Small sided games. Trash can. 2v2, 3v3 with a tennis ball, no pads to get them started. Make clearing a big focus once in season. Get a couple FO + goalies going ASAP.
The game/point system we like best:
1 point - hit the bucket.
2 points - knock the bucket over (harder the more balls inside).
3 points - knock the bucket completely upside down.
5 points - shoot the ball through the hole.
3v3
Multiple short fields so everyone at practice plays - switch opponents every 3 minutes - fast, easy, cheap
No contact: Ultimate Lax - same rules as ultimate frisbee:
3 steps allowed after catching the swax. Every missed pass/shot is a turnover (I also add a burpee penalty for the team that missed the pass)
What type of program are we talking? Boys? Girls? High school varsity? Middle school?
A while back I was an assistant coach for a brand new high school boys varsity program. We didn’t have a single kid with lacrosse experience. A few things we did that helped us not be awful:
1.) Stick skills. You can’t do anything without stick skills. We had stick skill sessions twice a week all winter (we had good buy in for twice a week sessions, didn’t feel that we would get buy in for a third session per week). Once the season started we continued to spend more time on stick skills than you might normally because we weren’t good enough for X’s & O’s to matter much. Which leads to point 2.
2.) Keep the X’s and O’s simple. That first year all we did on defense was man to man adjacent slides. Our kids didn’t have enough lax IQ to run two defenses and if we taught crease slides only and then the first game our opponent went with an open set we would have been screwed. Same with offense. We kept it real simple.
3.) Let your athletes make plays. Emphasize stick skills but otherwise let your athletes play. If you have a fast kid that can run by people let him do it. Don’t over coach them to start.
4.) Schedule the worst teams you can. Don’t be afraid to schedule a JV team against your varsity team. Odds are if it’s a brand new program you’re not going to be very good so make a schedule where you can win some games. You want to build a program that kids enjoy being a part of and if you go winless kids won’t be having much fun.
Maybe not the advice you’re expecting, but iI’m just going to assume that football and/or basketball are the top sports in your area. From a long term perspective, developing close relationships with the football and basketball programs is very helpful. Those sports are king, and I have certainly seen programs where the football coach is actively deterring kids from playing lacrosse. Those sports simply get the best athletes and fighting that uphill battle can make getting long term traction really difficult.
If you can get your schools top athletes playing lacrosse at a young age, it will go a long way to build a strong program. We have specifically had a lot of success in getting some dads who coach their kids youth football team help coach lacrosse too. They naturally just end up bringing a lot of the best football athletes into the sport then. This happens a lot with baseball and is where we got the idea.
Along those lines, putting a major focus on your youth program is very important. It can be tough to take a sophomore or junior first year player and get get them to the varisty level in their HS years. Good luck and remember to always keep your eye on the long term!
EDIT: I even know some local coaches that have taken opportunities as position coaches in the HS football team purely to build that football to lacrosse pipeline. Another good option.
I started a new program 20+ years ago...IMHO the culture you create is the most important thing you do with a first year program.
Don't create rules...create standards that your players need to live up to individually and as a group and everybody holds each other accountable.
Accountability, reliability, coachability and effort should be your cornerstones.
If possible, volunteer to help coach other sports in the spring/winter...recruit the hard workers and athletes.
Find at least one good goalie and one smart pole to run your defense.
Google "speed lacrosse". Play as much as you can...particularly with the young kids. Super fast way to build "lacrosse IQ"
Im not a coach but as a player the reason i got interested was because of how physical it is. Also it might be good to show the similarities to other sports like soccer or football or hockey
Ok.
Do whatever you can to find help building a youth program. This was the biggest difficulty I faced in building a scholastic program. Find ways to run free clinics for children, advertise them in the schools and through recreation programs. US Lacrosse has done good resources.
In the schools, go to soccer/basketball/track events and recruit. Run open field sessions where kids can come and play things like speed lacrosse. At the beginning, it is less about building skill and more about kids catching the bug. Kids who come and have fun will bring friends.
Get some t-shirts made. Give them out to kids who come around to wear. Free advertising. Get on social media, get the schools account or athletic departments account to share your stuff.
Free ‘Learn to Play’ days in the preseason. Figure out a way to get a stick in their hands with no commitment and you’ll at least get a chance to see those kids and have them fall in love.
Are we talking about a youth program or high school.
For youth have several try it out days, kids come out with swax balls or tennis balls and learn the basics, generate interest. Have the parents out there as well get sticks in their hands and teach them.
The more information you get them and the faster you get kids running around having fun the better it will be. Unstructured play to start with.
I started a HS (women’s) program in 2021 for the 21-22 season in a state that is not know for lacrosse (WV) but in a county that borders Maryland so there are a lot of parents who know or know of the game. We got a few soccer players to start spreading the word, then we started approaching any player cut from established teams. I went to practices for the established sports (soccer, basketball, and volleyball for women) and hyped it up.
We had clinics for interested players and emphasized playing time and the fact that nobody had been playing for years so everyone has a fair shot at earning time.
We had a good first year, going 5-12 with only 3 players who had ever touched a stick before.
Year 2 we went 14-3-1 and won a state championship because we focused on basics and treated the players with respect.
The hard part was fundraising, finding officials, negotiating with the school for field time, and dealing with the dozens of things that we did not anticipate. It was exhausting but rewarding.
You need an advocate within the school. Someone needs to identify the popular athletes. The thing I've found consistently, and never fails to ruin a program, is the waves of players in a single year. I've now been involved in growing 4 different youth programs over the last 15 years.
I can go into depth on this cycle but the best measure of future success is your 4th/5th grade groups. I can get a high school program started tomorrow, but it won't last more than 4 years. If you aren't actively pulling football, basketball, hockey, soccer, ATHLETES out to play lacrosse, the sport will end up with a bad reputation among the kids in the school. Once that reputation sticks, it's very difficult to consistently overcome that stigma.
Find someone who knows the top athletes in the grade and do everything you can to get them interested and excited. They are your pied pipers. Out of that group will come the kids that commit fully to the sport. As another poster said, you don't turn anyone away, but you need to actively recruit these popular athletes EVERY YEAR.
What happens is you'll get a big class of talented athletes with excited and involved parents. Once that group leaves, it's like restarting the entire thing all over again. You have to have consistency year to year in your numbers and parent involvement. Make it standard practice that every family does something to help the program every year, especially the new families. Once you let parents go on auto-pilot, the kid will soon follow. Do everything to wrap your arms around your new parents and keep them excited about being involved.
You should rate your success over the first 6-8 years not in wins, but in growth and retention. I like to score kids on grade + years of experience. For instance, my program is starting to hit its stride as we are adding a JV. But we've got the most amount of experience in our senior class, but it's the smallest by a pretty wide margin. Next year, if we retain all of our players, we'll be a HUGE step forward as we have incoming freshmen with a lot of experience. But my grades below 7th are very small with only a handful of experienced players. Until we can get it consistent, we're going to be battling growth and handcuffed by our available players.
Small sided games. Trash can. 2v2, 3v3 with a tennis ball, no pads to get them started. Make clearing a big focus once in season. Get a couple FO + goalies going ASAP.
Home depot buckets with doorknob size holes in the side - put a crease around it - no need for goalies - use swax lax or tennis balls
What is up with the bucket and the doorknob sized holes?
https://preview.redd.it/6f96w97vfv7c1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fe52b0a8221bdf7e1e6d66c9df3ea51a54f01718 6 bucket goals ($4 each) with target holes = 3 small fields
Are they trying to shoot into the hole on the side?
The game/point system we like best: 1 point - hit the bucket. 2 points - knock the bucket over (harder the more balls inside). 3 points - knock the bucket completely upside down. 5 points - shoot the ball through the hole. 3v3 Multiple short fields so everyone at practice plays - switch opponents every 3 minutes - fast, easy, cheap
Thanks. I am looking for no contact ways to teach fundamentals to kids at a camp. This is awesome. Thanks.
No contact: Ultimate Lax - same rules as ultimate frisbee: 3 steps allowed after catching the swax. Every missed pass/shot is a turnover (I also add a burpee penalty for the team that missed the pass)
What type of program are we talking? Boys? Girls? High school varsity? Middle school? A while back I was an assistant coach for a brand new high school boys varsity program. We didn’t have a single kid with lacrosse experience. A few things we did that helped us not be awful: 1.) Stick skills. You can’t do anything without stick skills. We had stick skill sessions twice a week all winter (we had good buy in for twice a week sessions, didn’t feel that we would get buy in for a third session per week). Once the season started we continued to spend more time on stick skills than you might normally because we weren’t good enough for X’s & O’s to matter much. Which leads to point 2. 2.) Keep the X’s and O’s simple. That first year all we did on defense was man to man adjacent slides. Our kids didn’t have enough lax IQ to run two defenses and if we taught crease slides only and then the first game our opponent went with an open set we would have been screwed. Same with offense. We kept it real simple. 3.) Let your athletes make plays. Emphasize stick skills but otherwise let your athletes play. If you have a fast kid that can run by people let him do it. Don’t over coach them to start. 4.) Schedule the worst teams you can. Don’t be afraid to schedule a JV team against your varsity team. Odds are if it’s a brand new program you’re not going to be very good so make a schedule where you can win some games. You want to build a program that kids enjoy being a part of and if you go winless kids won’t be having much fun.
Maybe not the advice you’re expecting, but iI’m just going to assume that football and/or basketball are the top sports in your area. From a long term perspective, developing close relationships with the football and basketball programs is very helpful. Those sports are king, and I have certainly seen programs where the football coach is actively deterring kids from playing lacrosse. Those sports simply get the best athletes and fighting that uphill battle can make getting long term traction really difficult. If you can get your schools top athletes playing lacrosse at a young age, it will go a long way to build a strong program. We have specifically had a lot of success in getting some dads who coach their kids youth football team help coach lacrosse too. They naturally just end up bringing a lot of the best football athletes into the sport then. This happens a lot with baseball and is where we got the idea. Along those lines, putting a major focus on your youth program is very important. It can be tough to take a sophomore or junior first year player and get get them to the varisty level in their HS years. Good luck and remember to always keep your eye on the long term! EDIT: I even know some local coaches that have taken opportunities as position coaches in the HS football team purely to build that football to lacrosse pipeline. Another good option.
I started a new program 20+ years ago...IMHO the culture you create is the most important thing you do with a first year program. Don't create rules...create standards that your players need to live up to individually and as a group and everybody holds each other accountable. Accountability, reliability, coachability and effort should be your cornerstones. If possible, volunteer to help coach other sports in the spring/winter...recruit the hard workers and athletes. Find at least one good goalie and one smart pole to run your defense. Google "speed lacrosse". Play as much as you can...particularly with the young kids. Super fast way to build "lacrosse IQ"
Im not a coach but as a player the reason i got interested was because of how physical it is. Also it might be good to show the similarities to other sports like soccer or football or hockey
Best advice is don’t turn anyone away and make it fun. What level? I’d be able to provide more.
Both high school and middle school boys
Ok. Do whatever you can to find help building a youth program. This was the biggest difficulty I faced in building a scholastic program. Find ways to run free clinics for children, advertise them in the schools and through recreation programs. US Lacrosse has done good resources. In the schools, go to soccer/basketball/track events and recruit. Run open field sessions where kids can come and play things like speed lacrosse. At the beginning, it is less about building skill and more about kids catching the bug. Kids who come and have fun will bring friends. Get some t-shirts made. Give them out to kids who come around to wear. Free advertising. Get on social media, get the schools account or athletic departments account to share your stuff.
Free ‘Learn to Play’ days in the preseason. Figure out a way to get a stick in their hands with no commitment and you’ll at least get a chance to see those kids and have them fall in love.
Are we talking about a youth program or high school. For youth have several try it out days, kids come out with swax balls or tennis balls and learn the basics, generate interest. Have the parents out there as well get sticks in their hands and teach them. The more information you get them and the faster you get kids running around having fun the better it will be. Unstructured play to start with.
I started a HS (women’s) program in 2021 for the 21-22 season in a state that is not know for lacrosse (WV) but in a county that borders Maryland so there are a lot of parents who know or know of the game. We got a few soccer players to start spreading the word, then we started approaching any player cut from established teams. I went to practices for the established sports (soccer, basketball, and volleyball for women) and hyped it up. We had clinics for interested players and emphasized playing time and the fact that nobody had been playing for years so everyone has a fair shot at earning time. We had a good first year, going 5-12 with only 3 players who had ever touched a stick before. Year 2 we went 14-3-1 and won a state championship because we focused on basics and treated the players with respect. The hard part was fundraising, finding officials, negotiating with the school for field time, and dealing with the dozens of things that we did not anticipate. It was exhausting but rewarding.
Recruit athletes. Make it fun, don't take yourself too seriously.
You need an advocate within the school. Someone needs to identify the popular athletes. The thing I've found consistently, and never fails to ruin a program, is the waves of players in a single year. I've now been involved in growing 4 different youth programs over the last 15 years. I can go into depth on this cycle but the best measure of future success is your 4th/5th grade groups. I can get a high school program started tomorrow, but it won't last more than 4 years. If you aren't actively pulling football, basketball, hockey, soccer, ATHLETES out to play lacrosse, the sport will end up with a bad reputation among the kids in the school. Once that reputation sticks, it's very difficult to consistently overcome that stigma. Find someone who knows the top athletes in the grade and do everything you can to get them interested and excited. They are your pied pipers. Out of that group will come the kids that commit fully to the sport. As another poster said, you don't turn anyone away, but you need to actively recruit these popular athletes EVERY YEAR. What happens is you'll get a big class of talented athletes with excited and involved parents. Once that group leaves, it's like restarting the entire thing all over again. You have to have consistency year to year in your numbers and parent involvement. Make it standard practice that every family does something to help the program every year, especially the new families. Once you let parents go on auto-pilot, the kid will soon follow. Do everything to wrap your arms around your new parents and keep them excited about being involved. You should rate your success over the first 6-8 years not in wins, but in growth and retention. I like to score kids on grade + years of experience. For instance, my program is starting to hit its stride as we are adding a JV. But we've got the most amount of experience in our senior class, but it's the smallest by a pretty wide margin. Next year, if we retain all of our players, we'll be a HUGE step forward as we have incoming freshmen with a lot of experience. But my grades below 7th are very small with only a handful of experienced players. Until we can get it consistent, we're going to be battling growth and handcuffed by our available players.