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At the end of each season Coach Alberici has a ceremony that he derived from his days of working with Mike Pressler at Duke, he arranges the locker room so that all of the seniors are up in front and then juniors, sophomores and freshmen are in the back. Once everyone is arranged he takes the seniors nametag off of his locker and talks about each one of them on a personal basis, not a statistical one. He brings up stories that have taken place over that players 4 years on the team. Stories of how the player overcame adversity to excel, how the player did something special outside of lacrosse to give to others, and other stories such as those. The stories are Coach Alberici’s way of coaching to the underclassmen the kind of person that he is looking for without directly saying it. After Coach is done telling the stories, the senior comes up, grabs his nametag and then walks out of the locker room one last time. This exercise is a real “eye-opener” for a lot of the underclassmen, they start to think about what will be said about them when they are a senior. At the end, everyone moves up a stool in the locker room to symbolize that they are moving up and then Coach talks about what needs to be done going forward for the new team. Some of those things are things that need to be improved on regarding the season they have just finished, some are things from the past that apply to the new team and need to be addressed. Overall it is a very emotional and powerful experience.

Summertime is a good time for small things that may not even be lacrosse related. Coaches need to attend to the whole individual and go to their non-lacrosse related events when possible, at other times just sending them a text asking how their exams went or things like that send the message that the player is valued as a person. Coach also keeps a birthday calendar and contacts them on that day to wish them a happy birthday and let them know he cares about them as someone other than just a lacrosse player. If you are thinking about a player, text them, let them know, it makes a difference.

Team captains are selected by the team including outgoing seniors because he wants them to continue to have a stake in the program. He ensures that players put their name on their vote for captains for the following year. He has players rank order 1 through 3 their choices of captains and he almost always goes with who the team chooses. He wants captains who can come to him with issues, and walk the walk. Coach says that even though he may only have 3 captains he ensures all players know that they all don’t need a “C” on their chest to be a leader on the team.

Despite all of the leadership training that goes on at West Point, Coach Alberici does conduct some separate and focused leadership training, but mostly he has regular captains meetings so that his captains feel empowered to bring issues to him and he actively solicits their feedback on players who may be being inadvertently overlooked and who need some of the coaches attention.

In terms of team activities and community service, the team does a Jimmy Regan run together in honor of Sgt James J. Regan who was a lacrosse player at Duke who graduated with a degree in Economics and was headed to a lucrative career on Wall Street when he decided that he needed to volunteer to fight for his country and was subsequently killed in action in Iraq. They have also taken groups down to Harlem and done clinics there to support the lacrosse development in the inner city areas as well as held free clinics at West Point, and there are many other team oriented activities they do that can be fit into their very limited time available as cadets.

Regarding goal setting, Coach Alberici has all his players come in during the fall and address 5 different categories and assess them. 1. Strengths 2. Areas for improvement 3. Individual goals (including academic) 4. Team goals (Beat Navy,

Coach John Paul from the University of Michigan talks about developing a positive team culture and how the skill of leadership can be learned by every player and is essential to each players development. My notes from our conversation are below:

The next season starts “the day after” their previous season ends. Each new team has its own identity, its own leaders and its own followers.

Summers present an interesting challenge because almost immediately after the season is over players are off in a variety of directions, however, Coach Paul uses the media that is available in this day and age, mostly group emails, to keep his players interacting and thinking about each other. Topics might be serious or they might just be a player sharing a joke or funny situation they experience during the summer, either way they are continuing their relationships and staying in touch.

Once players return to school the focus is on getting the freshmen settled and into what their program is about. Communicating standards, core values, expectations and letting them know what their program is all about is an immediate priority. Coach says he doesn’t have a system that he applies every year, but rather he has developed a set of tools over the 20 plus years he has been coaching at Michigan that he can apply to his team based on the composition of his team.

This years team has decided to form a leadership group of 10-12 players who each will be assigned 4-5 players to lead with each group having at least 1 freshman in it. Their duties are to ensure that team duties, tasks and events are properly communicated and attended to by everyone in their group. The smaller groups make it easier for the leader to manage and also allows them to get to know their group on a more personal basis and mentor them.

Previous years where his team has not had obvious leaders, Coach Paul did not assign leaders but rather let them develop by giving the upperclassmen additional duties to fulfill and seeing how they did with them. Things such as “stretching lines” and then rotating those duties amongst the available players and seeing how they develop. One year he didn’t pick captains until 4 weeks into the season and then only because the team felt they were ready and knew who those leaders were.

Getting the right players recruited and on the team is not an “exact science”, and has been hard in recent years because coaches have been forced to recruit players so early that they haven’t had time to demonstrate the character traits he is looking for. At present coaches have to make some predictions based on how the players interact with family, how they interact with others as they play.

Book recommendations:

The Hard Hat: This book is good for giving players something to strive for. Its like a substitute value system for players who are still struggling with what their values are. He had his leadership group read the book over the summer and then sign their names and year on the inside flap of the book to signify having read and studied the book. Coach Paul did that based on a recommendation from the books author, Jon Gordon, and he thinking it might have been even more effective for them to have purchased 50 copies and handed the book down from player to player. Either way, its a great read especially for lacrosse players because it is about a lacrosse player.

Legacy: by James Kerr. A great book about a great rugby team, the New Zealand All Blacks. There are many good lessons in this book but Coach Paul mentions that what impressed him most was how the superstars on this team all bought into the values and ethics of the team in all aspects. One of the things you would see an All Blacks player doing after a game would be to sweep out the locker room and clean it up “better than they found it”, even their visitors locker room. There is much more in this book for coaches to use to help their teams understand what

I am honored to bring you my interview with Nat St. Laurent, the Head Men’s Lacrosse Coach at Ohio Northern University. In 2014 Nat was selected by Ohio Northern to head up their first ever men’s lacrosse team after stints with Washington and Lee as well as Ferrum and VMI before that. Nat is also an assistant coach for the Major League Lacrosse team the Ohio Machine. Ohio Northern will be in their first official season this coming spring and Coach St Laurent will be taking us through how he has built his team from the ground up and developed what he knows will be a winning culture within his team. Startups are always hard, but they’re a whole lot easier when you have Coaches like Nat St Laurent leading them. Some highlights from the podcast include:

Starting a Lacrosse 101 program to help educate the local community about lacrosse and to get the players into the schools.

They are also beginning to get involved in reading to the youth kids at the local schools and looking at some mentorship programs as well.

Nat is an Army Reservist and has been going on 13 years now, and he is looking to bring in the military’s team bonding activities such as the confidence course, ranger training, and similar type exercises to help build unity and teamwork in his team as well as help his players better understand what unique skills and abilities they bring to the team by being challenged in some exercises outside of their comfort zone.

Has had his whole team read “The Hard Hat” by Jon Gordon and they are using it as a discussion guide and theme builder for their practices. Their main focus is to “embrace the process” but right behind that is a firm belief in the theme proliferated throughout the Hard Hat that “well done is greater than well said”, and they are focusing on both ideals in building up their team this first year coming up. Nat has also been on the launch team for Jon Gordon’s more recent book, “You win in the Locker Room First”.

ONU will not be having dedicated captains this year, they will be rotating their players through that role and will be forming a leadership council of 6-8 players across all classes to represent the team in weekly discussions with the coaches to discuss issues related to all classes. In this way the seniors and juniors do not dominate the discussion and freshmen and sophomores have a voice.

Duties are divided up and assigned to team leaders such as locker room upkeep, dynamic stretch at the beginning of practice, coordinating with the trainers for any post practice needs of the team (ice bags, etc…), and any other team duty that needs taken care of.

Nat believes integrity is extremely important and defines it as “what you do when no one is looking”. ONU players spend a lot of time reflecting on how their actions reflect not only on themselves but on the team, the coaching staff, the university and their families. The focus is on setting a standard of conduct that is beyond reproach and that the community sees as reputable. So far the team has been getting rave reviews from the school and community.

High goals are being set academically at a traditionally high achieving university. Nat hopes his players can maintain a 3.2 GPA or above, a 100% graduation rate, and play lacrosse in May (meaning post season!)

When putting his team together and recruiting players Nat is looking for men of high character who come from great families. He wants players who were excited about the opportunity to attend ONU and be part of a new program. When players visit ONU they are either the only recruit on campus or part of a select small group where he can get a feel for who they are as a person and if they are a good fit.

Once a player is on campus Nat tries to meet with each player once a week so they can review how things are going and start to put together the goals that each p...

This podcast is an interview with a collection of lacrosse coaches including Doug Bartlett of VMI, Steve Peterson of Mariemont H.S. Reed Peterson of Berry College, Steve Schooler and Kurt Kuwach from Cincinnati's Youth Programs.

Here are the show notes

Steve Peterson found a community service project in his hometown that needed physical labor that his team could fulfill. The project took 4 straight days of weekend work on their own time and helped build a work ethic into his players and built camaraderie on his team. Shovelling snow off the field has a similar impact for him as well. Steve talks about how it is important to do more than your share and it starts with the Head Coach, and then the assistant coaches, and then the formal or informal team leaders. Everyone needs to set the example so that all players know what is expected of players on the team. In his parting thoughts Steve talks about ensuring you have a quality team and high standards set. If you have a high quality team people will want to be a part of it.

Reed Peterson talked about the leadership development program at Barry College. Seniors who are in contention for being captains are given a number of upperclassmen and sophomores to lead in off season lifting and running events, and each of the individual groups are responsible for the members of the group meeting the running and lifting goals set for the group. If one fails, they all fail, so they bond together to help each other meet the goals. Reed says “standards are a mindset”. they really don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”. Reed also talks about using practice to mentally prepare his players for the game by scripting out 10 situations that he thinks his team needs to be ready for that week and then using the practice as a mirror of the game running those situations throughout practice. In his parting thoughts Reed says to create a successful atmosphere on your team, make it a family atmosphere. Reach out to the families and ensure everyone is included.

Kurt Kuwatch talks about how to integrate 10 minute leadership breaks into your practice and how that can effectively plant the seed of growth with each player while they are in the midst of competing and working hard. The short breaks act as a refocusing on what is important to the team and less on what they individually are struggling with during a particular practice.

Doug Bartlett talks about players’ roles and how acceptance of their roles helps build trust between teammates which is essential to the success of the team. Players need to know that you love them and you love the game. Coaches need to show they are passionate about the game. Coaches need to find out what makes each player tick.

Be confident right and confident wrong. Coaches need to be humble when they make mistakes, admit them and move beyond them. “You don’t have to be a captain, to behave like a captain”. Coaches need to find a way to reward every player out there, especially in practice. Doug also talks about the importance of preparation and how that carries a team forward into the season, that perfect preparation ensures that they will “never lose a game in their minds”. Coach also says that “sometimes less is more”, if you have your players at a level that you feel comfortable with, there is nothing wrong with sending them into the locker room early. Coach also talks about the importance of being humble in both winning and losing. He describes how if his team was losing by a lot at any time, he would take a time out in the last 5 minutes and remind his players to finish the game with the best they have regardless of the situation, because that is how they will start the next one. Doug says to “leave the room better than you found it.” Players can go from “who’s who, to who’s he, to who cares!” like that so we need to be engaging with them all the time to ensure we understand where they are mentally and emoti...

Nick Myers Interview Notes

Does exit interviews and a post season survey before the outgoing seniors move on to wherever they are headed next.

In year 2 of their leadership council

5 seniors-elected by team

3 juniors-elected by team

2 sophomores-elected by team

Add 2 freshmen once fall ball is over in the fall

Bi-weekly conference call with the group in the summer

Each player on the council will be charged with making 4-5 phone calls to teammates each week over the summer and share the content of those calls with the council. This includes making calls to the incoming freshmen.

Players refine and develop the rules and are in charge of implementing them.

They take a team trip together to West Virginia in the fall

ropes

white water rafting

campfire

No cell phones!

Every Wednesday when they return to school they meet and have “life skills” Wednesday

R-factor training with Tim Kight (E+R=O)

Different speakers from different areas of life skills come in and speak to the team on a regular basis.

300 hours of community service as a team since last May.

The Leadership Council acts as the “Board of Directors” for the team. They are selected by their teammates and it is work for these players but they consider it a great honor to be selected. Since it is work they do have a say in how things are done on the team.

Open communication is encouraged and demanded by Coach Myers.

Big brother program

Have to have a certain GPA

Have a certain number of community service hours

An upperclassmen is paired with a freshman and is responsible for the upbringing of the younger guy.

Treat your little brother like your actual little brother.

Lockers are right next to their little brother.

Captains

Coach Myers will select 2 or 3 depending on how their teammates vote. He thinks that a player should get 50% of his teammates vote in order to be a captain.

Captains lead the leadership group.

Ohio State’s character blueprint is

We not me

treating every teammate with love and respect

Do your job

know the why

train with purpose

All in

Above the line behavior is graded each day.

grade each player on the 3 character blueprint items above from 1 to 3 every day and post those grades.

Teaching is his primary role and mission. He considers coaching to be “one in the same” as teaching.

Both his parents were teachers and once they divorced each of them remarried teachers so he was raised a teacher by 4 teachers.

He majored in teaching and did his student teaching in college

Its about trust, relationships, and love

You need to get a feel for each of the guys, what does each player need. Assess the needs of your players as well as your assistant coaches.

Players who don’t grade out well in the “we not me” category aren’t making people better. A player needs to answer the question; “how are you making your team better” Coach Myers believes that his team’s focus on “we not me” is what separates them from other teams of equal or greater talent, much more than talent does. “Culture beats talent”

The “R-factor” is a toolbox, its training and a weekly reinforcement. They speak the E+R=O (event + response = outcome) language regularly on the team, and are constantly examining what their “R” is for every situation.

“what’s your R going to be when you’re down by 10 goals in the 4th quarter” They wrote down 20 different scenario’s and then discussed what their R is.

Be more intentional instead of impulsive (R1=press pause)

Below the line behavior

#1 problem is auto pilot, players not being present mentally and plugged in.

In this interview I am honored to speak with Mic Grant, Head Coach of the Bridgewater College Mens Lacrosse team. Mic is entering his 5th year with Bridgewater and 4th season after beginning the program from scratch in 2013. Prior to Bridgewater Mic was the first head coach at Marywood University where he posted an impressive 41-24 record including a 20-6 conference record over those 4 years. Prior to Marywood, Coach Grant was an assistant at VMI where he led the Keydet defense as well as served as the recruiting coordinator. In this interview Coach Grant discusses his methods for developing new programs and what he looks for in players in terms of character and leadership traits. Having coached 2 startup programs, Coach Grant has some great advice for how to go about developing a positive culture in a new program that has to compete in a historically competitive conference. I enjoyed my discussion with Coach Grant and know you will as well.

This podcast is an interview with the Head Lacrosse Coach and Vice President of the Ohio Machine Major League Lacrosse Team. He talks about leadership and teamwork development at various levels from high school to professional. Here are the notes from that podcast:

Bear started out as a college freshman coaching middle school lacrosse.

Moved on from that to complete a project in curriculum design by designing the lacrosse curriculum for Wilmington High School. Learned allot about what his coaching style was going to be from this experience.

His most memorable coach at an early stage was Coach Jim Clarke a youth football coach in Hilliard Ohio. Played for Ohio State, played in the NFL for a while, he had high expectations of his players and he didn’t treat anyone different. Simplicity, respect for all players, and demands on players were his hallmarks.

One thing he advises is that you fit the identity of the team to the community and what that community and players value. Bear never showed interest in coaching a team that didn’t fit his style.

Develop a mission statement and core values and then talk about those things on at least a weekly basis. “What is a Robert Morris Lacrosse player”, “you have to earn it every day”. Sit in a classroom and talk about it, reinforce it everyday.

Group text on Saturday night, “be your brothers keeper, nothing good ever happens after midnight”, lets players know you are thinking about them.

“The team doesn’t belong to the coach” The players need to take and accept ownership.

“What is the standard for that number” (jersey number)

Regarding team captains, each team is different, it depends on the makeup of the team. He has had captains and done it where he has no captains. When you name captains you sometimes lose others’ leadership abilities. “captains a title, leaders are leaders” regardless of the title. Its a nice honor

Uses goal setting all the time. Constantly doing meetings to review and follow up and make adjustments. Use goal sheets and have them read them in front of their peers, it doesn’t have to be formal, could be in the locker room before practice, or get some pizza after practice and have them sit down and munch it. Had players over to his house for spaghetti dinner every Thursday and they’d just talk about things other than lacrosse. Pull up some kind of inspirational video and have them watch it while they eat.

You have to make it a safe place

Carl Haas Show Notes

Coaches at the DIII level are somewhat limited in how much contact they can have with players in the off season, therefore Coach Haas utilizes his captains to help maintain contact amongst players and keep them focused on off season priorities. He meets with these captains weekly throughout the academic year to gauge where they are and help direct what needs to be happening.

Coach Haas lets the team pick the leaders.

Has his team do goal setting at the beginning of the off season. Everyone fills out an information and goal sheet:

academic goals for the year and your career

personal goals

athletic goals for each player individual and the team overall

Can’t meet with players on an athletic basis, but can on an academic one. Academic goals are checked on once a week, and with upperclassmen it happens twice a month.

Coaching is about relationships, so any investment in time with a player is like “putting a deposit in the bank”, it may not look like much at the time, but over time it builds a trusting relationship.

Coach lives by the quote; “players don’t care about what you know, until they know you care.”

In season his team attempts to set up trips or experiences for the team to share together. In 2016 for spring break they are going to head out West and play a couple of games and see the west coast. Some players have never seen the pacific coast so they will see it for the first time with their team.

Coach has a list of “non-negotiable” fundamentals that guide his teams playing style and behavior on the field. He ensures his coaches are on board and then they reinforce the standards daily. The final buy in from players comes when they see that it works.

Stresses to kids to play to the whistle, including practice or especially during practice. Players must “adapt and overcome”, and coach Haas tests this in practice all the time.

Coaching tools that Coach Haas uses

Krossover

Share the play

Reference Coaches and materials that Coach Haas uses:

Pete Carroll of the Seattle Seahawks

“are we competing everyday in everything that we do” ~Pete Carroll

Movie: Miracle

“How much are you willing to sacrifice for an unknown?” ~Herb Brooks

Always explain why to your players. Why things are important is important to getting their buy in. Players will work hard as long as they know why, they don’t need guarantees, just the “why”.

Mike Murphy of Colgate show notes

“Lead from the point of friction” In essence what he is telling us is that leaders are needed at many different points on the team. Sometimes it is important to lead from the front (commonly known as “lead by example”), but often times the best place to be is where the team is struggling the most.

Mike is the son of a marine corps colonel.

Mike spent the first two years at Colgate assessing his players character-wise and then started to put together a more formal service to the community program. One of the things that he instituted, along with Steve Heller a 1993 USMA grad and Adam Silva, Chief Development Officer of the Wounded Warrior Project, is they started an event called “Faceoff for the Cause” which is a fall lacrosse tournament to raise money for the Wounded Warrior Project. It is a 6-team, 2 game per, lacrosse event that the boys raise money for with the intent of building a legacy of philanthropy into the lexicon of the boys so that hopefully they carry that forward and continue to do it throughout their lives. They also do events to raise money for pediatric cancer research.

A more hands on community service event that they do is an “adopt a classroom” program and they go once a week to the two classrooms they have adopted, a first grade class and a second grade class, and spend time with those kids doing whatever their teachers think will help motivate the children to learn and grow. The players love it because they are like “rock stars” in that environment, and the kids really respond to the attention they give them.

In terms of a formal leadership development program, Coach Murphy doesn’t have a formal program but the concepts of leadership are imbued in everything they do. He doesn’t name captains until the end of the fall in order to give every upperclassman a chance to prove himself by stepping up to lead an event that needs led during the fall thus giving them an opportunity to lead “through osmosis”, by giving them a mission to accomplish and letting them work their way through the event.

They do have a thing called the “Leadership Academy” which is a program they participate in that is part of the Janssen Sports Leadership Center and run by Greg Shelley PH.D. a professor at Ithaca College that helps his players with understanding leadership concepts and how to make better decisions around how they will lead their teams.

Coach Murphy takes the mentorship of his players very seriously. He gives them room to grow and understands that they will make poor decisions at times, but he is always there for them.

At the end of every fall, he sits down with every player and that players position coach, and they discuss that players strengths, their individual goals, and the teams goals. The meeting takes 30-45 minutes. Goals that are set are challenging but realistic. “Everyone wants to win the National Championship, I want to win the National Championship, but at the end of the day only one team can win the National Championship”. They talk about the goals frequently, almost daily, the remind them on their goals. “A goal not written down is just a dream”, Coach Murphy believes goals should be written down.

Coach Murphy believes that athletics is a great training ground for young men and what they will run into in their professional lives. He says “there is a reason that the service academies stress athletics”

You need to be involved in your players’ lives, you need to talk to them about things outside of lacrosse and create a trust between you.

Coach Murphy believes that standards are developed and reinforced in practice. Using 1 handed ground ball pickups may be appropriate at certain times and not others, same thing with wrap checks and behind the back shots/passes. Coach calls it “situational awareness”, players need to understand the situations where the...

Today I am introducing this podcast which is essentially for sports coaches in any sport but we use lacrosse as our platform and interview lacrosse coaches to understand better how to build cohesive teams by understanding and motivating the individual athlete to aspire to become a great teammate. Teamwork begins with players understanding their values and how those values define their character. The process of getting players to a higher level of leadership and teamwork is the focus of this podcast. It is more about training players to lead and how we as coaches can do that within our coaching philosophies and styles. I interview successful coaches at high school and college level to give listeners a wide range of views. Coaches are asked to reveal their strategies for player development in leadership and character and we also discuss tools or tactics that have been especially beneficial to the coaches interviewed.