coaches are gonna have different things for that, but at least now they have a framework of what is a good shot, what is a bad shot. And When I look back at my own career and also our early days of teaching, I I feel pretty strongly now that this is a really important starting point. Because what I also noticed the more I watch film too, if you get closer than farther, you know, if you get into that middle of the field area. I do think the technique matters less and less.

Because you're getting on the doorstep. You're getting to the best shooting spot and angle, you know, to where if you drop your hands or you come a little sidearm or you know your your spot, your uh shot placement's not perfect.

you have more margin for error because you got to such a good spot on the field. And the percentages are just higher. And so you're going to score more out of every 10 shots that you take. And so It's it's a very interesting lens of in skill development, you know, we all spend so much time on dodging footwork and shooting technique and these things. But when you think about what is the purpose of the game, it's to score more goals than the other team. Yeah, score more and hold them to less.

And when you're on offense, if you're trying to score more goals, you want to do it more efficiently and and you want to again set yourself up for success. So it's it's taking better shots. And if you started with that. Like you could have the best technique in the world, but if you're taking consistently twelve yard jumping alley shots.

That's not getting it done as consistently in today's game. So if you reverse engineer out of, you know, taking these gold medal shots, I think it also really dictates and guides you on what you should be focusing on from a

skill perspective and an emphasis perspective with with players. One thing that always stood out to me was um, you know, you worked with Tori Case Meyer, who I think both of us I'd never worked with him, but I know Tori really well and I've seen him coach and Um both of us believe that he's probably the best shooting coach in the

And I know how impactful he was for you. Um, he coached Ryan Brown. And I always said I could tell the guys that worked with Tori, which I think is one of the greatest compliments you can give and the girls that you can give a coach. is that you can see the impact in their the way they played. And I remember asking you, like, what makes them so special? Like what is there a secret that he teaches? Like what's the most impactful thing?

And there was a lot of things you could kind of talk about, but I think one you pointed out was his emphasis on getting back to the goal when you shoot. You elaborate there a little bit. Uh everything that, you know, he worked on with us and I think still does is about turning the corner and getting And a lot of people think that they're doing it, but they're not.

It makes a difference in getting two yards closer. I was showing one of my athletes this week, Hunter Shaw, that had a really nice on-the-run hit. And then he turns the corner. He starts turning the corner at 13 yards. And the ball is out of his stick at 10. And he's running inside the hashes to the goal. That two to three yard difference is massive for everything that we're talking. I think when you're turning the corner, it leads you to more physical play.

You know, which you're you're dictating where you're going and cutting your defender off as opposed to getting driven to that slightly lower angle spot. And so that was the core focus. And it's been really cool to see. it stand the test of time because I think a lot of Tori's teachings too, like have come from he spent a long time coaching with Dave Huntley, you know, who's a legend in the game and Dave's a Canadian and uh, you know, huge box back.

So, you know, a lot of box lacrosse is built around getting to the middle of the field, getting your stick back to the middle, incorporating pick play. Turning the corner, you know. So that's that's been really cool to see. And you know, that's where now as I think about teaching that technique, but in the realm of the kind of shots that we want, why why separate? Yeah, I mean it's basic fundamentals when you think about like every sport Not to get technical here, but I believe

lacrosse is like an invasion sport, they call it. And same with basketball and you're trying to invade space to get to a good scoring opportunity. Same with soccer. And so in basketball you talk about getting to the getting to the rim, you know, getting to the paint. And all about driving into danger space to create a shot opportunity. And if you don't get it, then you kick it out to somebody that has more space on the perimeter and you try to do that a few

Um, and I think about it, it's the opposite defensively, right? And so it's all all we talk about defensively is we want to not let guys knife through to that space and that territory because those were the quality shots come from. And I always remember, and I didn't mention Pat Kelly earlier, but he was a guy too. Calvert Hall player played at UNC, played professionally for a little bit.

He would run like he would turn the corner and just keep running at the goal when he shot. Like I never saw somebody just keep going and getting so close to the cage, but he saw so much network. Like you watch a lot of his goals, he would just keep bending towards that like.

towards the pipe or towards the net. And that was such an impactful thing that, you know, Tori did a lot of work with those guys. I think there's one other analogy. Like the gold medal stuff's great. Another analogy that kind of gets you to the same point of shot selection that also in Sarama's book. um talks about this concept of like an iPhone trying to be relatable to players saying walking into an Apple store. And the concept is really you walk into an Apple store for 24 seconds.

And every few seconds, an Apple employee hands out a different type of iPhone. The models range from a cracked iPhone 5 to the brand newest version of the iPhone. And you can choose it to return it and see what else you receive or leave the store immediately. So if you get a cracked iPhone 5 right when walking the store, you can take it and leave, or you can return it and see if you get a better one later on.

And basically the con the idea is just, hey, those cracked iPhones you get right away might be a low quality shot. You want to keep kind of iterating through until you get to the nicest version of the iPhone that they might And if they don't give it to you, well yeah, you can take a lower quality shot, maybe with

four or five seconds left on the shot clock, but you don't want to take that shot with 24 seconds left on the shot clock. And this is a basketball analogy here. So in lacrosse, like yeah, in the first 40 seconds, you don't want to take the cracked iPhone. You don't want to take the low quality shot. However, if there's you know six seconds left on the shot clock and you've worked it around enough and you've really kind of probed.

you might have you might start settling for those silver, bronze, or lower tier shots, but it's more of a metaphor of like choosing that quality in relation to uh the time you have left in the situation. Yeah, it's a great point. I love that. I think it's a great one. Uh, I think the more you use these relatable analogies, the better they stick. I've always been a huge fan of, you know, when people can explain through the analogies and real world or relatable situations.

It gets the message home versus that just the technical well, this is X and Y and this is why you do it. It's like that's great. But like It doesn't it doesn't bring up any emotions, you know? Like I, you know, playing for again training with Tori, playing for Andy Towers. Playing for John Donowski. Like these guys have these special skills of creating these analogies. Some are freaking hilarious.

Some I can't even repeat on this podcast, but it gets the message home. Um, I I remember at when I was at USC. I tried to do a a shopping one uh for for the girls and you know again I have three sisters so like I was like all right I think this might this might connect. And I was talking about how You know, when you're going shopping, like how often do you buy the first pair of shoes you see? Or, you know, buy like the first dress.

you know, that you see in the store. You know, you don't. You go in, you try it on, you show your friend, you show your mom, you know, then you go into the next store, then you come back. Um, so To me, like that was another analogy for not taking like the first shot of the possession. You know, like if it's a good look or a solid look, we're going to get better. We're gonna continue to grind the defense down. And I think it's very similar

you know, with the actual selection of the shot. So I love that stuff. I uh if anyone's listening like and you have more analogies, I would love to hear because again I think You can also like there's so much value in being able to keep reframing it for people that you coach consistently. Like you have to come up with new stuff or else you just sound like you're beating a dead horse. So uh I think it's

I think it's fun. This is where like coaching gets interesting. And I see you smirking over there. You're probably thinking of something, uh, something else here. Coach Pressler has a lot of good ones. It's not shot r shot related, but he talks about uh one that always stands out as the pink elephant. And that's where you're so tired, you start hallucinating, you see the pink elephant come out. And he just talks about when you see the pink elephant.

Like you're going to see it, and you got like talks about how we got to train through it in practice, and we're going to see the pink elephant today. And when you see it, like You know, you gotta be ready. And just kind of like taking this thing that happens to everybody of like getting exhausted and learning how to turn that into something tangible. And people don't forget the pink elephant. I'll tell you that. Um

I think circling back here, you know, it's a pretty good, it's a pretty good transition. Um, another thing we had on our list was kind of going through some of these. constraints led approach stuff. It's a very, you know, I don't want to say hot topic. Uh we get a lot of questions about it. Whenever we put out content on it, people say they like it and they want to hear more about it, read more about it.

Um, I think the theme I wanted to talk about The constraints stuff, the CLA and it can sound and look intimidating when you read it in theory, because it is pretty scientific and there's some um, you know, big words and some people have done a really great job of distilling it into practical terms, but it doesn't need to be. In fact, we all probably use it, just not as intentionally as

thinking of it through the constraints led approach lens. Um, but what we're talking about right now with shot selection is is CLA. It's a pretty simple way to put a constraint on a drill and you could say, hey, you know, gold medal shots count as two, or we have to get gold medal shots or shots we have only silver and gold medal shots count here. And that's a constraint on the type of shots that count or can take or you can take.

Um so I think it's a pretty natural uh transition here, Demer, into Talking about some of this CLA stuff, I know you've been using a lot of it. You and I have been going back and forth about how to pretty naturally implement it into Practice training sessions into coaching without making it feel like this intimidating intimidating task that's just like whole overhaul to how you've coached in the Yeah, and I think I think a lot of, you know, longtime coaches too that have been really successful.

They've used a lot of different constraints type approaches in their coaching very naturally, like in terms of being creative to find ways to teach. Like Joe Amplo, you know, mentioned his lesson, I think, from Coach Tanowski of like, you're not a coach, you're a teacher. And so, you know, I think again, like some of the best coaches in our game and just in sports have used constraints very naturally in a lot of different ways.

I think where the shift is even more is, you know, how do you how do you create some some frameworks to where, you know, it's It's more and more consistent and implemented across more drills. You know, like everyone. you know, you you do a different three V two drill and you have team A versus team B and you've got a winner and a loser based on who scores more goals. Well I think

trying to push the limits on, you know, what you're bringing out in your players by what are the constraints, but also like what you're incentivizing to. I think uh I think in the past like my sport Experience, I can remember just a lot of it's the competition drill, like you're bringing out competition and you have a winner and a loser.

Well, I think where CLA has challenged me and has gotten even more interesting is well sometimes just the winning and the losing, like you can't always recreate that high kick ass environment that everyone is so gung ho ready to like rip each other's face. I think using things like different scoring systems and sometimes they're intricate. Sometimes like you're building off of them and you're trying to really, you know, create some interesting games.

That's where you're like tapping into the motivation more intentionally, you know, and you're you're trying to create a reward system. and being intentional around that versus just saying, hey, this is what we want to avoid. So I think I think there's things with the constraints and, you know, rewards that

you know, coaches can continue to use more and more, but yes, to your point, like it doesn't have to be crazy. It's just trying to uh trying to reimagine and reinvent some drills or layer this stuff. It reminds me of what John Crawley, uh he's now the head coach at High Point, um

said on our one of our first webinars in our online community, um, maybe like two years ago, he was still the offensive coordinator at Hopkinson. And he talked about coaches being drilled designers. And he talked about how he basically how he builds his offense and how he drills the things that are important. And it kind of reinforces what

Surama says in transforming basketball, which I think is a a core theme of the CLA stuff also, which is goal should be to approach practice through the lens of designing activities around the problems that present themselves as opposed to using the same drills over and over again. And so I think it's it's

Not that the drills are bad that people use. It's kind of a reframe. And I think to your point, a lot of coaches do this naturally. It's designing the drills to specifically solve the problems that the coach believes need to be solved. So Coach Crawley talked about, Hey, I watch film. We watch you know, if it's the fall we work it off. last year's kind of analysis of what we needed to work on. If it's a spring we watch

last week, the prior week's film. What do we need to work on? Okay. Saw this play over and over and we are not capitalizing on these and we think it's important. How do we create a drill environment where this scenario pops up over and over again and players can practice uh, you know, operating this skill more efficiently in a game-like environment.

And so to to the point, it It's not that any one drill, a three on two is bad, but it's making sure that you're getting what you need out of it versus just like rolling the balls out and doing a three on two. or four on three or two on two wing play. And that's where the constraints come in. It could be, hey, we're holding the ball too long. So we're gonna put on a three second shot clock or or a a three cradle roll or something whatever it is that

Forces players to play faster. And Demar, I'm wondering like wondering, like specifically, because I know you do a lot of these, like what specific constraints have you found to be the most helpful when you're looking at skills you think players need to help to elicit those in training environments that it would be pretty simple for somebody to toss into some of their training um or practices. What one of my favorites has just been adding shot clock.

Because when I read uh Rob Gray's How We Learn to Move book, one of my favorite analogies in that book was the reference to Tim Tebow. And how when he finally got to the NFL, everyone had b always been explicitly telling him, Hey, you gotta throw this way or you gotta like get the ball out out of your hand fast. And the speed of all the games prior, you know, leading into that NFL career never were fast enough to like truly force him to like upgrade his mechanics. And so I remember like

seeing examples of hey, like what would he have done differently? He would have started a defensive lineman like one yard closer, you know, past the line of scrimmage, or different things that would have forced Tebow to respond to the environment and like get the ball out.

And so I found myself in a lot of drills like trying to get players to play faster or even like in training sessions, like put more effort in. So I was like, instead of me like saying this and sounding like a, you know, Let me just put a shot clock in it. And when I put a shot clock in, I could go seven seconds, I could go five seconds, I could go nine. And doing that in more small sided drills, it's forcing the decision, it's forcing the decision faster.

And then they have to respond. And you get'em en get'em enough reps at it. they they can respond and they can adapt to that. And that's trying to get kids to play faster. And so that, you know, because again, when what does everyone talk about when they get to college? The speed of the game.

speed of the game, speed of the game, everything happens faster. Kids say it over and over. And so that's where, you know, hey, that to me is something that I'd I'd prioritize training. And the more I say play faster, it's not going to get them to actually operate at a higher speed. Yeah, I think that decision making process and I know you and I were talking about too, like when you when you look at a player, how do you decide or a group or a team you're working with, like how do you

decide that that's an important thing for them? Is that just like, oh, everybody needs to play faster? Or how do you decide like Because I know other ones we talked about, shot clock, gold medal shots, coating off some space, using tennis balls versus lacrosse balls, goal sides. Like, how do you decide which of these to include? Or is it just we'll use this one today, this one?

Yeah, that's an interesting question. I you know, when you were talking earlier in the show about Hey, this is what we did in clinics, you know, in twenty sixteen or seventeen, and then here's how it evolved. One thing I think is interesting to reflect on, when we first started doing like shooting clinics and defense clinics and

You know, there wasn't as many people doing it in in these different areas. So like one thing I thought when I was going around in like those early days was I was also showing and sharing drills and simple techniques that players could be taking from the clinic and doing on their own. And so part of it was a training environment and a training session, but it was also giving them some knowledge and things that they could take with them after.

You know, if it's a one-time camp or two or three times a year, take this with you. This one session is not going to just make you a better shooter, but you're going to take this knowledge with you going forward. Fast forward seven or eight years, there's a lot of people in each of these. you know, quote unquote areas where there's people running small group skills training and doing shooting and taking private lessons. So when I think about

the need there. The you know, and we have a lot of our videos online. So like, do I need to spend a couple of minutes showing layup drill or over the cone or just like some of these ones that I was doing more. I think we've shifted into more, well, if we're gonna have a 90 minute session with this group. W the things that we're solving for right now are training that shot selection, are training that decision making, you know, working on some of that off-ball space.

And that's kind of dictated, I think, the type of drills that we're doing more in those like one-off scenarios. And then I think, you know, for some of our weekly stuff or even some of you for like Highland Park, like, yeah, I think you have a better sense and feel for

you know, a kid's background, what other sports do they play? You know, do they do they have a good feel for the game, but maybe they are just mechanically needing to, you know, be a little more focused and technical? Or are they You know, pretty Pretty technical. They're getting a lot of technical work in their, you know, day-to-day, but can we create a dynamic environment that causes them to compete, causes them to make more decisions, exposes them to different constraints?

And you you r challenge them for for ninety minutes in those different ways. And that pushes them out of that comfort zone. I think that's kind of how I've been been thinking about it. And that's where, you know, again, it's different for every group, but you're also

You know, it depends too, like how you're working with a group. Is it like a one-off session or is it a team? Everyone, Matt here. We wanted to take a quick second to pause and talk about our SCL online coaches community. We started the community because we're obsessed with coaching and with learning from people who've shaped the game. Coaches have had a huge impact on both Demer and myself and building a place where we could hear from top college coaches and apply their ideas right away.

felt like the obvious next step. The webinars, the drills, the teaching frameworks, they've helped us coach with more clarity and they've become a great resource for full staffs who want to stay aligned. If you want something that keeps you sharp throughout the year, you can look at firstclasslax.com backslash community.

That's firstclasslacks.com backslash community or you can find the link in our description below. Now back to our conversation. And I think you're we're highlighting a lot of the nuances of coaching too. It's like very

scenario dependent context driven, context of where are the players at, where's the group at? Context scenario driven of like what's your relationship with them? How much time is it a one off? Do you get do you get them once a week in the fall? Are you the full time coach? Do you see them every day? And in all those scenarios you're looking at you're like kind of solving that timeline and I'll even say

If you're a high school coach, this is, you know, a different approach than if you're a college coach. Because if you're a college coach, you might be able to spend the fall time doing hold your stick like this, step like this, do this. And because that becomes a foundation. So when you go into practice and you do these decision making drills, techniques reflect

Whereas a high school coach or you know, club coach or um a a trainer or whatever, you gotta decide what the objective is. And as a high school coach, sometimes it's like Yeah, it would be optimal if you held your stick this way and and if you step this way. But we have playoffs in two and a half months and like I don't bel I don't know that conviction that that's gonna help us do better then.

And so like, okay, but I think we can get you more comfortable like in this concept of feeling space out, you know, being a little deceptive, understanding these gold medal shots, understanding to play with some pace with the shot clock and

and the cuts we want in the off ball spacing. And so I do think it's like a lot of stuff what we teach is like kind of start zooming out and starting with like what's the scenario and what's the objective here. And like to Coach Carly's point, how do we design things to solve what we think are the most important problems?

And to me, that is the value of uh you know what a great coach does is they don't just have this arsenal of drills they just spit out randomly. They kind of can take in a scenario, understand what they're working with, who they have. what's important, you know, what those players need and what they can get out of them. And then they di the reverse engineer like these they use the tools with the drills and what they know to reverse engineer these

things to solve the problems that will be most important to the team. Yeah. And I think that's where the CLA approach has probably Probably been misinterpreted as like not coaching or just creating a drill and like letting things happen. But I think the designer analogy is the best example of that. And I think where Where the challenge is now is Players want instant feedback, but they're also like so programmed from parents, and parents want that immediate feedback to where you're like

You want this coaching to happen like right away. And you want, oh, what did I do wrong there? What did I do wrong there? It's like that's not going to just fix what you're saying, to to just overanalyze. You have to let some repetitions happen. You have to like be present and like making decisions in the drill or the game. And then you have to reflect and assess.

And I think there's a art and a process to that. And again, where I see players being really different with that too is that there's some that are so hyper like self critical that you know they are seeking that feedback, but it's too much. Like you need to relax and go play the game. And then there's some players who bull in a China shop, like they're competitors, they're not over Analyzing anything.

And if you can get them to slow down and reflect on a situation more or help inform their decision making. That's a win. But the players are coming from different angles. But like what coaching looks like now has definitely evolved because of how youth sports has evolved. And it's not necessarily better. Um, and and I and Matt, I do like I do have a point here that I wanted to get to around youth sports and coaching. Everyone loves to make this big stink about multi-sport app.

There should be more. You we're not playing the multi-sports like you're used to. And that's true. And and and I think that that's something that people should feel more confident and comfortable like playing in more sports. But as coaches. That's now the background and the upbringing of the players that are coming in front of us. They're exposed less to these other sports.

So, how can we create drills and environments that can get them more of that decision making that they're not getting from playing basketball growing up like you and I? And that I think is a challenge. And that's something that we have to, you know, we can lament about it and we can you know, have our gripes and not feel like it's right, but that's also where it's been going. So we have to adapt our coaching to supplement what some of the players are not getting.

That's a really interesting point. And I I'm now thinking about, you know, you and I coming up. You played football, basketball across. I played football, basketball across. We played a bunch of

backyard games and all this. The thing that you probably needed the most your senior year of high school was shooting technique work. Probably not a lot of like Feeling a two-man game action out or something along or flowing with ball movement because growing up playing all these sports, you get a ton of those rats.

But you had your stick in the ha your hand for, I don't know, maybe a third or half of the year or most of your life and not two not, you know, two thirds to three fourths of the year, the full year, which nowadays A lot of lacrosse players have their stick in their hand nine to nine to eleven months of the year. And I'll maybe give them a month off with maybe not a full month ever. And even even at young ages.

And what they're not getting a lot of is exposure to different patterns. Like if you play club lacrosse year round and school lacrosse and do lacrosse training, like You're not going to get exposed to these advanced patterns that are happening in the next level. And if you're in middle school, you're not going to get exposed to good high school. If you're in high school, you're not gonna get exposed to a lot of these good cause across.

Because they happen at a faster pace. The ball movement, the tempo, the timing, the deception, they're all so different. But if you play basketball or hockey or or football or depending on your position, like you're gonna get some exposure to these actions in different environments over and over.

If you play box lacrosse, you're gonna get exposure to two man game at lightning, an off ball two man game at lightning speeds compared to field lacrosse, which is going to help you in the pattern recognition, spatial awareness, athletic IQ at the next level.

But if you just play field across year round or, you know, even box across, but if you're not playing with players that actually really are good at box across that no that can access the patterns, that's gonna be your deficiency when you get to, you know,

The high school, college, and you might be more skilled than the last generation. You might have better shooting technique. You might have better hand, better stick, better. Um, you know, you might approach with your stick straighter out in front or something. like that or no stick inside off the ball or fire, fire, fire, slide, whatever. But the spatial awareness, the flowiness, like the athletic IQ, the reading, that seems to be the deficiency now. It's the it's the figure it out.

mindset. Like it it's adaptability, it's resilience, it's you know, playing on the fly, accessing the creative part of the game. Because if you look at yes, kids are playing more lacrosse than ever. When you go to a recruiting tournament, you're trying to impress, you're trying to showcase, you're trying not to lose your spot on a club. And so if if we have a 312 and it's this scripted 312 look, well, you're just running the look.

you're not actually exploring like the feel of the game always. And then if you're going to hey all these skill sessions, awesome. But it's shoot like this, get your elbow like this. Do you know XYZ move? Well, okay, now you're being able to regurgitate and show someone that you can do this hitch move. But it doesn't mean that when the problem presents itself on the field that you're so used to accessing that hitch move.

to get around your defender and beat that guy, like a face dodge versus a hitch and roll for you know, so You're playing a lot of lacrosse, but not many offenses at the high school and club level are running like free flowing type of

sets where you're getting a dodge, you move like this, you move like that, and then things start moving around you and you're working on that decision making. Like it a lot of times it's more scripted than you think. So If we're you know then comparing that to a box lacrosse type of set, you have a couple set plays, but you're running picks and slips over and over on ball and off-ball, and it's just concept, concept, concept.

That's my interpretation of that. And then, you know, again, like your your pool of information and cross reference and like diverse skill sets that you're gaining is is shrinking. And so that's where it's a very interesting thing that it's not just about like what you do do, but you also have to undo habits and undo things in ways that you've like been programmed over years. if y sometimes if you need to break through to that next level of

operating in creativity. I mean, I remember it reminds me a lot of like talking to Jesse Bernhardt, who is defensive coordinator at Maryland, talks about he he was on a webinar last year for us. Um And he talked about a lot of what they do when guys get to campus is breaking habit.

is breaking'cause we all ha everybody has them and and once again as a coach you gotta kinda determine which habits are worth breaking in your timeline. As a college coach, you get a freshman, you hopefully have four or five years.

with them in a fall and and into the spring. So you have enough time to kind of break habits. But a lot of it, that's what it is. You know, you're you're breaking habits people have to kind of reestablish the new ones. One thing that kind of stood out in your point about You know, you can practice these moves as an offensive player, like the hitch and all this, but if it doesn't,

If you can't execute it in a game, it doesn't it doesn't matter. And it kind of brings me back to the the original point of like gold metal shots. If you hitch great, if you're the best I see this all the time with some of our guys and different high school players and even cut some college players where it's like you might have these great moves, but they're not getting where they need to get. So you might have the best split in the game, but if you split to nowhere, like who cares?

And that's where like this whole concept of gold medal shots or shot quality comes into play because you teach it defensively too. It's like, hey, I don't care if the guy splits and gets three yards of separation if he's not running to anywhere we care about. Like That guy didn't beat you. It might feel like he did, because we are we have to understand what we're taking away.

So like everybody goes ooh and ah when you make the big hitch or whatever. But if you're not running to a dangerous area and getting downhill like the case meyer effect getting downhill to the goal, well like doesn't re it's kind of just, you know, it's it's fool's goal. It's window drive. And so one of my big things that I see all the time is kids practice moves, but they're dodging angles.

They it's like you don't set up a dodge to get to the gold medal zone. So they make the big move and they end up with a low angle shot. And so that like these things are what give me some of his conviction and what we talked about earlier is like it really does come back to area anchoring to areas of the field with shot quality.

Shot quality shots come from an area of the field as an offensive player. You got to penetrate that as a defender, you have to take that away. And so all of these things, the moves great, but the you got to generate a gold metal shot. So whatever move gets you there, like The hitch is a tool to do that, right? So the hitch isn't bad, but if we're just doing hitches for no like not understanding what it ties to, hitch does not help. It's spot on. And uh and that's where again, like back to even

my thoughts have gone with this with, you know, dodging footwork. Well, even if your footwork is fantastic and then you start fading away and you're not creating contact on your dodge, you know, again ties into the angles thing that you're you're saying.

It's worthless. It's not getting you better. You know, whereas at the same time, Think about how many Canadians or even guys that are slower dodgers, you know, they're but they're using contact and they're focusing on getting to those spots and they're being deceptive with some of their speed and some of their fakes.

Well, those guys end up getting to the highest percentage scoring areas more often than not, even though they're not this ideal Dodger that's all over a lacrosse or basketball mixtape. And and I think that's, you know, the challenge there is just I think staying focused. staying focused as a young player or, you know, a parent, or just like not getting caught up in, hey, well, how's this going to impact my rank?

you know, the the focus needs to keep coming back to how am I gonna become the best version of myself, most recruitable athlete I can. And and there's a lot there. Um One thing, Matt, that, you know, kind of ties into a lot of what we're talking about today too, like just different skills. I I saw an incredible Like no look, one touch pass from Finn Thompson on man up for Syracuse. And he's been one of my favorite players to watch these last couple years because he's so slick, so deceptive.

And I think that's one that has been really hard for me to teach in today's game is a no-luck patch. And that came so natural from playing basketball and like recess football and just looking off safeties and, you know, looking players off and throwing the ball the other way. And I've had a lot of trouble

getting players to use that, even in these environments where we're doing like a two-on-one. And I'm just like, hey, like consider like your eyes and your shoulders and your fakes to to get the defender thinking that you're doing one and going the other way. It's again, it's on me as a coach, but it's it's been one of the harder things to get. And some players do it really well, and I would say ninety percent do.

We had uh it's funny'cause I you know, maybe I'm in my seventh year of coaching high school across and I'm starting to really see these like archetype of player show and we've had them like I've had them throughout the years where they you have the the the great athlete Um who's got great feet, strong, all this stuff, maybe really clean stick, and you have

you know, this player, all these different types of players and some of the very best have all these combined. But one that's always been I really enjoyed because usually it comes with a funny personality too, is the player that is the long pole defender that is very deceptive. And they're really good at doubling throwbacks. They sniff them out like crazy. They're really good at sliding.

They're really good in the clear of being deceptive. And the way our clear works is you kind of end you wanna end with a two on one passing scenario. So it's usually you want to you have the opportunity to pump one way and throw the other way and it works ninety-five percent of the time. But A lot of guys really struggle with that and being deceptive. And there's this

style of player that we've had a few of that are really good at like this chunk of things. And I'll tell you anytime a guy's about to roll back, that guy is there. Like he you you watch I watched the film with them, his eyes like he sees everything and he knows the guy's rolling back before the offense.

Drawing back. You know, on the clear, like without a doubt, he's able to pump and get it over. If he's pushing on a fast break and he thinks the guy's a bad approach, he's gonna wind up and face dodge the approach and go to the goal. And It's like, and this guy for me historically has not been the weight room guy, has not been, you know, the fastest guy on the team, always the most in shape. And

And and, you know, so other things that under index, but noticing that athletic IQ and skill, it's so innate and it bleeds through to all of these different parts. And most of these kids, they were good at other sports growing up.

They played other things, kind of that free play backyard mentality. They just recognized They recognize scenarios, opportunities, and advantages, and they don't let guys off the hook, players off the hook, if they have a bad approach, if they if they aren't aware of they roll back in a bad area, you're not getting off the hook.

Yeah, I mean I I couldn't agree more. And I I think it's uh it's hard because I do think there's there's probably a lot of coaches in some capacities that think that they're they're going to develop. And you come back to the discussion of, well, what can you train? What can you develop? How much time do you need to develop? And even if you develop it, They're still not gonna be as good as that kid that's like

already doing a lot of those things so naturally. And then they become elite at it. You know, it's like they're g they're already good at something and then they become really freaking good versus you get competent enough in areas but

You can't teach all the situations that are gonna happen, you know. And so that's where it's also fascinating in recruiting, where you know, you can see why some guys you know, get recruited so much earlier and some girls get recruited so much earlier than others and they're like the ones jumping off the page.

But over time, it doesn't mean that those are the ones that end up having those amazing four year careers and going on to be best players after that. And uh and that's that's a challenge. I think there's, you know, there's probably a lot of players too. And that It it's it's an art, you know. It there's not a perfect way. And and I guess every coach has to find their different ways of well, what are those things I'm looking for that? is gonna help lead me to

This next impact player, you know, on my team. Yeah. And I'm a believer, you know, I'm a believer you can improve anything. I think you and I both have. you know, very like growth mindset oriented. You can improve anything, but realistic in the sense of how much you can expect somebody to improve in a short period of time.

And some players will prove you wrong, super coachable. You give them feedback, you do your best to drill it and show them and they'll take it to heart and they'll they'll get better at it. But to your point, like some of these things are so the patterns are are so ingrained. Um And it doesn't mean you can't be good at other things or get better at those things, but I just think anybody that's coach

kind of can tell that hey, that guy's got a great, you know, a great feel for the game. And it comes or that girl's got a great feel from the game and Like you even mentioned it at the Dallas camp. You asked one of the girls like, hey, did you play basketball growing up because of the way she was playing? She threw a no-look pass and she was like, Yeah, I did. You're like, yeah, I could, I could tell because that's a thing that just happened from like a basketball.

Yeah, I was I was seeing that stuff happen and I was like, Hey, like, who knows if this is the next Charlotte North here? You know, she's doing things that Yeah, I'm like begging committed players to do. And she's in eighth grade already, already doing them. And I'm like, if she's doing them now in these drills. She's only going to keep finding w ways and

in different solutions to more more problems. And then, you know, the next fakes that she throws are gonna be the behind the back fakes and the, you know, and and she's just gonna be farther ahead on that on that curve and that stuff's gonna really keep keep applying. So uh no, it's a it's a very interesting um, you know, discussion. And uh, you know, Matt, like kind of circling back to some of these constraints, like we've definitely talked about a lot of the offensive ones.

I'd love to hear like how you're using some of these defensively. You know, how are you in applying some of what you learned in the CLA? How are you balancing it with? uh what you've done from a you know a technique perspective and and way of doing things, what what are you seeing on that side of the ball? It's definitely something that comes up a lot to us. Coaches are like, I don't know how to use this defense.

It's something that I reflect. Like it's been used defensively for a long time. When we were in college, we would do drills that weren't called CLA, but they were. I see coaches do them all the time now. I do'em. So you think about on ball drills defensively, like

One of the biggest habits a lot of players have is to reach for contact. And that usually means lunging for the ball. And coaches like to say, don't lunge. But really, you know, what happens is arms extend and foot goes forward and we reach for contact. Which every once in a while you get it. And some really good athletes can play that way and get it a lot, get good contact. You look at, you know, maybe like uh uh you know, Aiden Maguire type

short safety midi or some that can be really confrontational, but a lot of players they can't as much. And so one thing is to take away the ability to reach. And one, you know, we've done drills, players hold their hands behind their back. Well that's a constraint. If your hands have to be behind your back, you can't reach out.

You just constrain the ability to reach for contact, which means the only way to block a guy from an area is by moving your feet. So rather than say move your feet, it's either you get beat or you move your feet to stay in the

Same thing we used to pin balls under our elbows so that you had to keep your elbows pinned in tight. Or if you extend your arms, the balls fall out. And that, you know, that you don't want the balls to fall out in the rep. So now you've constrained the ability to reach for contact. And then you do these like dummy dodging one-on-one drills, or you can do different versions of drills like that. And you've constrained the ability to reach for contact.

Um, I think reverse engineering gold medal shots and saying, Hey, we're gonna play a drill, maybe we'll play a drill against the offense. Like, you know, we We can't give up a shot in this area. Or if we do, it's like worth three for the offense and playing competition drill. But that feels like an offensive constraint or an offensive CLA, but that is a defensive CLA thing too. You've reframed what you need to take away. And the constraint is where you don't want to let shots.

So now in a decision-making hierarchy, you're do you fly out to a shooter at at 14 when there's an open guy at eight? Because that's the gold medal shot. We can't give that one up. So you're teaching slow playing through this constraint of space. I think stick work ones are big ones we talk about. Ones I like are these touchdown games, which are keep away style games with advancement. I think one of the big things people miss. in keep away is that

You have to in lacrosse, you have to advance the ball and you have to clear it. And I found that out a couple of years ago. We were doing a lot of keep away. And then we were we were clearing and guys wouldn't run the ball up the field and nobody was in front of them.

They just kept running this like clearing pattern. I was like, guys, like nobody's in front of you. We gotta just go. And so we started doing a lot of keep away drills with advancement. So if you're the open guy and nobody picks you up, you just keep running to the other end zone. If somebody picks you up, then you find the open guy at headman. Um so the stick work style drills you can do a lot.

And I think just getting creative, like once again, adding your own constraints like We've done ones where you have to double, like somebody has to double. If there's a clear through or pick within five yards, you have to double, even if it's not a good one. But that constraint then forces the backside guy to have to rotate into the play. So if that guy's sleeping and not anticipating it, well, the throwback's gonna be wide open.

So it's still a constraint and it teases out a behavior like if I want the backside more connected to the ball side, if we're going to double and jump everything, there's going to be a lot of quick slip throwbacks. So the backside guy's got to be cheating over and kind of reading that rotation.

So I know I just fired off like a handful there, but I don't know that it it has to be like this cute or like intimidating thing, I think there's a lot of ways to just once again think about the behaviors you want and then create some rules and scenarios that require those behaviors to be emphasized. in order to have success in whatever drill or um, you know, competition you're doing.

Yeah, it's interesting. One of the things I've noticed too, you know, and and I would say probably even more so on the on the women's side because there are no long sticks, but when I've done a lot of the different three on two, three on three, four on three, et cetera, type of numbers with different constraints. I end up seeing a lot of defensive coaching situations emerge, like opportunities to speak to

defensive decision making and like you said, slow playing. Like I slow playing makes so much sense to me when I think of hoop. And, you know, kind of splitting two and not rushing out to someone and giving up the dump pass. But like it happens all the time. And and so when I think about these, like, yes. There's a lot of like disadvantaged quote unquote drills, but you're giving the offense an advantage so that it teases out like that defensive.

you know, and that defensive need to adapt and solve and, you know, kind of choose. Um, whereas I think when you're drilling too, You know, if it's if it's always even and you're just not getting the dodge and recovery, you know, or the slide and recovery. It's just you have to, you know, you have to create some of that to be able to bring out those different situations. And I think the more you like pull on the levers of the constraints.

It uh it allows that stuff to emerge. Well, you think about like the objective of the game, right? The offense is trying to create an advantage to score. So you want to practice drilling offense at an advantage. It's probably one of like you think about things to practice, practice drilling offense at an advantage and how to exploit it and practice drilling defense at a disadvantage. And how do you get from a disadvantage back to neutral or an advantageous position?

So those drills that feel offensive focused, I don't look at'em that way. Like you're just exp putting the defenders in a compromised position in a disadvantage and you're working on the skill of navigating back to And so that means making reads. Like do you do you roll hard into the throwback and press the ball and put it on the deck? Or do you have to slow play and make kind of bluff the passer into a harder decision and take a bad shot, take a bronze shot, take a no-metal shot.

And so you just frame it through that lens of like, we are disadvantaged here. They might score, but like we're trying to bluff them out of From their advantage back to neutral or to like a smaller advantage, or maybe even a defensive advantage of a double jump. It's funny. I you know, I watched some of Marilyn Loyola and you know I I saw some uh some Q. So I've started like work through some film of some games.

If you were to say in some of these games, there was an average of, I don't know, what do you think, four to seven dodges of possession? Maybe something like that. I'd be curious what the actual number of dodges is. Say say it's three or more. At most, at most, you're talking about one to initiate the possession. That's this long dodge where everyone's set up and

Kind of ready to go, and then when that first dodge happens, it hits X, it swings to the back side. Now you have that shorter approach. Shot goes off the end line. They pick it up. 90% of the time, right now in the college men's game, it's going into a big look. So if you were to just think about the amount of time people tend, you know, or maybe used to spend on just like these normal 1v1s. 1v1s with the you know, this hey, you catch curl into the dodge, it's perfect, boom, good approach.

It seems like you want to over index more in the, you know, awkward approach, you know, off ball movement, you know, and just keep spending a lot of time in that zone because that first dodge, like the slide's gonna be ready, you know.

you know, ninety five percent of the time. So it's gonna get slid to then you're gonna recover. And now you're playing in that like you know, gray area secondary type space, which I think for the offense and the defense, it's like again, even like to my point about offensive training and working on your dodging. Everyone's like working on that like first dodge, like that perfect setup.

It's like how often is that really happening anymore to where you're like you do you need to spend so much time on that versus like creating advantage dodging situations and creating dodging situations with like multiple off ball players so that you're adding a decision, you only have so much time to work Yeah, I mean I I think it's important still, but I I think to your point, figuring out how much

How much of it is. And you know, when we had a lot of these webinars with coaches, like a lot of them are doing adjusted approach work, approaches off ball movement. Coach Ampelo came on the podcast. He talked about how there he's changed how he teaches approaches of more like decision making and interference of like working fighting through multiple players and seals and approaching and moving targets.

People think about the approach and I I think I've written on this before a little of like the people work on approaches by like running to a cone. Like that's not an approach. That's I don't know, like it's maybe something, but You work to moving target. And because the approach is this relationship between you moving with the ball and your man moving with the ball or or

um depending on where they're on the field kind of drifting. And then you have to line that up and make sure you establish your leverage to a moving target. And you can keep it efficiently and then cover So like the approach is actually this. Not just this on ball thing, it's this very hybrid on ball, off ball thing. It's the bridge between on ball and off ball.

And so to that point, like, yeah, an approach is just as much an off-ball drill as it's an on-ball drill. And I think that's probably undertawn. So Matt, as we start to wind down here, uh some seasons have already started, you know, you guys included. Uh some people are heading into trial. You've written on this before, we've talked about this with our different athletes. What kind of advice would you would you share in 2026 as players are getting ready to approach tryouts?

Yeah, it's a great question. Um, I know a lot of teams are going into it this this week. Um Look, there's there's some things that at this point it's it's it's too late for, right? I would say, you know, be in shape. Have clean stick work, all of that. Um, I imagine a lot of players they they've done that. And so one thing I would say is if you put in work in the offseason, be confident that you've prepared.

Uh a couple of tactical things I think players can focus on right now. Uh one I will say like have two sticks you can throw consistently. 'Cause you don't want to be the player at tryouts that in the second drill your stick breaks and the next two days you're throwing balls into the dirt. And I know that sounds like a small thing or like unlikely to happen, but

Until it happens to you, like it doesn't seem like a big deal. But then when it does, you're like, man, those are my two or three days to have a good impression. My bulk. Yeah. You're panicked. Yeah, you're panicked. And and so like that's a controllable thing. So that's why I'd say one, it's like pretty tactical and and simple, but have two sticks you're comfortable throwing with. Um I would say two.

Frame your mindset right going to tryouts. And I think a really s a helpful way to do this is think about like as you're approaching like what your what your conversation is you guys with yourself and i think for a lot of players it's like man i re I I really hope to make the team like I really want

And that might be true about what you want, but you're kind of going for the bare minimum there and you're looking for like loopholes of like ways to make the team. And I don't know if that's the most productive way to approach the triad. I remember going into Maryland and my dad kind of my dad gave me some advice. He's like, Give a run test when you get there, right? I was like, Yeah. He's like, Don't try to just pass it. Like, you should try to win the run.

I was like, oh, okay. Cause like in my head, I was like, oh, looking at the times, like I think I can pass that. Like I'm training to pass it. And it kind of just reframed how I approached it and my mindset towards attacking it. And I think the same thing for trial.

Don't just try to make the team try to look, try to add value, try to be an impact player. And that does not mean take every shot, does not mean all those things, but it means like don't just aim for the bottom barrel of like, I hope I'm the last player on the

approach it through a lens of like I'm trying to show that I can be valuable to this team. Cause on the other side of that, the coaches look at the tryouts and go, that player's that they I think they can help us. Just go, I really like that player. I think they can help us. And you don't become that player by trying to like just not be the worst player, you know, at tryouts. And then the last piece I'll add is uh

Look to add value off the ball. Most likely, if you're trying out and you're not a returner, you're probably not going to be the ball dominant carrier on offense and you're probably not going to make the team as like the covered. I say probably that could be true for some people, but probably. Look to add value off the ball defensively. Try to be the best communicator on the field. Try to steal space on the backside, be really involved in the play and be the loudest player on the field.

Controllable stuff. offensively and and Demer, I know you probably have some thoughts here. You know, cut with pace, cut with gravity, cut to score, set great picks. hustle on and off the field. If you drop the ball, run after it, hustle back and transition. And like you do all those things. Obviously lean into your strengths and play your best. But I think those are a couple very controllable things.

You know, have two sticks ready to go, be prepared, reframe your mindset to not just make the team, but add value. Um, add value off the ball and do things within your control. I love those. I don't have anything to add. I I think that's a great list. I I would just say that you were going as a player, you're gonna be nervous, you know, as a parent of a player, I imagine it's gonna be just

you're gonna be stressed like hoping and wondering that they're gonna gonna make the team. I I think the reminder and the affirmation that making this team does not define you as a person and does not define you as a player. Like it is not, it is not going to define the end game of your lacrosse career if you don't make this. And I say this because I think that if those constant reminders can help take the pressure off and the expectation.

and shift to just going out and doing the best you can each day of the tryout. And I think there's so many examples of people who got cut and maybe it was a wake-up call, maybe it was a kick in the butt, maybe it was just, hey, there were so many returning players that we thought you'd play more on JV. But if you can out. Constantly try to remind yourself that the ultimate success of your lacrosse career does not hinge on making

This team this year. And I'd say again, as a as a freshman and sophomore, I think that can take some pressure off and help you focus on. what matters, the controllables, so that you can be confident. So that you can, hey, let's see where my work got me and see how I stack up and and make this team, but hopefully more than just make Awesome. I think that's an awesome frame.

And it's really hard to do, I think, modeling that behavior and and it certainly stinks to get cut. I've been cut from teams before and I know how nerve wracking it can be to try out for teams and when you're the younger player I really want to make it. So um Demar, I think that's spot on. And I think we're good to wrap here. Anything else you got to add? No, awesome uh awesome episode and uh looking forward to the next one for any of our listeners.

If you have topics, ideas, guests, things that you like to hear, uh, you know, this this next slate of podcasts, we're all ears. We appreciate the feedback and uh excited as the uh lacrosse season picks up.