Posted by: Gordon
What a terrific start to the Fall Ball season! I wanted to give everyone my impressions of how each age group did while they were fresh in my mind, so here it goes:
U9
Posted by: Gordon
Easily one of the most fundamental skills of lacrosse is how to properly pick up a ground ball. In youth games especially, the ball is on the ground quite often, so knowing how to pick up a ground ball (or GB) is paramount in youth lacrosse. However, there is more to picking up a ground ball than just bending over and scooping through. Players should also shout out “ball” to let their teammates know to get out of the way. ...
Continue Reading →Posted by: Gordon
A few years ago I was paired up with two excellent youth coaches for a series of lacrosse clinics at an Atlanta middle school. The job was simple, but I had one problem. The kids were not responding to me very much. My coaching friend laid it out to me during the second clinic. “Gordon – with kids it’s best to explain things as simply as possible. That means take all the explaining you are doing and shorten it into ...
Continue Reading →Posted by: Gordon
One player drops a pass. Then a second, and a third. Suddenly, every player cannot pick up a ground ball and every shot is wide of the cage. What is going wrong?
The answer – your team fell victim to the snowball effect. This effect is “descriptive of an entity or situation where something once small and relatively insignificant grows exponentially at a swift pace, engulfing everything in its path” (urbandictionary.com). The problem with the snowball ...
Continue Reading →Posted by: Gordon
Space is always at a premium on a lacrosse field. With twenty players moving towards the ball or ball carrier, a player can be surrounded before they know it. At the youth level, this is especially prominent. Most new players do not understand that they have to MOVE when they pick up a ground ball. As a result, many youth lacrosse games devolve into a gigantic rugby-like scrum. Where players from both teams pick up the ball, turn around, and ...
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