Before I get into my observations I want to give a hearty congratulations to all of our players, parents, and coaches! We had a wonderful start Tuesday evening to the first of many practices for the spring season. The players shook off some rust from the offseason, and the coaches taught their players well. I am very pleased with how the first day of practice went for our U11 and U13 age divisions. As I told the coaches, I will be ...
Continue Reading →Posted by: Gordon
A few months ago I had a small group of young players and I asked the question “what is respect?” The reason I was prompted to ask that question was because the players were disrespecting one another by hitting each other with their sticks while waiting in line during drills. I did not find that behavior particularly becoming of young lacrosse players. So I had everyone sit down in a semi circle around me and we discussed respect. Since that ...
Continue Reading →Posted by: Gordon
***This is a repost of an article I wrote entitled “Complete and Utter Domination” in May 2011.***
The trouble with youth sports is every kid grows at a different rate in both size and skill. This creates a very wide disparity between teams on the lacrosse field. I officiated a middle school team where I swear every kid must have been fed Muscle Milk since birth. Compared to the other team, these kids ...
Continue Reading →Posted by: Gordon
How does the staff at Atlanta Youth Lacrosse judge a successful day of games? Simple – if the kids leave our fields sweating and smiling we’ve had a great day.
I was speaking to my dad, Lou Corsetti, this past evening about how the 2012 Fall Ball season was wrapping up at AYL. We agreed that, from our perspective, each kid we see after a game is sweating, smiling and seems to be loving life because they are playing a sport ...
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I thought hard about what topic I wanted to write about for my 200th post. After many different ideas and drafts I settled on addressing how poor behavior by parents negatively impacts the children playing lacrosse. I addressed part of this in my post “Getting The Most Out Of Fall Ball.” Where I detailed the responsibilities of parents in off-season games, but I wanted to dig deeper into this area. So settle ...
Continue Reading →Posted by: Gordon
Every man in the world cringes whenever we see another guy take a hit to “The Boys.” Use any euphemism you prefer but getting hit in the family jewels is an experience every guy goes through and never, ever wants to repeat. You may be surprised that parents spend a hundred dollars on a helmet but never invest in a twelve dollar concave piece of plastic whose only purpose is the continuation of their bloodline twenty years down the road, ...
Continue Reading →Posted by: Gordon
Ever since Mortal Kombat came out in the early nineties controversy has grown around video games. Many of the early arguments against video games contended that these games glorified violence and desensitized young children to graphic images. These days video game opponents argue that games increase the risk of depression, agression, and addiction in young kids. As a former gamer I am going to address each of these issues in light of my own gaming experiences in a three part ...
Continue Reading →Posted by: Gordon
As Paul Newman said in Cool Hand Luke, “what we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.”
There are many coaches, players, and parents who are at a loss for words. The coach says “hold the ball,” and the player decides to shoot. A parent’s condolences after a tough loss fall on deaf ears. A goalie cannot get his defenseman to slide early even though he’s been screaming “slide” for the last three quarters. The list ...
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