Filed under: Coach Childs' Corner
It is 12:11 am and I am stuck in the Atlanta Airport. With this unexpected people watching session, the summer recruiting calendar is in effect. On the same day that Duke and Notre Dame battled it out to see who would be 2010’s champ. I hopped on a plane to get started with recruiting for the class of 2014. I couldn’t even wait until the season was finished. In fact, Coach Eric McCaul from Le Moyne College was at the event just 2 days after coaching in the Division 2 National Championship game. Anyway…..
I figured I would use this time to update the blog and talk about some hot topics in NCAA Lacrosse. There are coaching vacancies out there. Maryland, Penn State and, Washington College have all opened up and all seem to be attracting a lot of rumors. I won’t speculate as to who will land these jobs but I am hopeful that some of the great D1 up and comers will land some of these big time jobs. Gerry Byrne of Notre Dame and Leland Rogers of Syracuse have become household names because of defense. I would love to watch these guys become the next Jeff Tambroni and have their careers advance to the point that they will be rumored for every job from this point on.
I guess the hottest topic right now is the tempo of the game and if there should be a shot clock in college lacrosse. To be honest I am not so sure where I stand on the shot clock. I do feel as though coaches should be able to game plan and develop different game plans and styles of play to suit them best. With all that being said, I wish that everyone could just agree to play faster. I miss the days of the 22 to 21 Cuse -Virginia games. I miss seeing the ball move quickly up the field and into the net. I hate the big little, the open sets and the invert and AS A FAN, I wish they were all outlawed. AS A COACH I just don’t know how I feel. I have heard a ton of ideas and as I watched the National Championship game with three other college coaches we came up with a ton of different ideas.
We came up with a smaller box, more stall calls, 2 point shots, the shot clock and then lastly my brilliant idea eliminating the Long Stick Midfielder. I thought that by eliminating the LSM teams would have more favorable matchups and would attack more. This would also create less subbing and a quicker pace. As this idea began to make more and more sense, CJ. Costabile Duke’s LSM won the first face off in overtime and made the most exciting play of the season. Scoring just 5 seconds into the sudden death overtime. So we are back to the drawing board. A board filled with invert diagrams and big little picks.
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