Originally Posted by Anonymous
Originally Posted by Anonymous
Many districts would have stronger programs if they adopted a philosophy from Varsity head coach down through youth coaching. The key is everyone must buy into the philosophy. Start with the girls when they are young and just make it fun for them and encourage them to bring their friends down. If you only have enough kids for one team in a grade play everyone equally and encourage the better girls to help develop the weaker players. If you are fortunate to have enough for two teams in a grade balance them and again play everyone equally. The most important thing for grade school town lacrosse is development not WINS. Keep the girls together as long as you can. Once middle school starts the stronger players will rise to the top and the weaker will stay involved because they had a positive experience playing with the better players (key is they are friends) through youth level. They know who the stronger players are but now are accepting that and either putting in extra work or not it is on them. At the HS level you will then have large numbers staying in the program because they want to be a part of something with their friends. The kids get it, the parents not so much! The towns with strong youth programs that operate this way have large rosters with many talented kids waiting their turn to step on the field some not till their senior year. Many have kids with verbal commitments on JV as 10 graders. To answer your question why so few seniors playing & having to beg girls to field teams I guess if my daughter didn't feel like she had that shot at seeing the field as a 12 grader and not feeling a part of something why would she want to stay around and watch the same kid go to goal and never pass the ball? Its a team game and the program must have a team philosophy from K-12. It works look at some of the towns that have been operating that way & it shows when they are at the LI Championship game or deep into the playoffs year after year.


Great post. The problem is at a very young age (and getting younger every year) some youth coaches and players are " all in" with year round club lacrosse. In our town our program has been hijacked by a few and they never adopted the best practices that you listed above about sharing the ball, playing time and positions. Years later, yes those handful were recruited however the rest of the program is hanging on by a thread. We have been hearing get the ball to Shannon since kindergarten. When 80% of scoring goes through a couple of players over a 7 year stretch how do you think the rest of players are developing?
[/quote]


you get the "get he ball to Shannon" when you split team evenly, you dont get that when you have the luxury of two teams and put the best players on one team! [/quote]

Sorry if you do not agree but that's how we do it in my town and we are in County finals every year and have 40+ trying out for V & JV every year. It works again like I said before everyone has to buy into the philosophy.