Congratulations Youre Starting Lacrosse

1
Congratulations!Youre Starting Lacrosse

• 2008
• USL Coaches Convention

2
Premise

• Youre an interested VOLUNTEER
• Coach
• Parent
• Program Administrator (PA)
• Where do I start?

3
Things That Worked

• Make It Easy To Play
• Other sports too competitive
• Too many weekly activities
• Too many travel teams / select teams
• Consider equitably drafted, equal playing time

4
Things That Worked

• Make It Easy To Play
• Length of Season
• Align by age group
• Reasonable Travel
• Mini jamborees

5
Things That Worked

• Make It Easy To Play
• Pre-determine costs of participation
• Have prices on uniforms
• Field fees
• Registration fees
• Insurance

6
Things That Worked

• Make It Easy To Play
• Coaches pro-ratta
• Coaches wear
• Background checks
• PCA
• USL CEP

7
Things That Worked

• Make It Easy To Coach
• Clinics
• HOF Member
• Honor The Game
• Be organized
• Be prepared
• Share your passion for the game
• Take kids to a high level game

8
Things That Worked

• Make It Easy To Coach
• Online education
• USL CEP
• Kudda.com
• All stats
• Callingpost.com

9
Things That Worked

• Make It Easy To Coach
• Engage the parents
• Station format in early practices
• 67
• Stat Keepers
• One in the box
• Learn to play day
• Communicate expectations / job descriptions

10
Things That Worked

• Make It Easy To Coach
• SIDELINES MANAGERS
• PCA
• Trained Officials
• Engage the parents

11
Things That Worked

• Plan A Year Ahead
• Solicit Park Rec Support
• Become a volunteer in the system
• Get success stories
• Some Grants relative to field use

12
Things That Worked

• Plan A Year Ahead
• Create a board of volunteers
• FUND RAISING
• conflict of interest or an agenda
• create the rules, bylaws
• Leave flexibility to evolve over time.

13
Things That Worked

• Plan A Year Ahead
• Define the mission
• Recreational
• Select
• is it about the experience
• emphasis be on performance

14
Things That Worked

• Plan A Year Ahead
• Meet contract with local officials
• determine fee structure
• different age groups
• game formats
• Start a mentor program
• raise money or gain agreement to fund it
• New Teams must provide two officials

15
Things That Worked

• Plan A Year Ahead
• Partner with existing sports.
• They have tenure, players, infrastructure,
  parents
• Contact local YMCAs
• Many have after school programs
• Offer to run clinics for them

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Things That Worked

• Plan A Year Ahead
• Managed Growth
• Require three coaches
• first and second year teams
• Plan for change
• Failing to plan is planning to fail
• Pay to have schedule made
• Have a PR do it
• Consider regional alignment

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Things That Worked

• Plan A Year Ahead
• Managed Growth
• Get into the schools
• Get into the elementary schools.
• Offer LTPs during the months the kids are inside
• M.S. / H. S.
• Take a softer approach
• Help them start Club teams
• Less of a drain on the school

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Things That Worked

• Plan A Year Ahead
• Managed Growth
• Post-Season Travel Teams
• USL Festivals
• Tournaments
• Create a coaches Esprit de Corps
• Require one year Festival Team Support before
  (Vail)

19
Things That Did Not Work

• Adopt bylaws and guidelines early on
• difficult to corral people back into a structured
  environment
• Too few people doing most of the work. (STOP)
• Did not plan for the hours required
• lot of volunteer drop off in first year.

20
Things That Did Not Work

• Adopt bylaws and guidelines early on
• difficult to coral people back into a structured
  environment

21
Things That Did Not Work

• Too few people doing most of the work.
• STOP
• Did not plan for the hours required
• lot of volunteer drop off in first year.
  Communicate volunteer needs once
• up front
• organized fashion.

22
Things That Did Not Work

• Geography
• If teams too far away
• disservice by allowing them to start
• focus efforts in developing a second team.
• Huge benefit from an ability to scrimmage and
  keep kids engaged during the week.

23
Things That Did Not Work

• Set an expectation about when schools would take
  club teams over
• ADs dragged their feet
• Our only choice
• continue as clubs
• kids would not have a place to play.
• Get Fields EARLY ON

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We Did Not Plan For

• Competitive play
• - plan for it in advance
• when our U11 kids become U15 kids
• Project officials needs two years out
• high of first year officials
• long period of time

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We Did Not Plan For

• Identify how youre going to bring new teams into
  the league
• Have a succession plan
• Beware the individual parent
• typically with a kid in the program
• who does too much.
• When the player ages out, so does the parent.

26
We Did Not Plan For

• How much time it can take from your personal life
• You need the help and input of many others
• Did not prepare for the attitude of some parents
  and their overzealous nature when it came to
  involving their children in the sport.

27
We Did Not Plan For

• How much time it can take from your personal life
• You need the help and input of many others
• Did not prepare for the attitude of some parents
  and their overzealous nature when it came to
  involving their children in the sport.

28
We Did Not Plan For

• The explosive growth and interest.  We're not a
  natural hotbed of lacrosse and don't have a lot
  of people with playing experience.  Until such
  time as some of our home grown talent returns, we
  are actually backing away from advertising
  because we can't find enough qualified coaches
  and officials.

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We Did Not Plan For

•  The other surprise, unique to the girls' game,
  and there's not much you can do about it, was the
  incredible opposition from field hockey.  I was
  accustomed to the co-dependent relationship those
  sports have on the east coast and the local
  coaches see lacrosse as a threat.  It may be more
  of an economic threat, as we're spring and FH is
  fall, but our program takes players away from the
  coaches' pay-to-play teams in the spring.

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Honor The Game

• Questions
• Just email us at the chapter website!