Lacrosse Off Season – Great Ideas From Penn

In my recent podcast with Mike Murphy from Penn, (one of my favorites,) he shared a new concept that the players love beginning early in the off-season…

Please remember that although in most “State Sanctioned” areas, we cannot directly coach our lacrosse players as a team in the fall, due to the rules of the State, there is still an awesome opportunity to work on the critical intangibles of our teams. Many of us help organize “Captains Practices” or training, but perhaps these ideas can take all of that to a new level.

As a unique team-building activity, leadership development activity, interwoven with competitive elements this is an awesome idea. [private] (log in to read the entire article,) They begin quickly in the fall by dividing the team into four units. But… it is much more than that. Rather than simply break the team into four units (perhaps it is two or three units if you have a smaller roster) they begin with a “Draft.” Pretty cool eh?

So to get the ongoing program established they begin with seniors or captains and they actually conduct a draft, complete with “Draft Board” and I am sure with great enthusiasm. It is a great way to get our freshmen or sophomores feeling like they quickly accepted into a unit.

The second element I love about this concept, is that at Penn, they use the names of Native American tribes who initiated the game we have all come to love, thus integrating some history and culture into the process. At Penn they call the teams or units: Cherokee, Choctau, Mohawk and Seminole. Although we may need to get Iroquois name in there somewhere.

Or let the players decide on their “tribe” name, and actually research and explain the history, type of sticks, balls, rules of the tribe they chose. Most players do not realize Native American Indians playing lacrosse went far beyond Upstate and Canada, the Great Lakes Region, the Midwest, and even in the South, tribes were playing lacrosse in their own unique way.

Once the “Tribe” program is introduced in the first year, players stay in the same Tribe for their four years. So this year at Penn the ‘draft’ is really on the eleven incoming players.

Now the fun and opportunities begin… In the words of Coach Murphy, “This accomplishes more things than I can list…” Once established, the Tribes become cohesive units, thus the team-building element. Upperclassmen helping and mentoring younger players in everything from Rides and Clears, to classroom help, weight room techniques, 4V4 competitions and 7V7 competitions, all done with Tribe competing against Tribe. Thus, now we have a leadership development element.

However the cool twist here is the added competitive element as well. In every event the Tribes compete. And a consistent running tally of scores and results, is kept and posted. It might be weight room attendance for high school players, wall ball attendance and reps, just let your imagination go. At Penn, once official fall practices are over they have ideas like “Tug-of-War” competitions to keep the team-building and cohesive tribe element alive.

You should take 5 min and listen to Mike Murphy describe all this in his own words, click here, then listen to the Preview, for all Free Members,

Other Ideas

1. When I was coaching high school, we had the players who were not directly involved in fall team sports, break into units (I was not nearly as creative as Coach Murphy) mixing freshmen and seniors, attack players with poles, and had them in local Rec Basketball Leagues. It was not pretty, no championships, but fun to watch!

2. We also would have weekly “Frisbee Football” competitions by unit groups in the gym in “off hours”, or Saturday mornings, again not pretty but fun to watch.

3. Again let your creativity go! I had a team that came up with a unique idea to keep the team together and engaged … they had a team dinner once a month in the off season, usually on a Sunday night, hosted by a family… But… the dinner was cooked by a group of players. Now that would be a great thing to make competitive! Give them a $25 budget and sit back and watch!

Love to get your thoughts below! mike@laxcoachmike.com
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