Alabama fall ball underway

Yesterday was the first day of fall ball and overall I think it went very well. My youngest daughter had to be there by 1PM and since I needed to drop off all the reversibles I was up at the field by 12:30. We had a good group of young girls and boys at the first session, it was hot but it looked like the kids had fun. Fall ball is tough because you have kids who have played before and kids who have never picked up a stick before so you want to do a lot of instructional type stuff but you don't want to bore the veterans. At 3PM the high school girls and middle school boys played and we were definitely short on field space for the girl's group. Next week there will be another field available which will make it better but overall it looked like everyone played a lot and had fun. My oldest daughter is a freshman and unfortunately was coming down with a cold but fought through it and played, which I was proud of her for doing. Finally at 5Pm was the high school boys, all 200 of them ! We broke the players into 9 teams and used 3 fields. Each team played 2 - 30 minute games which I feel worked out very well. The teams were pretty evenly matched and we broke them into 3 groups, expert players, advanced players and beginners. Looked like field #1 and field #2 were working out well, haven't received feedback on field 3 yet but I'm sure it went well also. The only bad thing about fall ball is missing NFL games, I try to catch up on Sunday evening but it's just not the same. Overall it was a great weekend though, Alabama crushed Georgia, Penn State won and the NY Jets destroyed Arizona, can't get much better than that !

Bamalax try outs

Well, yesterday was a busy day, we started off with a new player clinic from 2-4PM and then we had an open try out for our Bamalax High school team. Not many surprises during the try-out, same players are looking good, a few have improved but I'm not sure if we saw anyone really stand out. I'm a little disappointed in the performance of some but overall I think the try-out was OK. I'm not sure what to do with some of our players, we have several kids that have played for numerous years but just don't get "it". Sometimes it's painful watching players not know when to cut or when to move out of their teammate's way. Several times I saw players wide open who didn't have the field awareness to even recognize that they weren't being covered. The best move of the day was by one of our newer players, Jacquan, who doesn't have the stick skills but recognized that he could get open, cut hard to his right and got a no-angle shot off that bounced under the cross bar and scored. Jacquan has a lot of athletic ability and a good attitude, some of our other players could learn from him. One of our football players, Julien, made it out to the try-out after spending the afternoon at football practice and although he was tired he did a great job and had a great hit on one of the attackmen. Several of our Bamalax kids that will make the trip to Tampa couldn't attend the try-out due to football and it makes a big difference when they aren't there, especially our two best attackmen. Well, fall ball is starting next Sunday so we are going to continue to evaluate our players and see if we can find the right 22 players to go to Tampa in January. One thing is for sure, we need scorers !! We'll see if anyone can step up in the next couple weeks, I sure hope so !

Lacrosse officially starts tomorrow !

The weekend started off great with an event at Faceoff Alabama for all of the girls in town to come in and get to know the coaches. We had a great turn out and even had a bunch of players from the Birmingham Southern team stop by. Vestavia has been really recruiting for new players and we had several of them show up along with a good bit from Spain Park which is our newest Birmingham team.

Tomorrow at 2Pm we will have a new players clinic which is always fun. We'll have boys and girls of all ages some of which will be playing lacrosse for the very first time. One of the coolest things about the new player clinic is we always have a handful of players that "get it" right away and understand the concepts of cradling, throwing and catching and instantly they are better than some players that have played for a couple years. I'm expecting a big turn out, maybe more than 100 new players !

At 4Pm we will have an open try-out for our BAMALAX high school all-star team. I'm curious to see the turn out and I'm anxious to see who has been working hard during the off-season. I'm sure there will be several players that have no business trying out but we need to give everyone a fair opportunity to be seen, it will be up to them to impress the coaches that will be evaluating them.

Several BAMALAX players received invites to recruiting tournaments and John Somerall was invited to a National faceoff competition in New Hampshire which will get him even more exposure. John has already received letters from Drexel, Loyola, Army, Navy and Salisbury State, he is by far the best player in the state right now in my opinion and with his work ethic, he will just keep getting better. Well, we have over 500 players signed up for fall ball, now I need to find more pinnies before next weekend - yeah !, I always love when people wait until the last minute to register it makes things so much more interesting !!

Magic City VS U of Alabama

Spent the day today running around with a bunch of college kids when my Magic City team took on the Crimson Tide from Alabama. Magic City won 12-5 but it was encouraging to see the number of kids UA had on the sidelines. Looks like they will be able to put together a competitive team in the spring, in the second quarter they ran us old guys pretty well but we got a big lead in the first which was too much for them to overcome. The Magic City team is accustomed to playing 2 - 20 minute running halves during tournaments, this game was a full collegiate regulation game, 4 - 15 minute quarters so needless to say, I'm whiped out ! It's strange when I have more assists than goals but hey, I'll be 41 next month so I'll take what I can get ! Not sure who is up next for Magic City but I can tell you I need to step up the cardio. I'm running about 5 days a week but when you add the heat from Alabama your legs go pretty quickly.

Fall ball new player clinic is next weekend and then open try-outs for Bamalax, have to go to Atlanta for a few days but looking forward to next weekend to see if there are any new players that have a chance to make the squad.

Fall ball around the corner

With football season underway it's almost time to kick off fall lacrosse. With a lot of good players working hard over the summer, I've decided to have an open try-out for our BAMALAX high school travel team. Our first game of the 2009 season will be the Dick's sporting goods tournament of champions in Tampa and then this team will also play after the regular season ends into next summer. Ideally I'd like to have as many sophomores and juniors as possible but realistically, to be able to compete in Tampa, we'll need seniors as well. Several of our BAMALAX players are tied up with football so the try out will be tough to attend but everyone who wants to make the team will have to sacrifice and attend the try out. This year we will have a good group of freshmen to choose from, in the past we could never consider freshmen because we just didn't have enough good one's out there. The sport has been growing so much at the younger age groups, I think our middle school kids are going to be really exciting to watch this year. I'm anxious to see how the try-outs go, we have a lot of players who talk a good game but I can think of less than a dozen who consistently are working hard to improve, hitting the weights, hitting the wall and are out at the field every chance they can with friends or by themselves. We'll see who can back up all the talking I have been hearing, I hope I'll be surprised, it would be nice to have tough decisions to make when the final cuts come.

Warrior sues NCAA for $30 million

Equipment manufacturer Warrior Sports and Athlete's Connection, a Michigan retailer, filed a lawsuit in Michigan Western District Court on August 26th against the NCAA. They contend that upcoming changes to rules regarding the specification for the heads of lacrosse sticks will cost players nearly $60 million to purchase new equipment. Warrior et al. are asking for damages of $30 million as compensation for their loss of investment in design as well as inventory that will become obsolete.The Grand Rapids Press cites Warrior's contention in the suit that "rather than provide guidelines and parameters within which manufacturers may compete on lacrosse head designs, the new version of the rule sets arbitrary, illogical, unreasonable and overly restrictive design specifications that significantly inhibit competition and innovation." Warrior is requesting that the rule be prevented from going into effect until the case is resolved. The NCAA says the lawsuit has no merit.

I've got mixed feelings about the lawsuit, I think the new heads do give players an unfair advantage because it is more difficult for a defender to dislodge the ball but then again, the game has evolved and I think it is better than it ever has been. The changes that the NCAA are proposing are so small (I think it amounts to 1/4" or so) that I don't even know what the point is. Well, Warrior will probably lose this lawsuit but even though they will lose out on existing inventory, they will make out big time when everyone has to buy a new head. We'll see what happens, most players are buying new heads every year anyway so I don't think it is going to be that big of a deal but it will be a pain for us retailers