Three or four years ago at the Intercollegiate Men’s Lacrosse Coaches Conference I was really taken with a keynote message from one of my favorite coaches, Coach John Danowski from Duke. I just love his unique perspectives as well as his style of communication.

Coach began with a statement that all of us might learn from in terms of our practice planning and approach, “The hardest way to score is 6V6 in the box area.” So then this comment begs the question, how do we find easier ways to score? In more importantly, after we identify these areas, how do we increase our opportunities to put our players in a position to be successful?

In his keynote message in front of an audience filled with great coaches Coach Danowski shared seven ways to score, and the critical nature of communicating these to his

Danowski’s impact on the Duke program was immediate as the Blue Devils posted a cumulative grade point average of 3.45 in his first semester at the helm. In addition, the team provided over 500 hours of community service during the semester, continuing Danowski’s philosophy of college student-athletes taking advantage of the full experience.

“The coach-player relationship lasts a lifetime – so much more than two hours every afternoon,” said Danowski, the 1993 NCAA Division I National Coach of the Year who led Hofstra to eight conference championships. “It would be a disservice to the young men in the Duke program if we didn’t care about their futures. To take advantage of the opportunity to teach life lessons is a goal of ours.

“I have learned the importance of adapting to the talent you have on the field,” Danowski said. “You can’t put a square peg into a round hole. I am a firm believer in taking what you have and finding the best way to be efficient with that group.”

Things you may not know… You might not know, Danowski was a four-year letterman in lacrosse and continues to hold several Rutgers Scarlet Knight records. He established school single-game records for assists (13 vs. Penn State, 1973) and total points (14 vs. Penn State, 1974) and a single-season standard for assists with 54 in 1973. He currently ranks second on Rutgers’ all-time list for assists (120) and is eighth in total points (177). Danowski, who helped the Scarlet Knights to NCAA Tournament appearances in 1973 and 1974, was a three-time recipient of the program’s Sasser Award, an honor presented annually to the team’s leader in assists. Born March 12, 1954 in Bronxville, N.Y., Danowski went on to earn a master’s degree in counseling/college student development from LIU-C.W. Post in 1978.

Danowski’s father, Ed, was an All-America halfback on the gridiron at Fordham in 1932 and 1933 who later starred for the New York Giants in the National Football League. The elder Danowski led the NFL in passing in 1935 and 1938, earning All-NFL honors in both of those seasons, and guided the Giants to league championships in 1934 and 1938. He later served as the head football coach at his alma mater from 1946-54.

Danowski and his wife, Patricia, have two children, Kate, a former lacrosse letterwinner and 2005 graduate of Quinnipiac University, and Matt, a 2008 Duke graduate and former captain of the lacrosse program.

In the podcast, for our Premium Members, Coach Danowski and I start with a little Super Bowl talk, then he outlines in detail the 7 Ways to Score, also featured in our article section.

As a part of the full podcast, we spent a lot of time on Riding as an opportunity to score, and that section is free and available to all members of the site.

Audio Preview, 7 Ways to Score

I hope you enjoy, get ready to take notes… Coach Mike

As a Holiday Bonus, We are doing this one a little different, featuring this awesome mp3 file interview to All Members, both Free Members and Premium Members have access to the entire 54 min podcast, listen on your computer, or ‘right click’ to download to itunes or your computer, I hope you enjoy, laxcoachmike

Goldberg & Shriver Debate Zone Defenses

Jeff Goldberg served 17 years as the Head Lacrosse Coach for Saint Andrew’s School in Boca Raton, Fl. During his tenure Coach Goldberg amassed 16 final four appearances and 14 state high school lacrosse titles for the Scots. Under his guidance, Saint Andrew’s Lacrosse was ranked in the top 25 teams nationally in 2008, 2009 and 2010 and earned the recognition as the #1 Lacrosse program in the Southeast by both Lax Power and Inside Lacrosse. Coach Goldberg has over 27 years coaching experience and has graduated over 35 high school All-Americans in his career. He currently has more than 30 former students playing lacrosse at the college level. His essence is about helping capable boys grow into exceptional young men with respect, responsibility and resilience.

Coach Bob Shriver from Boys Latin, has been at the helm of the heralded lacrosse program for well over 30 years. That in itself is quite a feat in today’s world. He is truly one of the most recognized high school coaches in the country. Just for starters, his record as the coach, well over 400 wins, in addition 5 MIAA Championship and 13 Championship game appearances. Continuing with the achievements of this great program, “#1 ranked High School Lacrosse Team in the USA”, in 1997 and 2006. In addition his resume includes, Assistant Coach-US U19World Championship Teams of 1988 and 1999, Head Coach-US U19 World Championship Team 2003, Member of the United States Lacrosse Coaches’ Association (USLCA) Executive Committee, United States Lacrosse Coaches’ Association (USLCA) “Man of the Year” is 2006 and inducted into the Baltimore Chapter of US Lacrosse’s Hall of Fame in 1998.

The short version, between them they have almost 60 years of coaching experience at the highest level. Between them they have over 800 victories, and between them they have some incredible thoughts and perspectives on lacrosse zone defenses.

Why are they important? When might you use them? Which Zone or Hybrid Zone to use? And if you see them, how to beat them.

All Members Free and Premium can listen to the entire podcast or download the mp3 file, to download put the curser over the download word below, and right click

If you like the heavier content in the full length interviews, please consider joining us a Premium Member, and get 20 or podcasts per year, we currently have 60 hours from great coaches in our Premium Member library, or if you have five or more coaches consider a License Package and save over 40%… I listed the current coaches in our Premium Member Library below,

And remember to check the article Zone Defense The Great Debate II in our article section… it is a more in depth ‘meaty’article, if you are a progressive lacrosse coach, you need to check it out,

Audio Interview For All Members w Shriver & Goldberg on Zones

Download (right-click -> Save As)

Current Coaches in our Podcast Library

Coach Danowski, Duke

Coach Pietramala, Johns Hopkins

Coach Pressler, Bryant

Coach Meade, when at Navy

Coach Jez, CW Post

Coach Daly, Tufts

Coach Cerino, when he was at Limestone

Coach Starsia, University of Virginia

Coach Toomey, Loyola

Coach Beville, Cortland State

Coach Bates, Princeton

Coach Cottle,

Coach Myers, Ohio State

Coach Alberici, Army

Coach Paul, U of M,

Coach Zimmerman, UMBC

Coach Tiffany, Brown

Coach Pilate, Roanoke

Coach Marr, Albany

Coach Seth Tierney, Hofstra

Coach Bill Tierney, Denver

Coach Hank Janczyk, Gettysburg

Coach Roy Simmons, Syracuse

Coaches Gallagher and Popelar,

Coach Wolford, Upper Arlington

Coach Corrigan, Notre Dame

Coach Cannella, U Mass

Coach Berkman, Salisbury

Coach Kerwick ,

Coach Cantabene, Stevenson

Coach Tambroni, Penn State

Coach Sheehan, LeMoyne

Coach Sowell, when he was at Stony Brook, now Navy

Coach Shay, Yale

Coach Ryan, Mercyhurst

Coach Urick, Georgetown

Coach Seaman, Towson

Anthony Kelly, FOGO, Asst Coach Ohio State

Coach Shillinglaw, Delaware

Coach Caravana, Denison

Coach Garber, Loomis

Coach Koudelka, Lynchburg

Coach Jeff Goldberg

Coach Shriver, Boys Latin

Coach Towers, Dartmouth

Coach Murphy, Penn

Coach Rostan, Hampden Sidney

Coach Wojcik, Harvard

Coach DeLuca, Cornell

Coach Lawrence, Hartford

Coach Purdie, Adelphi

Coach Coon, RIT

Coach Berkman, interview 2

Coach Wilbur, Onondaga

Coach Breschi, NC

Brodie Merrill, The Hill

Coach Van Arsdale, JU

Coach Starsia, UVA, interview 2

Zone Defense Debate, Why…Which Zone …and How to Beat It…

We have received so many emails regarding the article and Podcast with Lacrosse Coach Dom Starsia regarding the UVA Zone; it seemed to be a topic our member lacrosse coaches wanted to learn more about. So we called in two great friends of the site, Bob Shriver from Head Lacrosse Coach – Boys Latin and Jeff Goldberg, formerly of St. Andrews to weigh in on the subject.

I think the most enlightening part of the recent podcast with Lacrosse Coach Starsia was the quick adaptation to change one of the key traditional characteristics of his lacrosse team due to changes in personnel on the team. It seems a little out of the norm that successful coaches would be so quick to recognize a need for change. This is, or was, a coach focused on, a pure man to man style of defense with great athletes, focused on tight defense, pressuring adjacent forcing offenses to the outside, and working to get into transition coach, with a huge pedigree of success. Many coaches would have stayed with what has worked for years, but with changes due to injuries to key players, and a young team defensively, he felt as though he had to change quickly, in fact just days before their North Carolina game in 2011. The players rallied and the result was a National Championship.

But the changes were implemented with some degree of consistency. In the traditional UVA defense, shorties rarely if ever played inside, thus in this case it made sense to keep the shorties on the topside in this zone defense. And thus Coach Starsia went back to a zone formation in lacrosse practice he had actually played and coached years ago at Brown.

Although most DI and many college lacrosse programs run a man to man defense the majority of the game, many great programs will show a zone at different parts or segments of the game. Often towards the end of a game or half with a lead, or possibly a defensive lock off on strong offensive player and a zone behind, or maybe just to slow things down a bit against a strong creating transition team, regardless we have seen a lot of different types of zone defenses. But, hopefully as your humble correspondent, this is a zone configuration I have not seen much if at all. Some might play four corners with poles, with shorties on the inside top and bottom; I have run this with shorties bumping out covering up top and initially at X. Or the infamous ‘Backer Zone’ looking to force a player into a slide or a double team from inside or the crease defender to name a few.

In this case, perhaps simpler was better to get the zone implemented quickly.

Widely regarded as one of the best teachers, motivators and tacticians in the game, Dom Starsia is in his 20th season at the helm of Virginia men’s lacrosse program. His 329 wins are the most all-time by a coach at a Division I school, passing former legendary coach Jack Emmer (326). The record-breaking triumph was an impressive 13-9 victory over No. 2 seed Cornell in the 2011 NCAA quarterfinal round on May 21. The victory was part of the UVA improbable run to the Starsia’s fourth NCAA title.

His teams have reached the final four 13 times in his 19 seasons as Head Coach. UVa’s efforts helped garner Starsia an ESPY nomination for Best Coach and a waltz down the red carpet at Los Angeles’ Nokia Theatre in July 2011, going up in his category against the likes of UConn’s Jim Calhoun, Dallas Mavericks’ Rick Carlisle, Auburn’s Gene Chizik and Green Bay Packers’ Mike McCarthy. Pretty huge statement for the game of lacrosse. In fitting recognition of his coaching success, Starsia was inducted into the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in November 2008, one of only four active Division I coaches so honored.

A native of Valley Stream, N.Y., who never actually played lacrosse until his days as a football player at Brown, he later became the Head Coach at Brown in 1982 and compiled a 10-year record of 101-46, while establishing himself as one of the top young coaches in the game.

His teams boasted the best Ivy League record and the best overall record for any Ivy League school over that 10-year span. He is still active coaching youth at camps, and you can find that information at www.starsialax.com.

This is actually our second podcast with Coach Starsia, with the first, still in our library two years ago. But some suggest his best coaching job ever was in 2011, when he re-invented a zone defense he first ran many years ago at Brown, en route to the 2011 NCAA Championship, as his team and Coach overcame significant adversity, resulting in the prestigious USILA DI Coach of the Year Award.

In the interview, Coach Starsia takes us through the reason and implementation of the unique zone defense, from his IMLCA Keynote, an interesting dialog regarding internal team leadership and how they worked through adversity, and the philosophy behind a .900 clearing percentage. Even after two years of interviews it always amazes me how the great coaches are so honest and willing to share, I hope you enjoy. This is one of the best interviews on the site.

We offer two unique audio samples from the full interview for all of our Free Members, first on how the team and the coach came through all of the adversity during the season with strong internal leadership within the team, from places you might not expect,

The second Preview sample again free for all Members is on the Zone itself… it takes four seconds to kick in on the audio, hang in there and it will be worth it…

The unique zone is also featured in the article section of our site, with a drawing and more detail.

Thanks again for all of the support, I hope you enjoy,

Audio Preview, Internal Team Leadership

Audio Preview, The UVA 2011 Zone

With a resume of building young men, establishing tradition and winning championships, as well as one of the most respected lacrosse coaches in the country, Guy Van Arsdale was named head coach of the Jacksonville University men’s lacrosse team in August
2011.

Van Arsdale became the second coach in JU history and comes to the First Coast after spending the last two seasons as head coach of Division III Colorado College, with previous stops as an assistant coach at Notre Dame and Penn State.

Van Arsdale, who has been a collegiate coach for 27 years, led Colorado College to its first appearance in the NCAA Tournament in 2011, overseeing a Tigers program that finished 15-1 en route to capturing a SCAC championship by going undefeated in league play.

In two seasons with the Tigers, Van Arsdale posted a 25-3 record to earn SCAC “Coach of the Year” honors both times. He has a career heading coaching record of 135-57.

Prior to his stint in Colorado, Van Arsdale was as an assistant coach at Penn State University from 2004-09, serving as the recruiting coordinator and running team film sessions. He fulfilled a similar role in 2003, working as an assistant on the Notre Dame staff.

Van Arsdale started his head coaching career in 1988 when he took over the men’s lacrosse program at Rochester Institute of Technology. In 12 seasons, his compiled a 112-54 record and made five NCAA Tournament appearances. He led his team to the quarterfinals four times and reached the semifinal round in 1999.

He has coached more than 50 All-Americans in his three decades in the profession and continues to be sought after as a featured speaker at regional and national coaching clinics.
Besides his collegiate experience, Van Arsdale has also coached in the professional ranks.

From 2001-03, he served as head coach and assistant general manager of Major League Lacrosse’s Rochester Rattlers. Besides being the franchise’s first-ever head coach, Van Arsdale also oversaw the budget and marketing plan.

Van Arsdale also was an assistant for the Rochester Knighthawks from 2001-03, serving under Paul Day to help the franchise advance to the National Lacrosse League’s championship game in 2003.

Before entering coaching, Van Arsdale excelled as a player at Hobart College, earning NCAA Division III “Player of the Year” honors in 1983. A member of the Hobart College Hall of Fame and the Western NY Chapter of the U.S. Lacrosse Hall of Fame, Van Arsdale played under then-Hobart coach and current Georgetown head coach Dave Urick.

Van Arsdale graduated from Hobart with a degree in history in 1984.

In this awesome interview, Coach Van Arsdale covers a wide range of topics regarding running a great lacrosse practice.

Thanks again for all of the support, I hope you enjoy,

Audio Preview, The Gauntlet Drill

The Gauntlet Drill from Guy Coach Van Arsdale

In our recent interview with this great coach I learned a lot, and my head is still spinning about more direct coaching philosophies. We often hear NCAA Lacrosse Coaches talk with passion about developing lacrosse drills that break down phases of the game. Coach Van Arsdale also adds a very direct singular focus to increase in these phases to ultimately increase the learning curve.

As you know I am a big proponent of multi-tasking and combining both offensive and defensive philosophies in our lacrosse drills. Again, learning from a great coach on the interview, maybe I need to consider a more direct singular focus, in his words, “Focusing on both offense and defense in a drill may not be the best way to get better, quicker, on either side of the ball.” Might just be that I was wrong again… Or at the very least — too locked into my traditional way of doing things, does that sound familiar?

All of us to some degree love to utilize movement in our offenses in the area of the crease. All of us are increasingly aware of the increase in the use of picks. All of us would love to see our players shoot with power through a check. All of us would love to more accurate

It is kind of funny, we did not find Brodie, he actually found us via his ipad. He joined our site as a Premium Member, and flattered us, with his comments on our lacrosse drills and the reaction of his lacrosse players to some of our lacrosse drills. Pretty humbling for laxcoachmike. I did not know he was coaching HS lacrosse players, and could not wait to get his thoughts with an interview on coaching and he exceeded every expectation, I found myself geniunely liking this young coach and I am sure you will as well.

Brodie Merrill is widely regarded as a revolutionary lacrosse player. He is a graduate of Georgetown University, a two-time All American, two-time Teewaraton Award Finalist and in 2005 was named the NCAA’s Defensive Player of the Year. He was the MLL Rookie of the Year in 2005 as a member of the Baltimore Bayhawks. For four consecutive years he was awarded the Major League Lacrosse Defensive Player of the Year Awards.

In 2006, he helped the Canadian national lacrosse team to an historic win at the World Lacrosse Championship in London, Ontario. He had an outstanding tournament, being named Best Defender and earning All-World honors.

We endorse and urge you to consider his camps, the Reebok Top 100 Camp in Canada in July (top100lax.com), and the Southern Select recruiting camp with Chris Schiller in Charlotte in mid June. (southernselectlacrosse.com)

We had an awesome interview with Coach Merrill covering over an hour’s worth of lacrosse practice topics. The interview covers; their unique practice schedule, warm ups, continious transition drills, some great ground ball drills, shooting drills and situational controlled scrimmages. For the Premium Members there is a dialog in the full podcast on the changes in the Clearing game, you just will not want to miss.

For all members, including Free Members, Coach Brodie shares an awesome drill the kids love; they call it “The Hill Drill.” The cool thing about this drill is that even smaller rosters can get up and go at a very fast pace. I think it would be a great way to either open or close your practice and we also feature it in the article section of the site,

Thanks again for all of the support, I hope you enjoy,

Audio Preview, The Hill Drill

The Hill Drill from Brodie Merrill

In our recent interview with a great player and I believe a great young lacrosse coach, Brodie Merrill, he shared this awesome lacrosse drill. This drill works on so many lacrosse fundamentals for our players and is a blast all at the same time. Many times the popular lacrosse drills we get from top NCAA lacrosse coaches are predicated on the full field for the application of drill, as well as much larger rosters than most of us have at practice. It is hard to go, or build to a meaningful 10V10 when you only have five attackmen and ten middies. Or it can be hard to run complicated lacrosse drills with younger U15 or JV, less experienced players, this lacrosse drill works for everybody.

The really cool thing about this lacrosse drill is that not only can run it even with a 20 man roster, but it is about ground balls, (we are always looking for fast paced ground ball drills, as well as drills you can run if you are coaching by yourself at practice) emulating game scenarios, building a culture of transition conversion, a blast for the kids, and is different and engaging for the players with a slightly different look in every rep.