And for High School varsity teams, Junior varsity teams, and AAU/club teams, there’s a Team Shootout being held on Saturday, June 23-Sunday, June 24.

Click to view and print the brochure pdf.

When I’m coaching at Merrimack, I see kids who are just unbelievable lacrosse players. But when we start talking about the why’s and when’s of what they should be doing and how they should be doing it— they have no idea. A lot of them are just beating someone by being more athletic or more skilled. They’re not necessarily using an intelligence of the game—or Lax IQ—to beat their opponent.

Let’s break out exactly what Lax IQ means. In a nutshell, there are 3 components:

1. The understanding of strategy
2. The ability to observe and assess a situation
3. The experience to know what action to take when

These three components will determine the difference between a good lacrosse player and a great lacrosse player. While a good lacrosse player is athletic and has good stick skills, a great lacrosse player is athletic, has good stick skills and knows when and how to use them. The “when and how” is the Lax IQ.

For example, offensively a good player can split-dodge down the alley, run faster than their opponent, take a nice outside shot from 12 yards and score. Someone with a great IQ might have a great split-dodge down the alley, run faster than their opponent, and notice that the one slide slid, the two slide slid, and the three slide is out of position. The pass goes to the player who’s being covered poorly by the three slide who’s two yards from the cage. Now, the goalie has to change pipes from his left pipe to his right pipe. So, now he’s moving and he’s got to take the two yard shot vs staying planted on that left pipe, being able to read the stick the whole way down the alley and save a 12 yard shot.

To develop Lacrosse IQ on your own, start by watching films of games to look for what you missed when you were playing. It’s a great way to learn about the sport, because a lot becomes glaringly obvious on playback. Then there are things you’ll need a coach to point out, but watching film is a good place to start.

Also watch college lacrosse in person or on TV. Compare what they’re doing to what your team is doing, and compare what your favorite player is doing to what you’re doing. That’s a pretty easy way to develop Lacrosse IQ.

The biggest thing is to start looking at the sport from more of a bird’s-eye view, and not just from when the ball is in your stick or when your guy is dodging on you. Look at lacrosse as the ultimate team sport. Offensively, defensively. Even a goalie, when he’s not stopping the ball, his biggest job is to control his defense so that he sees the shots he wants to see. He could be the best goalie in the world but if he’s not controlling his defense to play proper team defense, he’s going to be getting a lot of shots from the crease, which are harder to see than from 12-15 yards out. A good goalie who has Lax IQ will captain his defense to control the shots that he sees. And that’s just one example.

So, again, once you’re able to start looking at the sport from that bird’s-eye view, you’ll start to see more options, which means you’ll develop more weapons, which will make you a better lacrosse player.

Lax IQ is super important, so put in the time to start developing it.

Q & A’s with Coach Bryan Brazill

What attitude and skills are important for a Middle School player to start developing to become a great lacrosse player?

Most middle school lacrosse players need to think in terms of keeping it simple. They get caught up in the flash of the game, and then the highlights. But what they don’t realize is that the guys they see making flashy plays have worked hard at building up exceptional fundamentals. The great players start with a great foundation. They typically use the flashy stuff as a last resort or when something opened up where they had to get flashy.

As far as attitude goes – you’ve got to be willing to keep learning. So many Middle School and High School kids think there’s nothing left for them to learn. Great college players learn something every day at upper level practices and games. Even with myself, I’ve been playing the game since I was nine and I still learn new stuff almost every time I play. I’m extremely open to adapting and evolving my game, I take a lot of my game from other players, incorporate things they do well, I also learn from friends and coaches all the time and I stay open to their advice.

So you’re always watching other people with the intention of seeing what you can pick up for yourself to learn more?

Constantly. All the best players I know are doing this. I find so often that young kids confuse still having stuff to learn with being bad or remedial. I think you can be an exceptional player and always have things to learn. Just because you need to be taught things and improve things doesn’t mean that you’re not already very good. You can be both. You can be learning AND good.

The sport has changed so much in the last ten years and will change so much more in the next ten years. If you’re standing still, you’re getting left behind. Some kids think they’ve got it all because they can catch and throw and shoot underhand. But not all kids are like that. I just had a lesson with three unbelievably talented 8^th graders and they were like sponges just soaking up everything I said. They were really impressive, talented kids and they were there to learn and they got a lot better throughout the lesson. Now they’re even further ahead of their peers. All kids need to learn how to keep their egos in check and be open to realizing there’s always room for improvement.

In terms of physical conditioning, what does a Middle School kid need to be thinking of for a long-term career in lacrosse?

They’re probably not quite ready for weight lifting. They can be doing light stuff to start developing the habit of being in the gym. Starting to do push-ups, sit-ups, planks, pull-ups, body weight stuff, but they shouldn’t be banging around weights because a because their bodies are still developing. They want to wait until they’re pretty far through their final growth spurt before they start seriously lifting. But it’s a very physically demanding sport and they need to be well-conditioned. They can always be running long distances, although that’s a skewed term because anything over 4 miles isn’t best for lacrosse. It’s better to be at 3 ½ miles or under and pick up the pace, instead of going further distances at a steady jog. Lacrosse is more of a sprint/rest oriented game like basketball, with jogging in between. So, circuit training is great, where they’re doing different speed sprints around a track for different lengths of time.

At the middle school level I wouldn’t get crazy obsessed with being in shape. If they’ve got a weight issue that’s something else. But I recommend a 2 mile jog: go out a mile cradling the stick in the right hand, come back a mile cradling the stick in the left hand. With headphones on, jog real hard for one song, and when the next song comes on take it down a little bit and jog slow and recover, repeat this process every time the song changes. Really, if they go up a mile with the stick in their right hand with good stick protection, and back a mile with the stick in their left hand with good stick protection, they’re still developing skills and getting some fitness in. They’re not going crazy about it. It’s a nice mix.

You seem to be saying that kids don’t have to be miserable in boot camp to play lacrosse well.

You’ll get a million people who will tell you that’s what they need to do, be miserable. It couldn’t be further from the truth. That’s the worst. If sports aren’t fun – get out! I believe in keeping it sane.

What do kids need to look out for with coaches, to know whether they should be thinking about changing?

There are a lot of terrible coaches. Kids see through personalities better than anybody. They’ll know what they don’t like personality-wise. Many coaches at the youth level like to make black and white rules for a gray sport. A common black and white rule they’ll enforce is: “You always have to shoot overhand. And there is logic to that, because if a kid shoots overhand and he misses low, he’s still putting it on cage. If he misses extremely low, it turns into a bounce shot and it’s still going on cage. So, they’re trying to hedge their bets with young kids, but they’re not teaching kids how to think at that age, which is part of the problem.

There are coaches who don’t give these kids all the information they need to be able to start thinking through which shot to use when.  The reality is if you’re shooting overhand that’s great, because you can change planes high to low and left to right. But you can do the same thing underhand. And you can do the same thing three-quarters. The only shot that’s not good is a straight side-arm shot because you can’t change planes vertically, only left and right. So, if you give kids this information and say, “Hey, start working on your underhand shot, start working on your three-quarter shot, and continue to work on your overhand shot,” they’re going to be better players by the time they need all those shots.

Now, if a kid stinks at his underhand shot, you can say, “Listen, continue to work on that but keep that in the bag during games.” But most coaches just keep it black and white—“Only shoot overhand all the time—bounce shots.” So you get a kid at the college level who can only shoot overhand, and that’s not good.

Our best player at Merrimack college had a totally black and white coach going through youth and high school, and to break him of the bounce shot was a big struggle. Now the kid is snapping low to high shots and picking corners five times a game, whereas before he was throwing bounce shots, which is basically leaving everything up to chance. And this kid was one of the best pure shooters I’ve ever seen. He could pick a spot and beat you there, and instead he’s throwing bounce shots, hoping that he just gets the goalie jumping low and bouncing it over him.

So, black and white coaches aren’t really helping these kids in the long term. Because I understand the value of explaining the variables, my answer to a lot of questions is going to be, “It depends.” And then I’m going to explain when and why a player should do this in this situation and that in that situation.

Come and join in the excitement of college lacrosse season.  The NCAA 2012 College Lacrosse Championships are being held at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough from May 26-28. Who will be this year’s surprise team that makes a run at the Championship? Don’t miss out on the action this year! Get your tickets early! We’ll be there!

U-15 players now have the chance to be a part of our prestigious Academy Team Program. This team will have all the benefits of our regular Academy Team, with everything geared to serve this younger age group.

A few spots left on the High School Team

We also have a few openings left on our Boys High School Academy Team. If you missed the earlier tryouts, here’s your chance to grab a spot on the team.

Free tryouts:  April 3rd, Tuesday

Tryout Location:  Home Grown Lacrosse Facility| 400 Osgood St. | North Andover, MA

This is an incredible opportunity to take your lacrosse game to the next level. There’s simply no other program in the state that gives you as much. Here’s what sets us apart:

• Each player gets a ton of individual focus, to help take their skills and lacrosse IQ to the next level.
• Each player gets individual lessons taught by Bryan Brazill, Peter Smyth and the rest of the Home Grown staff at their team owned indoor facility. These lessons focus on developing lacrosse IQ through film analysis, chalk talks and drills.
• Personal training by Dan Boothby (Strength and Conditioning Director at Northeastern University)
• Year round tournaments
• Year round league play in the North Shore Lacrosse and Home Grown Lacrosse Leagues
• Year round team practices
•  Head to toe gear (helmets, gloves, uniforms, bags)
• Head Coach Bryan Brazill, offers college recruiting and scholarship guidance from start to finish.

 Players, have your parents visit our Lacrosse Academy Team page. It provides a side-by-side comparison of what we offer over other programs.

Hope to see you at Tryouts!

Free tryouts:  April 3rd, Tuesday

High School Academy Team

Sophomores and Juniors

 8:00 – 10:00 p.m.

Tryout Location:  Home Grown Lacrosse Facility| 400 Osgood St. | North Andover, MA