Part of professional development as a leader and coach is working through the professional literature of leadership. That can take the form of a good, old-fashioned book, podcast, or web-based article.

Here is my recent collection of resources:

Leadership Literature: Coaches’ Book Club

The Power of Team Captains

We hear so much about culture and how important it is to driving success. Relationships are at the center of every discussion of culture. Being able to speak and hear the truth, while being safe and supported, are essential to growth. No culture thrives unless it is based on growth. This podcast gets into what that actually looks like in action.

“Find a Culture of Greatness”

Sam Walker is the author of The Captain Class, and his work is the most exhaustive study of greatness in leadership in the captain position. It is ancient coaching wisdom that if your best players are your hardest workers, you are primed for success.

A key takeaway from The Captain Class: leadership takes on all shapes and forms, but there are key traits for leaders that can be developed.

“No Dickheads”

The 15 chapters of James Kerr’s Legacy all focus on one aspect of being a great team, all stemming from the All Blacks rugby team’s consistent culture. We have found them to be excellent discussion starters for our leadership training sessions.

You can learn about all 15 of the team’s mantras here, and they can apply to your lacrosse team, your business, your anything that requires leadership and teamwork to achieve. This is some of the best leadership literature you can find.

A major lesson from Legacy: develop a team of leaders dedicated to serving the mission of the team.

Let Them Lead

This book is inspiring on multiple levels. I’m also a big hockey guy – I can smell the rink when I read this.

“It comes down to the way you treat people. When you treat people with dignity and respect all the time, you can work through anything.”

John U. Bacon

An important takeaway from Let Them Lead: set high standards and work together to achieve them daily. Be a good listener.

You’re Always Leading by Example

This article by Michael Schrage for the Harvard Business Review explaining how you’re always leading through action, fit with real-world examples of how it should be.

“What I do speaks so loudly that what I say cannot be heard.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A main lesson to gain from Schrage’s work is that you have to live up to standards OUT LOUD. Being discrete about asking how a teammate in a leadership position leads by example can yield results. Ask them. You need to know what they think it looks like to be a leader.

Chris Bosh

Highly recommend you give this a listen, then pick up Chris Bosh’s book, “Letters to a Young Athlete,” like I did. Bosh gets it, and this book made me feel so lucky to be coaching.

“It takes what it takes.”

Chris Bosh

This was the best book I read this summer. It’s so good – pick it up.

A big moral of “Letters to a Young Athlete” is that the lessons we learn as athletes are lessons for life.

“The Inner Game of Tennis”

How do you relentlessly pursue excellence without getting tight or in your head? W. Timothy Gallwey’s classic can help coaches understand that a lot of what we do is overanalyzing and overcoaching, which creates a tight athlete mentally and physically. We can train our thoughts through play and competition, so practice planning has to allow space for this with clearly-designed desired outcomes.

“Picture the desired outcome and let it happen.”

W. Timothy Gallwey

An important takeaway from “The Inner Game of Tennis” is that there is more to developing yourself as an athlete than just technique.

Jamie Munro with Dr. Erik Korem

Jamie Munro’s podcast is a regular listen for me on my commute. This episode is about high performance and is one of his many worthwhile discussions.

A key takeaway from this podcast is that sleep is essential for learning and physical recovery. This has to be planned for and can be one of the biggest challenges for college athletes.

Wanna Talk Leadership Literature?

Any coaches out there want to get a book club discussion, podcast, or just talk shop on any of the selection above? Please get in touch at schanhals@hope.edu. I look forward to advancing our craft together.

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Your son or daughter is a high school lacrosse athlete with dreams of playing in college. You’re a proud parent who is thrilled to support your child in whatever way you can, but you’ve never experienced college recruiting before. And even if you did play lacrosse or another sport in college, times have changed quite a bit since then.

So, how should a parent behave during the recruiting process? Mike Schanhals has been a college lacrosse head coach since 2004, and he had two sons go through the lacrosse recruiting experience, too. He’s lived both sides of college lacrosse recruiting, and these are some of the best tips he has for parents who are entering the world of recruiting with their child.

Parents in Recruiting: How Should a Parent Behave?

Support Your Child’s College Search

Search for the right academic fit first, and then consider lacrosse. Some of my fondest memories are of road trips with my wife and sons to check out schools and programs. We had a great time, and it was well worth investing the gas money and effort to drive across the country to get a feel for different schools.

There are many great opportunities out there. You can use this tool to assess your child’s admissions chances.

Try to make a list of 20 schools and work it down to a dozen or so by the time you decide where to visit. Reach out to the coach (or make sure you connect through your club coach if you are looking DI) and admissions before you visit.

Promptly Fill Out the FAFSA

The FAFSA is a race – it’s first come, first served until the money runs out. You can use an estimated cost calculator to decide what initial schools to put on your fit list, but you really won’t know the actual financial cost until each school has calculated your aid package.

If you are a recruit, you may be able to request an expedited financial aid package, and perhaps a “likely” letter to access your chances of getting admitted. These are questions that you can ask your admissions counselor.

You may also be asked to fill out a CSS profile, which is a tool some schools use during the admissions process. Know how to ask these questions when you’re on your visit.

Your Child Should Do the Work, Under Your Guidance

As a coach, it’s very important for me to get to know your child during the recruiting process. Your job as a parent is to listen carefully and help have conversations about the recruiting process with your kid. You can help them assess the fit, narrow down the list, chauffeur them to campuses, ask questions of the admissions reps and financial aide people, and rebalance the hype and excitement over lacrosse toward school and student-athlete fit.

College is a significant investment of time and money, and you can help your child understand the business side of it all. Coaches these days are very wary of helicopter, or lawnmower, parents. Let your kid be the face of their search with your support in the background.

Go to Prospect Day

If there is a prospect day happening at one of your top three-to-five schools, you should make it a priority to go. Not only will your kid get a better feel for life on campus, but they will also get to know their potential future teammates. They will get the vibe of the program during prospect day more so than any other event on campus.

Feel free to ask for feedback after the event as well. These can be great learning days, and your child’s transition from a high school to college athlete depends on a great amount of growth during their last years of high school. Make sure you sign up early – spots go fast at the more competitive schools.

Each Coach Has a Very Small Network of Trusted High School & Club Coaches

We know and trust who we know. Everyone else, we take their recommendations with a grain of salt.

Almost every high school coach will sing the praises of their kids. What makes your kid different from the rest of the recruits? We expect that they are leaders, that they work hard, that they have been recognized as All-American/All-State/All-Conference and are on the honor roll. The recommendation from a trusted coach can weight heavily in our decision to offer a spot.

As a parent, you will not know who has good connections with your high school or club coach. Every network is different, and no matter how much money you pay to a club team, you can’t guarantee the fit or relationships. Pay for your kid to get better as a player and to have fun playing more competitive ball. Be very skeptical about sales pitches that promise or imply how connected they are to us college coaches.

It’s Not Personal, But It Is Personalized

Understand that each college has an admissions profile and each coach has recruitment needs. We may have too many lefty attackmen, so we may just not be looking for any during the recruiting cycle that your kid is in. We may need a longpole, who is from out-of-state, with at least a 3.8 GPA, and the right CSS profile. If that student-athlete enrolls, then we will need someone with a different profile next year. If not, then we still are looking.

Especially at the DIII level, it’s not an exact science for us, nor is it a shopping trip where we just grab up who we want like we’re an ACC or Big Ten team. Typically, we will “offer” a spot to eight to 10 people, and then we get any number of “walk-ons.” We generally don’t know exactly how many are coming out for fall ball until all deposits are due May 1. We may still get a handful who contact us over the summer, or who transfer from other schools.

Last year, we were fortunate to have nine players selected to the All-Conference MIAA Team – two were transfers, one was a former DI early commit, one was a walk-on, and the rest were recruited athletes who chose to be student-athletes here.

Yes, Every Coach Will Recruit Athletes “Over” Your Child

As coaches, we are so competitive that we will recruit hard every year and work the player development process to put the best team on the field. We also mentor all of our athletes and know that regardless of playing time and accolades, we are invested in developing the full potential of each of your children.

College lacrosse is not for everyone, but it is a rare privilege for those who earn the opportunity. All of my best to you as you enjoy the process with your child.

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There is a difference between choosing captains and developing captains, even though maybe in the back of our minds we assume that if we pick the right captain, then leadership will take care of itself. The best dudes may get chosen, but they may have no idea what being captain entails and have very little experience taking responsibility for a group of their peers. We may be setting them up for failure and us up for disappointment if we don’t support their efforts to learn how to lead.

Developing Leadership to Mold Captains

We love to recruit players with leadership capacity and experience. Most on our roster have been team captains in high school. We also know that is not enough. We know we need to make an organized effort to allow many of our players to develop leadership capacity. We have grown into a scaffolded leadership team at Hope. Developing leadership skills takes practice, and so we get as many people involved as possible during their careers here.  

Leadership roles on our team include: squad leader(s), recruiting liaison, workout captains, and captains. Up to one-third of our team holds a formal leadership position at any one point in time.  

Squad leaders lead a team of up to eight other players, and they may be responsible for anyone from freshmen to captains in their squad. Squad leaders make sure that each member of their squad is accountable to our mission and also to the detail-oriented things day-to-day, like what color shorts for the workout or who helps swoop up the locker room after practice. I share a text with the leadership team, including squad leaders, each morning with the practice plan, and the “get done” checklist for the day. Squad leaders are servant leaders, and we have excellent debriefs and discussions about what each squad needs and which individual players need support.

Our recruiting liaison works in the admissions office as a tour guide and has had formal training from the college in supporting prospective student-athletes. He works closely with the other players so that the PSA can meet as many members of our team as possible. He also vets the recruits and talks to the coaching staff about who would be a good fit here. We find this to be a very valuable part of the recruiting process.

Our workout captains monitor and articulate the rest/recovery/workout plans from week-to-week. The coaching staff works closely with them to make sure they are supported with time/equipment/feedback. Typically, the workout captains are also studying kinesiology, and this is a real-world opportunity for them to lead and put theory into practice. I vet any of my ideas, reading, or research through the workout captains and leadership team before we implement them. 

Our academic liaison works to support our overall mission to earn a USILA Academic Team Award. This is a student-athlete who excels in the classroom, manages time well, and studies hard. He may also be someone who works in the writing center or the academic success center. He works with our leadership team and squad leaders to support any of our players who may be struggling with a class or with “college.” The academic liaison also knows who is studying what on our team, so older players can mentor/tutor younger ones. Our new players may also be nervous to talk to the head coach about struggling with school – the academic liaison is more approachable. 

Our captains are voted on by the team, whereas our other leadership roles are on a volunteer basis. We talk about what we need to get done, and then we fill roles accordingly.

Here are the instructions for the players before they vote: 

Suggest leaders who would make great captains for us this spring. Captains must serve as leaders, smooth the path to performance for their teammates, communicate well up and down the organizational chart, excel on the field of play and in the classroom, make each day we are together a fun and enriching experience, and have a fierce desire to compete and help us win every time we step on the field. Please choose 6 of your teammates who you feel best exemplify these qualities.  

At the end of fall ball, we use a Google Form to create a spreadsheet, and this allows us to get a picture of the voting patterns. Asking for six choices acknowledges that there are many who could serve as captain. The top vote-getters will serve on the leadership team in some capacity as we prepare for spring. The captains communicate with the team and the coaching staff daily. The captains will closely listen to our squad debriefs and help plan for improvement. The captains bring the energy to the field every day.  The captains are great listeners for their teammates. The captains take responsibility for us being together as a team.

Motivated players want to be better – the leadership team shows them how, then shows them how to be helpful to their teammates. “Always have your teammates’ backs” is our first standard. Our captains have to live this every day. We build this by visible work, leadership by example, and by open and direct conversations. We are not afraid to speak up for our standards. This is a continual process, and none of it happens without developing leadership.

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Why do I coach?

The short answer: love it.

The long answer:

“How do I love thee, let me count the ways…” Elizabeth Barrett Browning

We hosted a camp this summer, and I swear that those younger kids learn in their sleep. They go home after day one and come back the next day able to do things they couldn’t do the day before – love it (thanks, parents, for sending us your kids for camp).

I talked to a parent about the recruitment process. His son didn’t have our school on his shortlist, and he chose to go somewhere else. I didn’t recruit him, but I did really enjoy getting to know his folks and answering their questions. I went through all this with my own sons and finally understood what the process is like on the parent side. I have all this experience, and it’s nice to be able to share it – love it (thanks Hall family).

My wife and I are in the stands at our son’s college game. We’re meeting a ton of new people but also seeing some familiar faces. One of my wife’s cooler buddies is there, and here’s the story: our son is a goalie, and our boys played club ball in the summers together. My wife wants him to save everything, and eventually she made her way away from the rest of the parents over to the corner. Of course, I am coaching and watching this from the sideline. Another dad is in the corner there with a cooler. He shares a cold beverage with her and explains how it would be pretty tough to save everything, sit down here and relax and enjoy the game. The lacrosse community is awesome – love it (thanks Patrick Clay).

Being part of a team of coaches and working hard together trying to win. Our program is so lucky to have the coaching staff that we do. Our assistant coach played in our program, and he is heart and soul into doing everything we can do to win. Our volunteer assistant actually volunteers. He drive in from another city every day to practice, offers guidance, wisdom, and counsel, because he loves being part of the team, and he loves to win – love it (thanks Christ Scheldt and Bruce Elder).

I’m still connected with teammates from my playing days and have been able to coach some of their sons. I get insights on our current team from them – they want so much for our program to win. When we can get together, it seems like yesterday when we reminisce about spring break shenanigans, past glory days games, midnight practices in the Dow Center, and our other teammates – love it (thanks Tom Theile, Tom Kuiper, Billy Cunnington, and all my teammates).

I used to work coaching for a summer program. Not only did we travel to Long Island, Delaware, Virginia, Maryland, Florida, and Northern Michigan, but we made friends for life. Many of these kids grew up, and I was able to continue coaching them in college. What a treat to watch them grow – love it (thanks Kori Quinn).

The NCAA has a dead period after our five-week fall ball. Middle school basketball season fits into this time slot perfectly, so I’m still able to coach. Sports are great, and basketball is an excellent crossover sport to lacrosse. I have learned a tremendous amount about game planning, strategy, time management, communication, and player substitutions. I was fortunate to coach alongside my coach from middle school for years and have made some wonderful coaching connections – love it (thanks Coach Howard, Coach Cooke, Coach Rypstra, Coach Friesner, and Coach Liverance).

When I was a kid playing little league baseball and it was game day, I would wear my uniform pretty much as soon as I got up in the morning. All of it – cleats, stirrups, baseball pants with the elastic up over my calves, baseball undershirt, jersey, and a blue hat that rarely came off my head. I wore a hole in the inside of our garage by pitching a tennis ball over and over to the same spot. I couldn’t get enough ball then or now – love it (thanks Dad).

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According to the voluminous NCAA rulebook (257 pages for DIII and 464 pages for DI), Sept. 1 is the first opportunity to contact juniors in high school, as the country’s 2023 lacrosse recruits found out last week. Prior to that, there can be no correspondence between a DI head coach and a PSA – that’s the lingo the NCAA uses to describe you, a prospective student-athlete.  

Because DIII schools do not offer athletic scholarships, there is no such restriction on us. We can talk with you any time, except during an event. Now the rules are that we need to wait until after any contests, i.e. we are not going to chat you up during halftime of your high school game. This is the reason we may seem aloof when you see us walking around at a summer tournament. We are supposed to wait until the end of the day’s play to connect with you.

With the day now behind us, I want to reflect back on what Sept. 1 means and how it has changed the way college lacrosse recruiting works.

2023 Lacrosse Recruits Begin to Sign: A Coach’s Reflection

These rules and guidelines are usually edited and revised a little bit each year. For example, the rule about Sept. 1 of your junior year for DI was put in place a few years ago. Prior to that, eighth graders were making verbal commitments to DI programs. 

Can you imagine? There is quite a bit of a physical and emotional development that happens between middle school and college. I am assuming only eighth graders with mustaches were the ones getting offers that early. Probably not too many late-bloomers getting athletic scholarship offers in middle school, or maybe even high school. 

If the COVID disruption taught us anything, it is that many players do not look that smooth while they are growing, and that seniors in high school usually look pretty good compared to younger dudes.

With the current rules, a high school sophomore can be balling out at a showcase or tournament in the summer, and there may be DI coaches on the sidelines. The player sees the coach there, and then has to wait until Sept. 1 to find out if they were noticed (and impressive) or not.

Now that Sept. 1 has come and gone, the 2023 lacrosse recruits don’t have to live with that unknown.

This puts the player in a different state of mind. Add to that the rumors of this school or coach being interested, parents and fans fueling the rumors, and club coaches who can actually talk to the DI coaches about players … and you have a really intense scenario for a PSA.

So, there is a lot of pressure on a kid (aka PSAs), and right now it’s time for the 2023 lacrosse recruits to feel it. I have known kids who had more than a dozen coaches contact them at midnight on Sept. 1 – yes, midnight on a school night when most kids get up at 6:30 a.m. or so to get their school day going. 

This is crazy, because we know that sleep and hydration are really important for athletes to perform at their peak. This is why I chose to text (not call) the handful of recruits I connected with this week. I did wait up to midnight to do it (way past my bedtime), so we would be in the mix with any other correspondence these very special PSAs received.  

As I am writing this, my phone is blowing up with all our family members congratulating my niece for committing to a DI school for lacrosse. She is starting her senior year in high school and has worked very hard to accomplish this. She kept playing, training, studying, and working for this opportunity even when she didn’t get as much correspondence as she would have liked last year at this time. 

Whether you got some correspondence this week or not, your college search belongs to you. Make the very most of it, keep playing, and keep having fun.

Let’s see how the Class of 2023 lacrosse recruits gets on now than their excitement has begun.

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Highlight films have become an integral part of college lacrosse recruiting. But making a video isn’t necessarily an intuitive process if you don’t have any experience. These are some important tips for putting together a video that can help you in your lacrosse recruiting process.

Lacrosse Recruiting Video Tips

Quality Competition: Make sure the clips you use are against the best competition you faced. You don’t need to include film of you running by squids or taking the ball away from little kids.

Keep It Tight: Nobody needs to see every goal you scored your sophomore year against the aforementioned squids or little kids. Keep it tight to just the stuff that will actually impress coaches.

If we can’t see it in under two minutes, it’s probably not there. Remember that the film is one piece of the recruiting puzzle. It should help you and not hurt you, so keep it clean and tight.

Start Hot: Don’t save your best for last. The first clip should be fire. Show us your best right away to keep us engaged. Try to make an instant impact in the first few moments of the video.

Variety: Show us more than just goals. There’s a lot more to lacrosse than the final shot that ends up putting the ball in the back of the net, and you want people to see a more complete picture of who you are on the field. A tough ground ball and crisp pass after should be in every short stick’s video within the first three clips.

Consider Your Audience: The most fun we have with highlight reels i that we make a list of them for our incoming freshmen, and then we share them with each other and the rest of the team. The GroupMe is cracklin’ with commentary. An important tip for any lacrosse recruiting video is to consider your audience when making it.

Music? It better be “baller alert” or leave it off. Get up on this level:

If you do include music, keep the soundtrack clean. Slurs and profanity can send the wrong message. We love guys who are actually tough, not just ones who listen to tough music.

Seriously, though, we usually mute the volume while we watch. But we may give you the aux at practice if you have a great taste in jams, so it might be worth it to shoot your shot.

The exception here may be defenders and goalies, though. We might want to hear you communicate if you have that on film. Most of the filming services will run audio, so it’s possible that you’ll be able to get some communication on tape. A good tip would be to tell anyone filming for you to make sure they capture you communicating on the field in your recruiting highlights.

Mute any annoying fans in the audio. No one wants to hear that.

What Can My Highlights Do for Me? Your highlight film may whet my appetite for me. After I talk to your coaches about your character and leadership, I usually ask for some uncut game film. Typically, your coach can Hudl share, and I usually ask for a rivalry game film.

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College recruiting can be overwhelming for an athlete. You can be hit with messages from places you never knew existed, you have to monitor your athletics and academics at all times while building relationships with coaches, all the same time as trying to enjoy being a kid. To make a bit easier to navigate, I’ve put together a shortlist of some recruiting do’s and don’ts for when communicating with college lacrosse coaches.

As a Division III head coach myself, these lacrosse recruiting do’s and don’ts especially apply to my level of lacrosse. That doesn’t mean they’re totally inapplicable to other levels or even to other sports. Recruiting is recruiting; there’s plenty of overlap. But it’s important to note that this is my perspective.

Lacrosse Recruiting Do’s and Don’ts: Communicating with Coaches

DO: Include your cell phone number. We know your phone is your native environment and that you don’t read your emails as quickly as you see your phone.

DON’T: Spam us. We know if you filled out a form letter and blasted it out to every coach in the (insert recruiting service website name here) database.

DO: Send the email from your actual email address and not through MailChimp or something like that. It is not a bad idea to make sure your email name has your high school grad year and your name in the address. For example: MikeSchanhals86@gmail.com. It might be a good idea to just create an email account exclusively for your recruiting communication.

DON’T: Worry about contacting us. Communicate. We are good with it – this is our job. If you have a question, please ask. We don’t mind helping you work through your search. Remember that in the summer, we are on the road a ton, so be patient on the replies.

DO: Include a PDF of your transcript (ask your counselor at school, and they can hook you up) and any film clips you have. If you don’t have film yet, let us know that and when you will have it.

DON’T: Assume we will be at every event during the recruiting season. We would love to be there, but every college coach has to factor in the recruiting budget and their availability on those dates.

DO: Please invite us, though, and when you do, update us with your jersey number for the tournament and schedule, if possible. This makes it much easier for us to put a watch list together. We love seeing you play.

DON’T: Assume that we know where to find you (or your club coach) at these events. Some of these events are huge. Do your best to make it easy for us to find you. Also, don’t take it personally if we don’t find you or even make it to the tournament/showcase you are playing in. Send an update after so we can follow up with you.

DO: Text us. Then we have you in our phone and know who you are. Emails get buried pretty quickly in our inboxes, especially when we’re on the road.

DON’T: Have you parents contact us. It’s okay if they proofread you letter or communication before you send it, but send it yourself. We are happy to talk to your parents on a tour of the school or visit, but you should be the person communicating with us.

DO: Fill out a recruit form (like this: https://go.hope.edu/register/athletics-request-info). This gets you looped into optional communication from admissions and athletics. You may get invites to recruiting events and prospect days.

DON’T: Worry about it if you don’t hear back immediately. You will want to research schools carefully, get there no a visit, meet the team, and get a feel for campus life. This all takes time, and communicating along the way is key.

Good luck!

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I have more than two decades of college coaching experience, and I’ve also had multiple children go through the lacrosse recruiting process, so I have some tips on the subject.

Lacrosse recruiting can be a hectic time for a young person, and it can be especially difficult to navigate without tips and help from those who have been through it before. So, I’ve put together a few of the top tips I would offer to an athlete entering the lacrosse recruiting world. Hopefully they can make the experience more fun, fulfilling, and successful for you.

Lacrosse Recruiting Tips from a College Coach

Paying Money to Play Lacrosse

Whatever you sign up for, make sure you have fun and that the value of the event meets your needs. You may get recruited from the event, but the event has to be worth it in the first place. Showcases can be a ton of fun, but it’s sometimes not the best team lacrosse.

I do like attending showcases as a coach, because I can see a lot of talented players in one place. My assessment of a player is easier when I see them live and in action. Do they get their eyes up right away after a ground ball? Will they share the ball and share the work? Is their passing and catching crisp? Are they fast? Will they do the million little things that need to be done in a competitive environment? Are they good teammates? Are they polite and respectful off the field? Would they fit in with our dudes? I get answers to all of those questions when I attend these events.

Club Ball

If you join a summer club program, recognize that your mission is to improve as a lacrosse athlete by playing more lacrosse. There is a ton of hype about getting “recruited” and not enough hype about getting better.

Fact: you need to get better before you even think about playing college lacrosse. Even DIII? Yes, even DIII. Very few freshmen jump right from high school or club ball into a major role on a competitive DIII team. The role is usually fairly different than that of what you needed to do in high school.

What is the value of playing club lacrosse then? It is tremendously fun. You play with people from all around. You play more competitive lacrosse games against tougher competition. As a lax parent, I remember fondly the many road trips and excellent time with my sons. My memory is pretty fuzzy on our stats, record, etc. It really is all about family time and getting better through competing.

What If I Play Other Sports?

If you don’t play for a summer club program, you can still get recruited. You won’t have your club coach helping you out, but your high school coach should be able to help you get film organized and reach out to college coaches.

Every college coach has a network of high school and club coaches whom they trust to give an accurate assessment of a recruit. That list is usually pretty small, though, and the preponderance of references generally are laced with hyperbole.

This is why it’s so important for us to be able to see you live. I love watching a good high school rivalry game to get a sense of a player’s competitiveness. I’m looking for players who put their heart and soul into playing, and most times you can’t really see that in the fifth game of a weekend at a summer tournament.

Connect with Coaches

Please, invite us out to see a game. Usually, it will be later in the campaign as our season is going at the same time, but sometimes I’m on the road to watch playoff games, and I can’t wait for them!

You can’t get recruited if we don’t know who are you are. If you want us to take a look at you, make sure we have your schedule, your number, and basic information, like your grad year and position.

Academics

We organize our recruiting class by your graduation year. We may assess more than 300 potential recruits to get a class of 12, and then 12 more walk-ons will show up, too. We want the right fit for our academic institution first. For us, this rules out a lot of potential players right away.

We usually will ask for a copy of your unofficial transcript. We’ll use that to check if you’ve had a rigorous high school curriculum and will be up for the challenges of the college classroom. Not every school is like this – some schools have lower academic expectations and can look at a larger pool of student-athletes.

Use a search tool like niche.com to help you wade through the metrics of your search. You should use your data to assess the fit before you reach out to coaches. Probably the most important thing you can do as a recruit is to make a list of the places where you would like to study (without lacrosse as a factor) and start to narrow down that list. Then, lacrosse can help you target the schools you’re pursuing. Also, if you’re getting emails (yes, you should check your email regularly and respond to coaches, please), you can use the search tools to see if the school is a good fit for you.

You should drive this process. As a coach, I appreciate it if you’re interested in another school and not interested in ours. I totally get it, and I respect that it is your college search. Plus, it’s nice to know that I can focus on other recruits. I’m narrowing down my list the same way you should be narrowing down yours.

Play for Your Parents

I have worked through the process as a head coach for years, but my experience as a parent has been the most valuable.

Parents want the best for their kids. As a potential recruit, you may need to help your parents, just like they will need to help you with your FAFSA. Help your parents by playing hard, doing your research, and taking ownership of your college search.

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“The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” – Robert Burns

“Coach, these guys don’t want to drill, they want to PLAY.”  – Wade Hoag

Play Lacrosse, Even When You Practice It

Wrapping ourselves up in our professional pursuit is our magic feather. If we feel like we have done everything possible to prepare, then we have done our job, but what do our kids want to do?

Play. 

I learned this from Wade Hoag, and I am embarrassed to say that with all my preoccupation with preparation, I never would have thought of it if I hadn’t asked. Wade had the guts, as a freshman, to tell me the truth. I knew what he meant right away – sports are fun. Playing is the best part of our day. Practice should be that way. So, whatever we do to plan practice, plan on making it the best part of our players’ days. 

Sometimes, as coaches, we get detail obsessed, losing ourselves in the machinations of a hip turn or hand placement. We believe that the details are key to performance. We have made a science out of lifting weights and have created shrines for us to sweat in. We worship THE GRIND, doing tough things every day, and embracing our manly inner stoic. Coaches will geek out on a “great drill.” and at some level we should. It is our job, and there is no shame in appreciating professional preparation. 

But, have you ever heard a kid say, “That was a great drill!” I am not talking about fourth graders playing steal the bacon. How many times have you heard a college-aged man, who has sat through class all day, been up late studying film and organic chemistry, come to practice looking forward to the third drill in your practice plan? We humans are emotional creatures, and it is tough to be passionate about kaizen when we don’t make time to play.  

Jamie Munro has some great thoughts on free play and how this can help structure our improvement. So as we plan for practices, we try to build in competitive situations that begin with a ground ball, follow up with pressure, and the opportunity for our guys to make a lot of decisions, and mistakes, at full speed. We can then debrief by position group, squads, rookies versus veterans, or however we choose to group our players that day, allowing players to take ownership of the growth process. Fast, intense drills followed by a thoughtful debrief becomes part of the rhythm of practice. Eric Kapitulik of The Program has some excellent thoughts on working to build this culture in your training. 

We also try to put time on the clock, turn the shot clocks on, and keep score. Every day.  Every man on our team gets to play lacrosse every day. I have made a real effort to use my “coach voice” booming across the whole field less and to talk to more people one-on-one, in the context of our play. I will coach them up on the things they can control: their eyes/hands/feet. They will use my guidance to play lacrosse better, because they want to win, and they get the chance every day.

At the beginning of practices, especially the ones where we are wearing two pairs of sweats and climbing over a snowbank to get to the field, our kids talk about practice being “RECESS.”  This is a quotation from Gino Battaglia, an excellent recent alum, leader, and captain of our program:

“Time to play, kids!” 

Thanks Wade, Gino, and all our PLAYers.

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Last week, we saw what a game week looks like at a DII program. We continue to build on that by showcasing the men’s lacrosse program at DIII Hope College this week.

Hope COllege Men’s Lacrosse – A Week in the Life

Wednesday

A night game in which we came out kind of flat. One of those days where all our kids are busy with school, have been up late studying (or something), and we make a bunch of uncharacteristic mistakes that are more a function of low energy than not wanting it bad enough. We start to try too hard and then get tight. Then we adjust and finally figure things out. A little too late for our inflated sense of expectations, though. Our Hope College lacrosse players and coaching staff are stressed and we are working hard but not having as much fun as we should. We win.

Thursday/Friday/Saturday

We like to give days off during the lacrosse season so we can stay on top of school and be well rested coming into the playoffs. We have learned this hard lesson before, losing a championship game by running out of gas in the fourth quarter. We call these “gray” days because we mark them gray on our calendar. I am available to work one-on-one with our guys, get some footwork, shooting, or exercise in, but it is completely optional.  Our volunteer coaches get the day off, and we get to recharge. At first, they don’t necessarily trust me when I say it is optional. One of our first gray days this year, we basically had the whole team out there and ran a practice. Not this gray day – they all took the day off and many began to make plans to go into Easter Break. Many traveled to see parents and relatives to celebrate the holiday.

Sunday: Easter

Grateful for all that we have been provided with, we all celebrate the miracle of Easter, then get back to the Hope College campus for early morning COVID testing on Monday.

Monday

Early in the morning, the players all wake up and get to testing. Nobody missed testing, and this is a big deal, because it is early in the morning and these are college dudes. Earlier in the year, we had to have some players sit out games because they missed their tests. We have the best athletic training staff in the world; they are true pros. I was a little surprised to see our trainer, Tonia, staring at her laptop while we were warming up for practice. What was she looking at? Multiple positive COVID cases on our team.

Apparently there were quite a few spring celebrations tied to social groups on campus, including a Dance Marathon the weekend prior to Easter. The new variant of COVID was ripping through the Hope College campus and our lacrosse team.  Everyone gets sent home after 20 minutes of practice, and we all wonder what’s next. We wait for the results of the contact tracing while the coaching staff eats a pizza together. We all remember what it felt like last year to get shut down for the season.

Tuesday

Continual updates come throughout the day from the COVID team. We are down the majority of our roster. Our game with our rival Calvin University is cancelled. Huge bummer. We are allowed to practice lacrosse but in two shifts, and players need to be organized in four-player non-contact pods to contact trace and social distance. Our coaching staff is concerned about getting COVID. I am fully vaccinated, but they have not had the chance to make it happen yet. I work through three different shifts of practice, and it is really cool to work with the small groups. We learn a lot. We slow down and talk to one another. We know it’s going to be a rough re-entry with more than half of our team out.  

I lose sleep over some of my guys actually getting sick rather than just testing positive.

Postscript

We had to cancel our game Saturday but got enough healthy people to have half our team play an away game the following Wednesday. We are still working our way back into shape.  We anxiously await the test results each time they come in. lacrosse

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It has been way too long since we have been able to play rivalry games. 

Full Disclosure: I may, or may not, drink my coffee each morning in a mug that is the colors of our rivals just to fire up immediately.

Return of the RIVALRY – DIII LACROSSE

For many of us in DIII, we lost the entire conference season and the playoffs last year. So it’s beyond exciting to get the opportunity to play against long-standing rivals this spring.  From the preseason polls, to the buzz throughout our network of coaching friends, and the projections of who lost whom and who added new hotshot recruits, every little thing is analyzed and overanalyzed pre-contest.  

Every year is a new team, and one of my favorite parts of coaching is seeing each freshmen’s growth and understanding when they get a taste of the rivalries. Twenty-nine out of our 42 players were not on our team the last time we played our rivals.  It was fun to see them wide eyed when random fans on campus casually directed obscene gestures toward our busses as we pulled into town for the game.  It was exhilarating to feel the energy as we stepped off the bus. 

After the stares across the midline and normal hooting and hollering during warm ups, and before the national anthem, we stood together to listen to our league’s expectations for sportsmanship over the loudspeaker.  Essentially, it is really foreshadowing all the violations that are about to occur when the game starts and the crowd on the fence begins yelling.

“…profanity will not be tolerated.” “F— YOU 22!!!”  Chirp props for assonance and sheer directness.  

“Spectators will not taunt the opposing team.”  Apparently these fans did their research on our goalie’s dog’s name, hometown, and girlfriend.  I guess players in the modern era of technology may need to consider their social media revelations – even the most ordinary.  

“Consumption of alcoholic beverages is prohibited.”  Drunk or sober, college fans can bring some real energy and excitement to a rivalry.  

Cheer for your team and not against your opponent or the officials. This is one of our team standards, and our execution is tested when in the throes of a rivalry game.  It is tough for them to hear things like that and not want to yell back or respond, other than on the scoreboard.  It is a great lesson that can only really be learned in these types of games.

I am sure teams visiting our stadium hear our fans as well.  Our hockey team comes out to home games, and they create quite an atmosphere with their chirping.  Yet, it is one thing to be on the team and held to a standard, and another thing to be a rabid fan during a rivalry game.  

Fans notwithstanding, the mutual respect and sportsmanship inside the lines between players and coaches was excellent, and it was a treat and privilege to be back playing in big games again. 

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Division III lacrosse is the largest division of lacrosse in terms of the number of teams and athletes. We are fortunate to bring on Hope College coach Mike Schanhals to help us navigate the Division III landscape.

As a Division III lacrosse coach, Schanhals has an inside understanding of how the level has been affected by the pandemic and what navigating it has and will look like. These are his insights.

Division III Lacrosse in the Pandemic

NESCAC is back

We were all cheered to learn this past week that the NESCAC will start playing again in April. This is really good news, yet it will undoubtedly create decisions and situations for those teams to wrestle with as they prepare for play. We (Hope College) were in a similar place last month. Who will be available from our roster to play? Are there students on-campus who are taking classes in-person? Are there students on-campus taking classes remotely? Are there students off-campus taking classes remotely? Are there some students who opted out of this semester knowing it would perhaps not happen from a lacrosse standpoint?  

Scouting in the dark

The rosters will undoubtedly look different at each DIII institution. This poses unique challenges as we scout to prepare for each contest, especially when your schedule is limited to conference games, most of which haven’t been played since two seasons ago. No film and no solid roster, coupled with no early season out-of-conference play, coaching changes at some schools, and obvious limits to live scouting due to COVID fan restrictions, but you have to get your team ready to play? Challenge accepted – each program will be fired up to play. 

What it will take

Teamwork, cohesiveness, and discipline will be crucial. Each DIII program will undoubtedly work hard with the personnel they have available to be as together as possible. The pandemic has presented many challenges, but each day we get to be together on the field is a joy. We have been fortunate to have some of the best practices I have ever been involved with in my 30 years of coaching. These men are taking nothing for granted, are locking in to each day’s work, and are pumped to be back on the field together. There are brighter days ahead for our NESCAC brothers and the other Division III programs returning to play.

Blessings in disguise

This is a unique year to watch Division III games across the country. Our coaching staff is grateful for our Hudl exchange, where we can watch game film across all three divisions. We have been so excited to see any lacrosse over the last month. That said, try not to put too much stock in early season polls, rankings, and predictions. There is an awful lot of season left, with many unforeseen challenges for each program – especially because each team has not had the same level of preparation.  

Roster depth will be a huge factor. COVID quarantine protocol is governed by the local health departments and can change week-to-week based on numbers of positive tests in the county. When a student-athlete is quarantined due to a close contact, they may test negative and still remain in quarantine for 10-14 days. This may mean that they miss two to three games depending on how the schedule falls.  

Another blessing of more Division III lacrosse teams beginning to play is the likelihood of having an NCAA Division III Tournament this spring. The NCAA Division III basketball tournament was cancelled due to not having enough member teams opting in to play. Our Hope College women’s basketball team was undefeated for two years straight, and our nine seniors lost their opportunity to compete in the national tournament. This type of uncertainty poses yet another challenge to athletic administrations at each of our schools. We are grateful for all of their hard work and appreciate how hard this has been for them as well. I really appreciate them going to all the meetings, so we can be out on the field playing. Fingers crossed for a great rest of the 2021 season.

Catch up with Coach Mike

Twitter, IG, Team Website

You can also hear his interview on the Going Offsides podcast below:

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