BAMALAX LACROSSE

Just for Kyler

2011-11-13T21:35:00.003-06:00

Long weekend but another good one. Got to see Hoover defeat Bob Jones HS in football playoffs on Friday and then had Rhamel and Shamel Bratton in town to do some clinics. R&S's flight got canceled on Friday night so the whole day we had planned on Saturday was shot. The twins were supposed to do 2 clinics on Saturday and spend a little time in Stickhead Birmingham but they ended up not arriving until 6PM so that threw things off a bit. Had a great dinner with them with some of my Bamalax players and parents, not the most exciting night but got to watch the Bama game and overall it was a good time. Took the twins past Hoover HS to see where "two-a-days" took place, I do like being part of a famous high school, it is kind of cool. This morning we were up at the field by 8AM, had the U15's and HS boys which I thought went really well. R&S felt that 2 of our players were as good as anyone else out there and thought they could play college ball at a high level. After the older boys were done, we tried to grab a quick bite but ran out of time. R&S had to eat in my car while I checked the U11 and U13 kids in, actually Coach Ryan Shea checked them in while I ate my lunch. The afternoon clinic wasn't as smooth as the morning session, the kids were very talkative and it was a little tougher to get their attention but R&S did a really good job staying patient. After we were finished the kids wanted a lot of autographs and photos, we finally got out of there after 3PM and I got the twins to the airport for their 5PM flight.
After spending all weekend with them I can honestly say they seem like great kids. We had a really good time, they did everything they could to help the kids and seemed genuinely interested in helping grow the game. I've never really read all the articles about their UVA issues and what happened but I really liked them, liked the way they coached the kids and I'm hoping I can talk them into coming back this Summer with Kyle Harrison.
Big weekend coming up, U11, two U13 teams and our U15 boys will be in Atlanta for the Turkey Shootout, Middle school girls will be in Tampa and HS girls will be in Naples, FL. Not sure how I'll be in Tampa and Naples at the same time but I'm sure I'll figure it out ! Looking forward to getting away for a few days, I'll let you know how it goes and I'll make sure I post a little more often Kyler !

Hate when coaches use kids

2011-08-25T13:51:00.003-05:00

I know recruiting is tough and I know college coaches get strung along by players and it is a tough job but I hate when college coaches lead players on just to get them to attend camps. Coaches get players hopes up and string them along sometimes just to get the money from them for attending their camps. Trust me, I know coaches don't make that much and they need to supplement their income but I hate when they act like they are interested in recruiting a player and just end up pushing their camp or clinic. I'm all for college coaches running camps and teaching fundamentals and I encourage every player to attend as many camps as possible but not under the false pretense that the coach is actually interested in that player attending school if they know the kid has no shot in Hell of making the team.

It is funny that owning a travel program makes me a great prospect for some coaches and I get tons of e-mails wanting me to pass on information to my players. If I know the coach and if I think the camp/clinic is a good fit, I do everything I can to promote it. However, I had one bad experience with a DI coach that seemed very interested in a couple of my players but every time I spoke to him he was pushing one of his camps. Finally when I flat out asked him if he was going to recruit my players he said he had already locked down some Blue chip players that he wasn't expecting to grab and had closed out his class. He really strung the boys on and then he took a job with a start up DI program and immediately wanted my players but he burned his bridge and they had no interest in his new school at all.

Since I've been going through this recruiting process with my daughter I've seen this issue first hand. My best friend from HS coached a DI woman's program up north for 10 years, his replacement was someone that I thought I could get an in with for my daughter. Had a hard time getting her to respond, couldn't get her to come see my daughter play at two different tournaments she attended so we gave up on the school. Now this coach is an assistant at a top 10 program and since last week, I have received 4 emails from her promoting fall clinics, camps and tournaments. Honestly I feel like telling her to take me off her distribution list but for the sake of other kids who may have an interest in her new school i'll tolerate it but it definitely ticks me off.

It's all business and I can understand that everyone needs to make money but do it the right way because things always catch up with you so the people you tick off today may be the people you need help from in the future

Coach Nace

2011-08-19T11:52:00.002-05:00

My blog has a service, Feedjit that shows me where people visit the site from and how they found it. This morning when I posted my earlier article I noticed that several people had arrived on the site after searching for Randy Nace. For those that don't know, Randy has just agreed to be the University of Alabama head coach so I'm sure it is current players trying to find out who their new coach is. Anyway, many of you reading this already know who Randy is but for those that aren't from the area I figured I'd give you a little background. Randy was my assistant coach at Hoover High school for 5 years, the first two of those years we had to coach both JV and varsity and during the second year I think we counted almost 40 games we coaches between the two squads ! Needless to say, we have spent a lot of time together ! Randy and I spent countless hours analyzing game film, we would even synchronize our DVR's on plays and talk over the phone while we watched a college team run a man up or in bound play and then implement it at the next practice. Randy was a goalie at Lynchburg but has played midfield since leaving college and like me, prefers the offensive side of the field. Last year Randy left Hoover to take on the varsity head coaching job at Vestavia. Randy took a team that had very little success over it's history and brought them to the state championship after beating Mountain Brook in the final 4. Randy received the coach of the year honor and truly deserved it. Taking the Alabama job was a very tough decision for him, actually taking the job was easy, it was leaving his players from Vestavia which made it difficult. Coaching Bama is a great fit for Randy, he will bring a whole new level of comitment to the program and as well as they did last year, they have so much potential that I can guarantee Randy will far exceed the success of any previous year in the history of the program. For me, I'm excited to be able to strategize offenses again without having to compete against each other. Last year Randy and I still spoke a lot but we were both a little guarded on our information we shared, this year will be fun, we have already started talking about the offense Bama will run and plan to draw some things out tonight. Well, for those googling Randy, just know he is a great guy, a great coach and in the coaching world of good cop/ bad cop, he was always the good cop so the players can expect an even tempered leader that will work his butt off for his players. Sorry Vestavia, you lost a great coach but congrats Alabama, you picked up a great one !

One more recruiting tip

2011-08-19T09:50:00.004-05:00

Wow, last night and this morning were busy, set up visit to Florida DII school Sept. 12th and Pennsylvania DII school Oct. 21st. Now need to fill in about two other lacrosse colleges and schedule Alabama and Auburn as comparison schools.

My recruiting tip of the day (boys or girls) go on unofficial visits anytime you can BEFORE senior year. If you go to a tournament in a new state, set up a visit and tour some campuses ! We have done a great job of getting our daughter seen and have a bunch of schools interested in her but now that she is a senior, we can not afford to visit schools in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Florida every weekend. We should have visited a couple schools but then again, we didn't know who would be interested in her so we kind of waited. Official visits are nice when the school pays but if a parent wants to go, that is still a bunch of money out of your pocket (don't forget)

Everything seems to be working out for her but it would have been easier if she had seen a couple of these schools before now. The Florida school is very exciting, they look like they have a great broadcast department which is what Taylor wants to major in and they are between two major cities which give her great intern opportunities. If she could get some athletic scholarship money, some academic money and some financial aide, it may be a great fit for her. We'll know Sept. 11th but last night she got two phone calls from coaches she hadn't considered and an email from a school that I don't think we'd have interest in.

Second recruiting tip of the day (consider this one a bonus).....my wife found this awesome college research site, WWW.COLLEGEPROWLER.COM it has everything you need to research a school including postings from current and former students that rate everything from academics to off campus food. The site has great videos and really gives you an idea of what the school is like.

Well, back to work....

On the recruiting trail

2011-08-18T15:28:00.002-05:00

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the college recruiting process is crazy but we are starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Taylor will have her first official visit in October at a DII school in Pennsylvania who have not seen her play in person, only video. The head coach sounds very nice and takes a very relaxed approach to the recruiting process and wants players to like the school and doesn't force them to commit early. I'm really looking forward to her visit because DII schools allow you to practice with the team and hang out all weekend with the players. We had to speed up an unofficial visit to a Florida DII school because the coach wants to have commitments wrapped up before October and only had 3 spots left to fill. Some coaches pressure players, other coaches are more relaxed but I think the bottomline is that if you perform well enough schools can always find room for you. Taylor spoke to a DIII coach in Maryland yesterday and was going to go for a visit but then out of the blue a DIII school in Ohio called from a more prestigious school that may bump the Maryland school out of the choices. Trying to see 2-3 DII schools, 1 DIII school and then 2 major universities like Florida State or Alabama to compare so a decision can be made. It is a lot of work and has caused a lot of stress between my wife and I but it's all good, I'm sure everything will work out for Taylor, I'm enjoying the attention she is receiving, makes you a very proud parent when coaches want your daughter.

Just a little love...

2011-08-14T19:55:00.003-05:00

Trying to get a hug after the first half of a 90+ degree game. Guess my daughter doesn't aprpeciate the sweat and smell ! It was a good weekend of lax, Friday we had our first US Lacrosse Alabama hall of fame induction, Saturday morning was our annual US Lacrosse chapter retreat and then we had a Green/white alumni game. The game was very close in the first half and then the current Magic City team managed to pull away to win it 10-5. Kind of felt bad, didn't realize there was only a few seconds left in the game and I cut off the crease and scored my 5th of the day. Should have just held on to it and not shot but at my age you don't get a chance to play that often so you got to get the glory while you can ! It is really interesting to watch the alumni play, obviously if we went by age I'd be playing for the "old" guys since some of them were younger than me but they alumni still got it ! The lacrosse IQ of the "old" guys is so much higher than the high school guys. Watching some of our local guys like Hunter Faulconer and Art DeCarlo pass the ball, cut and shoot is impressive. Watching guys like Eric Christenson faceoff in his mid 40's against Brett Bauer who just graduated from College 2 years ago amazes me. The young kids don't fully appreciate the skills of the old guys but I guess once you have "it", you don't lose it ! My daughter tweeted yesterday that she loves her Lax family, she appreciates all the guys I have become friends with and lacrosse has brought us together which has been really cool. Had a good after game party last night, felt like I was back in college trying to finish off the keg. Next year I may do the complete alumni circuit and hit my high school alumni game in June, college game in September, Men's team in August and U of Alabama alumni game in October, could become a professional old guy ! Sounds like a lot of kegs !

The college search continues

2011-08-10T22:02:00.002-05:00

It has been really interesting trying to find the right college opportunity for my daughter, Taylor, who starts her senior year on Monday ! Can't believe she will be in college next year, don't know if I'm ready for this ! We have worked hard for the past two years trying to get her noticed and I think she will have some tough choices to make in the upcoming months. We have used a recruiting web site, Captain U to post videos and e-mail college coaches. We've communicated with a lot of schools that have come to various tournaments and have seen her play in person. Taylor has not taken a shot gun approach to her college search since I feel that is unfair to the coaches who already get inundated with players and parents calling and emailing. Every school we have contacted has her major and is a school she could see herself attending. Many schools will email right away and tell us that they are interested or that they are done with their 2012 recruiting class and are not interested. For me, I'd rather have a coach tell her that they aren't interested rather than stringing her along while they wait to see if they get their blue chip recruits committed. What I really hate is the DIII schools that take the shot gun approach to recruiting and send form letters that basically are "we are very interested in you (insert name here)" Currently Taylor has 3 DII schools that have invited her for an official visit and 2 DIII schools that are in major cities that she wouldn't mind attending even though they are fairly small schools. We still have one DI school that is a possibility but the assistant that was interested just took a head coaching job at a different school. The problem right now is being on the dance team will consume most of her fall, including every Friday night for football games. Don't know how she will squeeze in weekend college visits with her busy senior year but we'll figure it out. Taylor will end up applying to Alabama, Auburn and Florida State even though they are club lacrosse teams but we'll be evaluating what is best for her future and what is financially best for the family. Didn't think this whole college thing would be so complicated but it is exciting and I am really enjoying the search. We'll see what happens, one more recruiting event in November but I think she will have made up her mind before then but you just never know !

Nice day off

2011-07-30T15:10:00.002-05:00

Getting to spend some time at home relaxing, kind of rare but definitely needed. My Bamalax U11 and U15 boys are competing in Atlanta at the Georgia Southern shootout, the U11 boys are 3-0 on the day and the U15 boys went 2-1. Our U15 team won their first two games out scoring their opponents 27-3 but then lost to our North Alabama counterpart the Arsenal who were 1-1-1 on the day. The Arsenal have come a long way, I'm glad they are competitive since it makes for a great in-state rivalry. Hopefully U15 gets a chance to avenge their loss today, should be an interesting day for them tomorrow.

Also while I'm relaxing I got to watch one of my key Hoover defenders, Zach Burgess, play at the John Pepper Wild cat invitational up in the Syracuse area. Zach is playing for an Atlanta team that went 2-1 on the day. Zach looked really good, had a couple nice takeaways, the game was pretty sloppy but Atlanta beat Penfield pretty easily. Tomorrow the team plays in another tournament, busy weekend but Zach texted me and said Syracuse, Hopkins and Princeton coaches were there so it is great exposure for the kids.

Finally, if you didn't get to see my interview in the growth of lacrosse blog, here is the link http://thegrowthblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/state-of-lacrosse-alabama.html It is really interesting that me and Dave Link did not know we were both being interviewed and didn't talk about it but our answers are almost identical. Thought the interview questions were good, gives people an idea of what is going on here in Alabama, I look forward to reading about other states out there to see what their challenges are

Summer almost over

2011-07-27T19:26:00.002-05:00

It's been nice having a little time off but fall ball is around the corner and I've been putting together plans for the fall. Looks like the plan will be to attend two tournaments, one in October and one in November and have one team at each age group, just trying to figure out how to do it. Just like every state that doesn't have thousands of kids playing lacrosse, Alabama has some super serious kids and some that are moderately serious. Putting together travel teams for tournament play is always a challenge especially in the fall when many of the best players also play football. Looking back, our summer was very successful, we had players compete in the Adidas National classic in Baltimore, we had players make all-star teams at elite camps and we have several players getting some serious college looks. My goal when I started Bamalax was to give kids the opportunity to be seen by college coaches and to put Alabama lacrosse on the map and show the country that there was some real lacrosse being played here. It's always cool when Bamalax beats a Northern team and the coach says, "I didn't know there was good lacrosse in Alabama !" This past summer in Pennsylvania our teams all had winning records and our U13 team was 4-1, next year we will look to elevate our game again and try to go to even more competitive tournaments next year. Alabama still has a ways to go to compete with the hotbed areas on a consistent basis but there are definitely players here that are as good as anyone out there. It's crazy to see the talent level of the players nowadays, when I watch the Under Armour game or the ESPN Rise games, I just can't believe the size and speed of the kids out there, it is impressive. College coaches have so much talent to choose from, honestly I don't know how they go through all the players during the recruiting process. I'd really like to see more colleges add lacrosse at the DI level, it would be so cool to see schools like Alabama, Auburn, Florida State and Georgia have intercollegiate lacrosse programs. This past year Florida's woman's team was #1 in the country at one point and Jacksonville was in the top 10, I think if a big time southern school added mens lacrosse it wouldn't be long until they were in the top 10 due to the ease of recruiting. SELC schools have tons of great talent already including all-americans that would rather go to school where the weather is nice all year than play up north where it snows 4 months out of the school year. I'm not sure what the hold up is and why the growth of the sport can't explode at the college level but I hope I'm still coaching when it does.

weekend tournament, the good the bad, the ugly

2011-06-20T12:08:00.005-05:00

Our teams attended a tournament in Rock Hill, SC this past weekend and had a great time. All of our teams did well and our high school girls won the championship while the HS boys and U13 boys finished as runner-ups. The event and the facility are first class, the heat is always an issue and parking was a bit tight this year but overall I highly recommend the tournament and our kids really enjoy it. As a spectator I was able to watch almost 20 games over the two days. There were some great programs there that had terrific fan support and good players that showed great sportsmanship but then there were others that both players and fans were out of control. One of the games I watched was a U15 game between two different teams than my own, I actually had to leave the game because of all of the yelling and coaching going on in the stands. Half of these moms apparently played Division one BOYS lacrosse because the knowledge of warding and when players should cut, feed and shoot was remarkable ! These poor kids didn't have a chance to make their own decisions on the field, their only hope was when the wind picked up and the noise carried the opposite direction of the field !! It just seems that the constant yelling just gets tensions high and then the opposing team feels the need to start yelling at their kids and refs and then everyone is worked up. During many of the games I saw several of our parents sitting along side opposing parents, all cheering but doing it in an encouraging way with no issues, other times I witnessed morons applauding late hits and just showing pure ignorance and lack of respect for the game. Unfortunately our high school team ran into one of those teams that from the opening faceoff were overly aggressive which lead to them being man-down numerous times. Then when we built a lead they started late hitting and running their mouths. Finally, during the handshakes, one "clown" made a stupid comment and pushed a player and before you knew it about 6-7 kids were going at it. Coaches jumped in and separated everyone and really it wasn't that big of a deal but I hate that it came to that. Interestingly enough our girls had a rough game against the same program, checks to the head, pushing but it worked out in their favor since they played man-up most of the game due to an early red card.
Summer ball was always a nice break from the regular season because players were more experienced and parents seemed to be more knowledgeable and didn't seem to yell at refs or be as vocal as I've witnessed this summer. It's certainly not across the board, we met some great people that were honoring the game and I witnessed some awesome lacrosse, overall it was a great weekend, the good people far outweighed the idiots so congrats to the organizers for once again giving everyone their monies worth !

Busy summer

2011-06-15T15:52:00.005-05:00

Wow, does it ever end ?! I went right from the spring season into travel ball. This weekend we are heading to South Carolina for the Catawba classic which was an awesome event last year and probably my favorite ! My Bamalax teams did well, we won the high school boy's division and the U15 boys division, were runner ups at U13 by a 2-1 finals loss and won the consolation game of the girl's division. Hoping we can go back and win again, would be nice to defend some titles and maybe win a few new one's !

The past year and a half my high school daughter and I have been contacting colleges and trying to get her noticed. It has been an interesting process and I'm still trying to figure it out to help the younger players behind her. One thing I can tell you is that if you are from a non-hotbed area and want to play lacrosse at a high level, it is a lot of work ! There are so many players across the country playing the sport and each team is only looking to bring in between 6-10 new players each year. Girl's that live in hotbed areas are seen all the time and the coaches really get to know them. Girl's that live in areas like Alabama are maybe seen in person once and then the only thing coaches can go by is film unless you can attend the school's camp. My daughter has received some great e-mails and a lot of positive feedback from coaches and this is the summer she has to really shine. It is a lot of pressure on a recruit when they are asked to have the best game of their life the game that a college coach may happen to stop by and watch them for 10 minutes. She has several schools interested which has been very exciting and she has a good summer lined up including a trip to Baltimore and Virginia for recruiting events. Most of the schools she is interested in are pretty far from home so it make it tough to visit each one but we'll figure it out, we always do.

Time to head out of work and then get to practice, need to pack tonight, drive to Atlanta tomorrow evening and then off to SC, should be fun !

Summer ball is here !!

2011-05-01T11:07:00.002-05:00

I feel like my battery is recharged a bit, watching my U15 boys practice yesterday was just what I needed to get inspired again. We have some talented kids that worked really hard yesterday. No jerking around, never had to tell them to stop screwing around, they were there to play and it was inspiring. I'm too competitive and my expectations are too high to coach recreational sports, it took my 6 years to figure it out but I now know where my focus needs to be. I'm also really excited to see our girl's Bamalax team reunite, that team is going to do terrific things this summer "IF" we can find a goalie. We will be able to score 20+ goals a game easy, in only a 10 game regular season I know my daughter, Taylor Bates, Carly Moon, Kayce Swift, Christine Haley all scored over 40 goals and I'm sure Lucy Ann Link, Ellie Mannon, Krissy Mauro were all up there as well. So, it is going to be an exciting summer for Alabama lacrosse, just a few more weeks until the first tournament, looking forward to winning a few !

The streak is over....

2011-04-30T10:24:00.003-05:00

The Alabama state championship for the first time will not be Mountain Brook or Hoover. This year the championship will go to either Spain Park or Vestavia, both teams deserve to be in the final game and it should be a great battle.
Our Hoover team just didn't execute last night, they played uninspired, didn't fight for the ground balls and made a lot of mistakes. For me, knowing two of the best lacrosse players in the state decided not to play this year still aggravates me and losing a superstar long pole to injury really left us short. Our freshmen played hard all season but just couldn't get the job done due to lack of experience. The team struggled with leadership all season and once again football disrupted our season when key players missed our final practice to attend spring football. It also was apparent that football workouts effected the endurance of a few of our players who were tired before the game even started. The key to putting this rebuilding season behind us is going to be numbers. When you have numbers players have more pressure to perform and players are forced to improve on their own. If the Athletic directors approve lacrosse as an emerging sport this spring it can make a huge difference in the commitment since we will be a varsity program that will hopefully some day have cuts. This year we had at least 4 players that were nothing but a distraction, didn't work to improve, constantly missed practices and did not contribute to the team in any way. On the bright side we had some JV players that were brought up for the final few games and one of them even scored in the state finals. Some of our players get it and will work hard this summer and fall, we have nine 8th graders coming up that will hopefully contribute but next year needs to be all about athletes, speed and desire, don't know if those athletes can be non-football players but it certainly would be nice. Well, I'm glad the regular season is over, now I can concentrate on travel ball, it will be nice to be around kids that truly love the game and work hard to constantly improve, first tournament is less than a month away !

Final 4 time

2011-04-29T15:55:00.003-05:00

So, things have been a little crazy in Alabama this week. It is amazing that we will play a lacrosse game tonight in Hoover while just 20 miles away homes and lives have been destroyed. It will be good to get the game in but I'm sure many of the participants will be thinking about family and friends while the game is in progress. Unfortunately for me, my daughter, Taylor, will be playing at the same time as my varsity boys. Taylor's team won last night against Spain Park, 14-7, she netted 5 goals and had 2 assists, two nights before she had 7 goals in an 11-7 victory. I'm really going to hate to miss her game since their last one against Vestavia was a 10-9 loss that came down to the last minute. The Hoover boys face Spain Park at 7:30PM. We had never lost to Spain Park in 5 years and we have fallen twice to them this season. My team is playing well and we are healthy so it should be a great game. Considering the majority of my team are freshman, my faceoff starter is an 8th grader and we only have one senior I think making the final 4 is a major accomplishment but since we are the defending champs, anything less than a state championship will be disappointing. If we don't make mistakes and play up to our capabilities, we can win these next two games, well, time to head home, get changed and make it happen !

Rebuilding is sometimes fun

2011-04-14T22:48:00.002-05:00

I have to admit that this hasn't been my favorite season in my 6 years of coaching HS boys. Losing several starters from last year who just decided not to come back then having a key defender go down with a season ending knee injury made for a rough road to defending the state championship. Now I'm dealing with light numbers due to a few other injures and then add in several non-commited players who continue to miss games and practices and you are left with a .500 record. Tonight we were outmatched, missing our only senior due to an illness but we were still able to manage to almost pull out a win against one of the toughest teams in the state. We fell behind 3-0 in the 1st but fought our way to a 6-5 halftime lead. We ended up losing 10-8 but never gave up, made some mistakes but the 6 middies we had busted their butts and our 8th grade face off man won a bunch when we needed him to. After the game I was really proud of our kids, if we get healthy and maybe get a practice or two in, the state championship could honestly be anyone's to win this year. We have a tough trip up to Kentucky this weekend, we'll be short handed but we are going to fight and I wouldn't be surprised if we go 2-0 or at least 1-1 up there. The exciting part of this season is we are starting an 8th grader, 3 9th graders, a 10th grader and only one senior. Our JV team has been playing well and there is some good talent on JV coming out of the 9th grade group so the future is looking bright. Hope we can hold it together these last two weeks, no more sicknesses, no more injuries and you never know, our chances are as good as anyone elses, we'll see how it turns out, should be fun

Regular season winding down

2011-04-11T15:12:00.002-05:00

Not going to lie, this spring has been a bit much on me and the family. Coaching high school boys and middle school girls is as tough as it sounds. My high school daughter has games on Mondays and Wednesday, high school boys play Tuesday and Thursday and middle school girls are playing on Sundays. We have had several weeks in a row where I don't even make it home, I change at the field after work and then get home around 9:30PM. This week we have HS girls tonight and tomorrow, HS boys tomorrow and Thursday and then we head to Louisville, KY for games Saturday and Sunday which leaves my wife to handle Saturday and Sunday games back in Alabama for our girls. Next week we have games at some level every day of the week including Good Friday and Saturday of Easter weekend.
Mixed in during the free time I managed to have tryouts for Bamalax and was able to announce our U11 and U13 teams for this summer. Making travel arrangements for 6 teams for 4 tournaments isn't fun and reserving tournament space, paying fees and getting uniforms organized is a lot of work. The fees for Bamalax had to go up this year to cover paid coaches and travel and we will have several clinics and camps included in the fees. Some of our tournaments are as much as $100 per kid so when you have 4 tournaments and throw in field expense, coaches, balls, goals, etc. there isn't a whole lot left over. Over the past several years others have tried to start some travel teams and had no idea what they were getting into and they fizzled out. This year I've heard rumblings of the same and sometimes it is just noise that eventually just goes away. My goal has never been to be rich doing travel lacrosse, it was always just to give the best players an opportunity to get better and play great competition and have the chance at the high school level to be recruited. Our area in Birmingham isn't big enough to have more than one travel program because there really isn't enough talent to spread around. At each age group we can put together 20 solid players that can be competitive with any team out there but if 5 of those 20 were to play for some random team, both teams would get killed by a hotbed squad. Oh well, I do the best I can, we have had great success building a solid brand and provide the kids with a great opportunity. Every game in our league that I watch, the players that score the most, play the best defense and are the standouts are all Bamalax kids. Our summer is looking great, our U13 teams are solid and U15 is going to be outstanding. The girls will really have a great season, I can not wait to see them play up in Virginia in July.
Well, time to wrap up the day, I'm actually hoping for storms tonight because I'm so tired but we'll see how the weather goes.

Frustrating

2011-03-25T08:48:00.002-05:00

Well, didn't play a good game last night but held on for a win. It is getting very frustrating to see our players continue to do things that coaches tell them not to do over and over again. Things like throwing and shooting side arm, not running the offense, lunging on defense, it's the same stuff over and over but since our team is light on numbers we really don't have the luxury of benching players that continue to make the same mistakes. A perfect example came with 8 seconds left in the half we called time out, drew up a play, asked everyone if they are clear on the play and then one player goes out and immediately runs to the wrong spot. We get that corrected then the person who started with the ball who was supposed to immediately move it to our dodger decides to waste 4 seconds and carry it. Then the person who is supposed to dodge finally gets the ball thrown to him and he drops it and the half ends. During half-time it turns out that 2 of the players decided modify the play as they ran out on the field !! I was so mad I threw my clipboard at the player and told him he can draw up the offense and coach the team ! Obviously his play worked so well he was so much smarter than the coaches, he deserved to be the offensive coordinator !! Things in the second half were better but we still make too many mistakes which I guess a young team will do but we are better than we have been playing.

Worst part of the game had to come in the 4th quarter when an opposing player was cutting toward the cage, was looking back away from the cage and when the buddy pass came, Braxton Lowe #17 laid him out. Braxton is a linebacker and could have really hurt the kid but he did hold back but was flagged for an illegal body check. Could have gone either way but the refs did a good job last night so I didn't question the call at all. Well, while the kid got up and the refs conferenced there was silence on the field when one of the opposing parents yelled, "Your a loser #17 !!" I couldn't believe an adult actually heckled a 17 year old kid and the group of parents on that side were just laughing it up. It was very disappointing and I'm sure it was disappointing to their coach to hear that type of remark. Lacrosse is supposed to be a sport where things like that shouldn't happen. Players have a common bond and parents should be encouraging the growth of the sport regardless of what school they play for. One nice thing I did see was a lot of Facebook messages between players from both teams congratulating each other on playing well, that is cool, the stupid parent could probably learn a lesson from his kid on what lacrosse is supposed to be about.

2 sport dilemma

2011-03-24T10:58:00.003-05:00

http://www.hometownannapolis.com/blogs/post/2844478/TwoSport%20Dilemma%20.htmlFormer Hoover lax player, Brye French was in the news yesterday after the football coach removed him from the roster for not attending spring football to play lacrosse. The football coach is trying to force Brye to quit lacrosse which I don't think he will do. Brye loves lacrosse and football equally and he has been juggling the two sports for 3 years at the academy (including his one year at prep school). The interesting thing is that the football coaches never even knew who Brye was until we got the attention of Richie Meade (the Navy head lacrosse coach) and Richie told them about Brye. Richie reluctantly came down to Alabama to run a camp to see Brye and a couple other players and recruited him immediately. During the process I got some DVD's of his football games and sent them up and the football recruiter jumped on him. Brye was told he would not have to choose but both football and lacrosse coaches told him that there was a possibility down the road he'd be forced to choose. Brye's original letter of intent says he would choose lacrosse if he needed to but he really doesn't want to and I think it's unfortunate that this is coming up right in the middle of the lacrosse season.
Having the team captains go to the football coach and tell him that they want Brye to play means a lot. Brye is a special kid and for them to stick their necks out for him shows the type of character Brye has. If he was able to play fall lacrosse, he'd be a superstar in the spring, if he was able to play spring football, he'd be a superstar in the fall. As it is, he splits time with both and is still starting on the lacrosse team and was fighting for the starting linebacker position when he was injured and required shoulder surgery. I'm hoping everything works out, he is such a good kid and deserves this chance to do what very few people have ever done at the academy or any any DI program for that matter. Navy plays Colgate on Saturday, Brye is #8, if the game is televised anywhere, check him out

Long time away from lax

2011-03-22T11:21:00.002-05:00

Spring break always kills our lacrosse season here in Alabama. We fight the rain and the cold throughout January and February and then we start games, just start getting it together and spring break comes and we put our sticks away for 10 days. We were able to get a practice in Sunday before our game this evening which actually went pretty well. We've faced some adversity this year but I think we will overcome them and be better off for the future. We'll play tonight shorthanded 2 key starters and 7 players overall for some team rule violations but I think the situation will make us appreciate the game a little more and remind us that being part of a team requires sacrifices and good judgement. I've spent a great deal of time outside of coaching the past couple weeks and I'm eager to get back to just being on the field coaching against one of our toughest rivals. We are about a quarter of the way through our season, we are currently 2-2 and have a lot of potential. Our team is young and we don't have a great deal of numbers but we can score and our defense is tough. We'll see how everything goes tonight, I think the boys are ready, I think we have something to prove so it could be exciting.

This upcoming weekend is the Dan Anderson Classic which is always a huge lacrosse event for the state of Alabama. Looks like there will be almost 50 U13 and U15 teams coming as well as middle school and high school girls ! Faceoff Alabama will be there selling gear so my weekend will start Friday loading the entire store in a truck and setting up around 6 in the morning Saturday. I'm excited that Liam Banks, who I think is a great guy and is my Warrior/Brine rep, is bringing Nicky Polonco from the Long Island Lizards to the event to run some clinics. Nicky is well recognized by the younger kids because of the Warrior commercials he does so it should be a big deal for the kids to hang out with him.

Juggling the store, my job, coaching and Bamalax has been getting increasingly difficult as all 4 of those responsibilities continue to be more demanding. Last night I was up at 3:30AM thinking about how we are setting up this weekend, when we are going to get Bamalax try-outs completed and how we were going to match up against Mountain Brook tonight. Lacrosse has to be fun and relieve stress or it isn't worth doing, these past two weeks I have had extreme stress and was close to calling it quits but there is always a handful of kids you just don't want to quit on and they keep you going through the difficult spells. I'm also coaching middle school girls this year with my little goalie troll who is about to have her opening day Wednesday. It never ends, good and bad continues

Missed calls

2011-02-20T18:30:00.003-06:00

The whole off season there has been a lot of talk about cracking down on high hits and head to head take out checks. In the 4th quarter of the Notre Dame/Duke game there was a vicious head to head hit that even included a cross check and the Duke player was only penalized one minute. You would think that college referees would be on top of those penalties especially since there has been so much discussion about them this off season. To make things worse, STX is running a commercial for their Assault line that shows a head to head collision in slow motion which doesn't even make sense since STX doesn't make helmets. The commercial continues to show multiple slashes to demonstrate the effectiveness of their arm guards but I think it sends young players mixed messages. The head of officials should request STX to withdraw their commercial in my opinion and refs at the college level really need to make sure they are on top of these televised games to prevent the younger players from duplicating what they are seeing during these Division One games. Growing up I was a football guy and loved hitting people, it was a big part of my high school and college career. However, I never lead with my head or even my hands, it was always shoulder to chest. Body contact is part of lacrosse but these helmet to helmet hits are a problem, I just hope our high school referees don't get carried away and throw too many flags but I am in favor of preventing concussions so we'll have to see how the season goes.

Raining again

2011-02-05T20:07:00.002-06:00

This week has been tough on lacrosse in Alabama. Everyone is getting excited about the season but the weather is keeping everyone from practicing. We were able to get one practice in on the school turf and had a work out last night but not much else. My Hoover boys had their first fundraiser today, earned over $4K at an Applebee's pancake breakfast which was awesome. The season gets so expensive, between balls, reversibles, uniforms, travel, we spend well over $10K every year so the fundraisers are critical. We are only three weeks from opening day, it's pretty scary considering we haven't even put in our offense or defense and are just splitting varsity and JV. Every year I feel like I'm really behind but we manage to pull things together so I'm feeling fairly confident.
My Bamalax program has been trying to get evaluations done so we can pick our summer teams but with the weather and lack of fields, it has been tough to schedule. I've got a lot of kids that are looking past their spring season and just can't wait for Bamalax season but I try not to interfere with the regular season. We'll eventually get the evaluations done and get the teams selected but it may take awhile.

Things just keep getting better

2011-02-03T15:21:00.003-06:00

Dealing with another difficult issue involving a coach which is one of those no win situations. Just love dealing with board issues, like I don't have enough going on with all the other issues I face on a daily basis.
Anyway, not only has the weather caused us to cancel half our practices for my Hoover HS team but last night when we did get a chance to practice on the stadium turf, one of my best defenders tore his meniscus and is going to require surgery. Bad enough I'll have at least 6 9th graders on varsity but this 9th grader is one of the biggest kids on the team and started last year as an 8th grader ! Got to love high school football in the South, for some reason they feel that 6AM work outs every day throughout the entire year is a great idea ! My player said his knee has been popping in and out of place since football has started back up and yesterday he really wasn't doing anything except running up the field when he got the final pop that will take him out for a minimum of 6 weeks. I'm not sure what 6AM work outs accomplish other than prevent kids from being able to play spring sports. Since we practice at 6PM and end at 8PM, my football playing lacrosse players are exhausted because they have been up since 5AM ! Well, I've been battling football since I started this team so it's nothing new I guess.
Time is running out until opening day, really don't know what we'll be looking at this year, hopefully some players will step up for me, I'm sure they will, just hope it's enough to defend our title - we'll see

New season upon us

2011-01-27T13:39:00.003-06:00

I've been so busy the past month I haven't even had time to think about blogging, gonna try to catch up now that things are leveling off a bit. Several years ago I started this blog to give me a way to get things off my chest and talk about some of the experiences of lacrosse good and bad. Right now if I started blogging about all the issues I'm seeing and facing from parents, coaches and even players, I'd be blogging 24 hours a day. Let's just say that this year will be challenging. Being in a growth area things change rapidly and I have always been up for the challenge but I can feel a little of the passion being sucked from me. Don't get me wrong, I love the sport, love the kids and will do anything for anyone who wants to be involved in lacrosse but when U11 coaches are more interested in winning championships than teaching fundamentals and when parents complain about lack of playing time for 9 year olds, it makes you scratch your head and wonder if all the volunteering is really worth it.

The good news is that our girl's program is starting to really turn the corner. Our Bamalax team went to a recruiting event in November and the amount of college coaches that have contacted are players has been tremendous. Our team did well and was competitive with every team they faced and some of our girls really performed well. Now that my daughter is a junior it has been very exciting for me to see her receive e-mails from coaches and she even got to visit her first college last week and get a taste of Division I lacrosse at Temple University. It is so tough to decide where to go to college, there are so many factors to consider and so many options. Several schools close out their recruiting class way too early, one school had already finished recruiting before the fall tournament we attended and when I looked at their record from last year, they were 3-13 ! Didn't want to be rude to the coach but I felt like telling her she needs to consider holding off and looking at players other than high school sophomores ! Looking back at how much my own daughter has improved and how she still has two seasons before attending college I just think it is unfortunate that many school won't even give her a look, it makes it very difficult to play high level lacrosse from a non-hotbed area needless to say.

Well, Alabama high school practice has started, we have only been rained out twice and actually got to use turf last night so that was encouraging. My Hoover HS team is very young, we have one senior and have even looked at 9th graders for potential starting positions. I'm pleased with certain aspects but we have a long way to go before opening day. I've got my ideas of who I think the favorites to win are in the state but I will probably keep my opinion to myself.

Well, going to miss practice tonight trying to make a living but I'll be there on Saturday, hopefully my assistants have a break through tonight and when I come back I come back to a team that all have left hands and are in shape ! Won't hold my breath though

What was I thinking ?

2010-12-03T09:25:00.003-06:00

How did I miss the Victoria secret's runway show ? Was probably at some type of team or board meeting, man I need to pay more attention to these important lacrosse events !!

Seriously though, lacrosse is about to heat up even as the weather cools down. After 6 years of Hoover lacrosse I really didn't think we needed to recruit more players but I realized after our first meeting that our team and our youth program is shrinking a bit. Unfortunately in Hoover some of our kids experience sports burn out and by the time they get to high school some great athletes just decide not to do anything competitive. It's frustrating to see 6'2" muscular athletes that quit football or get cut from baseball just do nothing. The football season is always so long and so demanding that every year I have a few football players decide not to play lax in the spring and part of me doesn't blame them. I've blogged about this before but in New York we started football August 1st and were done before Thanksgiving. We went from football into ice hockey season and then lacrosse started March 1st. We didn't have early morning football work outs year round, we didn't have 7th period work outs, spring ball, summer 7 on 7's, we were able to play and enjoy whatever sport we wanted to. My high school had a 38 game football winning streak, the pressure we felt to keep winning was so intense that after our final game I hung up my football pads and had absolutely no interest playing in college. I'm sure if we had work outs year round, early morning lifting, etc, I would have endured it but if I was burned out after the short season I experienced, I couldn't have imagined how good it would have felt after that last game !
If my full team comes back, we will compete again for a state title, if I lose 2-3 big middies, we are going to experience a "rebuilding" year. It's funny because my football coach was 100-4 when I graduated and he was always quoted saying "this is going to be a rebuilding year" We'd always come out strong as ever even after major graduation losses, he's 258-40 now, still saying the same thing I'm sure. Well, off to Auburn to watch the high school football state championship and convince my kids to come back out for lacrosse !!

Turkey Shootout

2010-11-28T21:17:00.003-06:00

Well, the travel ball season is over, can't wait to get a few weekends at home ! Just got back from Atlanta, watched our Bamalax U13 team win another tournament, their 5th out of 7 they attended this past summer and fall. This past weekend I coached our U15 team which was a great experience. We lost in the championship game to a team that obviously didn't know what UNDER 15 meant. Wish I was thinking clearly when I said to the coach that their team was the biggest 14 year olds that I had ever seen. His response was, "they are all 15 !" Didn't dawn on me until later that they aren't supposed to be 15, they are supposed to be under 15, that's what the U stands for ! Anyway, I think that game will make us re-evaluate our U15 team. In the past we have always moved up our 10th graders to the varsity select team but I think from now on we will go strickly by age and even if a player is in 9th or 10th, if they are under 15, we'll play them down. Our guys played tough all weekend, i was very pleased with the effort, I had a good time and enjoyed the company of my daughter who tagged along with me.

It's time to start preparing for the upcoming high school season, I want to have try-outs for next Bamalax season just before the rec. ball season picks up but just don't know if we can pull it off. This hobby of mine is becoming a full-time job, I think we are doing some great things for the sport of lacrosse in Alabama but I've got to figure out how to handle the developmental teams and make sure they all have good experience like the select teams do. It would be easy to just keep "A" teams and limit our travel program to just the best of the best but I've always been about development and giving every kid an opportunity to play but their are challeges trying to make everyone happy but I'm sure we'll figure it out.

Last weekend my U11 team struggled a bit and this past weekend my U13B team was forced to play our A team when a few teams dropped out at the last minute of the tournament but overall I think both teams had positive experiences this past year. Watching our B teams play I can see drastic improvements. We had several U15B players that played this fall on my U15 team and they all did extremely well. Watching the U13B team play I saw some major bright spots and I think several of the current B kids will make the select team next year.

Well, time to stop thinking Bamalax and time to put on my Hoover hat. We have our first team meeting on Tuesday, looking forward to seeing the boys and parents to get the planning together. I'm always behind other teams because I'm still in Bamalax mode but we always manage to pull it together before our first practice. Right now half of the varsity team is preparing for the football state championship this Friday night down in Auburn. It's tough to have this long of a football season and then come back and jump right into lacrosse but I'm hoping the boys get excited for the lax season and get motivated to get that 4th state championship in lacrosse.

Time to get some sleep, dang these tournaments wipe me out !

President's cup/Derek Peiper

2010-11-18T22:12:00.002-06:00

Busy weekend for Bamalax. I'm getting packed to fly to Naples, Florida with my daughter for our girl's first major tournament, the President's cup. This event is huge, over 200 college coaches will be there, I can't wait ! Our Bamalax girls have finally reached a point where we can test the water with major competition, I think we will do fine, I'm anxious to see how we do against girls who have been playing for a much longer time than us. For the past 5 years I have e-mailed and talked to coaches for my Bamalax boys looking to go to college, the girl's recruiting process is completely different but I'm learning my way through it. The weather is expected to be great down in Naples, we won't have many subs so I'm hoping it doesn't get too hot at game time ! While our girls are in South Florida, our U11 boys will be in Tampa at the Derek Peiper memorial tournament. We have always tried to bring a few teams to the Derek Peiper but this year due to other conflicts we could only send the U11 team. The boys are excited, they love the Saddlebrook resort, we will have a tough time in the A division but I want the boys to be challenged so I hope we can hang in there. Our kids are really lucky to have dedicated hardworking coaches in the Bamalax program, Coach Hand has been working the boys hard during the fall and I think they are ready to show what they've got.

After we get back, we get a nice Thanksgiving break, then Friday is the 'Bama / Auburn Iron bowl and then we are back to Atlanta for the Turkey shootout ! Then, WE ARE DONE FOR THE SEASON ! It is going to be nice to get December off, I'll start Hoover practice toward the end of January and then it all starts over again but really looking forward to December !

Great weather and terrific lacrosse

2010-11-01T13:41:00.003-05:00

What an absolutely gorgeous weekend we had here in Alabama, I'm glad the weather was so nice because I really had no plan "B" for our W & L camp we hosted here. Coach McCabe and his staff came in Friday, we had an action packed agenda that started friday afternoon and went until noon on Sunday. It was great to see our best kids out together learning offense and defense from the W & L staff. The terminology and the plays were a little advanced for our 10 year olds but they picked it up and all paid attention and learned a ton ! I was impressed with the speed of the stations and the coach's techniques, it really was a great experience for those that were able to attend.

Haven't spoken too much to our U13 coaches and parents but it seems like we did really well at the Charlotte classic. The team had a tough opener against 6 nations but rebounded and won 2 on Saturday and 1 Sunday, then had to face Team Florida who had not been scored on. We lost to team Florida 9-4 and they went on to beat 6 Nations for the championship but overall I think we are in good shape to head to Tampa in December to shoot for the national championship.

This weekend our HS boys are off to Atanta for the SoCo fall recruiting event. Should be an interesting event, it is always competitive but I'm still struggling with football playoffs that is effecting some of my players. I've shuffled our roster and added some former Bamalax players from North Alabama. Should be fun because three of the attackmen I've added were our 3 best U13 players a few years back and one moved to Cincinnati but is coming in to play with us so the other two are very excited. This event is not about winning and losing, it's more about exposure so I'm looking forward to not having the stress of fighting the wins but it will still be competitive.

Last year I coached with the Springfield college coach and one of the teams we played was coached by the Dartmouth coach. It was funny because the Dartmouth coach kept walking out on the field during the game as he got excited while coaching and was warned by the ref 2 times to stay off the field. The ref actually flagged him and threatened to stop the game. I told the ref it was a recruiting event for the kids and he needed to relax. It was crazy because the coach was getting a closer look at players, wasn't interfering with the play at all and to me, I was just glad he was there in the South looking at our kids. The ref took his job a little too seriously especially when he threaten to throw a recruiter out of a recruiting event but the organizers straightened the situation out and everything was cool.

Well, time to get back to work....

Lax, leaves and cool weather

2010-10-29T14:23:00.002-05:00

Well, finally looks like fall is here ! Weather is cooling down just in time for a weekend clinic with the Washington & Lee coaching staff. While I'll be here working the camp, our 20-1 U13 Bamalax boys are off to Charlotte for the fall classic. Our U13 boys only lost one game this past summer to a Flordia Select team that they had beat earlier that day at the Catawba classic. Should be a great event for the boys, they open up against a 6 nations team first thing in the morning. I'm confident that our U13 boys can play with just about any U13 team out there. Our team is very well coached by Matt Aiken and we have a couple of the biggest, fastest 12 year olds out there not to mention an attackman who is shooting close to 80 MPH at 11 ! Can't wait to get updates to see how we do !

Coach McCabe from W & L should be landing right about now at the Birmingham airport, we start at 4PM today and have a short session until 6PM reviewing film and doing a little field work. This is Coach McCabe's 3rd or 4th trip here to Birmingham, his time working with us may pay off since it looks like our two best players in the state are leaning toward W & L and may end up attending school there in the fall.

On a different note, I had one of those "small world" experiences last night when the assistant coach from Grand Canyon University in Arizona called me. Last year we spoke about one of my Hoover boys he was interested in but at the time we never got into our backgrounds. Turns out that he grew up in Rockland county NY and went to a rival HS of mine. We chatted about a lot of guys we both knew and our mutual acquaintences. Sometimes I really miss NY, thinking about my friends and the area made me a little homesick last night, may need to scheudle a trip home to see the family and catch up with other friends I haven't seen in a long time.

Well, it's time to wrap things up at the office and get ready for the camp. November is a busy month, we have the camp this weekend, HS boys head to Atlanta for SoCo next week, then I have a clinic down in Auburn for the youth program down there on the 14th, the 20-21st I head to Naples Florida for our Bamalax girls (U11 boys hit Tampa that same weekend) then U13 and U15 boys go back to Atlanta the 27-28th for the Turkey shootout. December will be a "rest" month (I hope !)

Fall lacrosse underway

2010-09-26T13:15:00.002-05:00

Wow, it's been a crazy fall already, I need to update the blog more often but it has been so busy this fall that I just can't find the time. Not even sure where to start, fall ball was canceled due to rain today so I actually have a minute to organize some thoughts.

The Greater Birmingham league along with Huntsville have agreed to a high school format that would have "A" level teams play each other and "B" level varsity teams compete leaving JV as a purely developmental division. The B division allows younger teams that have upperclassmen compete without the safety issue of playing seniors against freshman JV players. Ofcourse no plan is ever perfect but I think the A and B plan is a step in the right direction.

Our Bamalax teams continue to get stronger, U13 will be at the Dicks tournament of champions in Tampa at the end of December and our high school boys may join them ! U13 will be in Charlotte Halloween weekend while the rest of Bamalax will be attending a weekend camp with Washigton & Lee head coach Gene McCabe. The Bamalax girls will be in Naples, Florida Nov. 20-21, the U11 boys will be at the Derek Pieper tournament in Tampa the same weekend and U13, U15 and HS boys will be at the Turkey Shootout Nov 27-28. Busy fall for Bamalax, it's really making a difference in the level of play with the Bamalax members.

On October 10th I'm excited about a shooting clinic we are having with Matt Poskay the MLL league MVP and former Virginia All-American. Matt battled through cancer last year, survived treatment and came back to be the league MVP ! I'm hoping all of our Alabama kids come out for the clinic, they can register at www.bamalax.com

Football season has been going great for some of our lax boys around Birmingham. Walker and Crawford Cox who have been busy visiting colleges have started their football seasons strong, Walker took the opening kick-off of the season back 94 yards for a TD and I think he has 4 on the season already which is amazing. Our Hoover lax boys are 5-0 on the season and ranked 4th in the country. During the season opener on ESPN our lacrosse team was mentioned several times. Braxton Lowe made a nice tackle and was mentioned as a member of the lacrosse team and the game MVP, Caleb Sims was also credited as being part of the the lax team. The biggest mention of lacrosse came when our starting face off man, Conor Coskery was completely laid out on a huge hit that has over 20,000 hits on You tube ! Conor got up from the hit and the ESPN announcers said, well he is a lacrosse player so you know he's tough ! I though that was awesome (once I knew Conor was OK) If you haven't seen the hit, click here for the You tube link

Well, since I have the day off, I need to go get some work done, I'll update more info later this week for those that like to keep up with Alabama lacrosse

Laxpower computer tournament

2010-07-30T09:33:00.002-05:00

This is the second year my Hoover team was selected to participate in an on-line virtual tournament. This year there were 32 teams selected to play for a virtual national championship. There were 4 divisions, here was our's:
Los Angeles Bracket

(1) Georgetown Prep (MD)
(16) Olathe (KS)

(8) Highland Park (TX)
(9) Westminster School (CT)

(5) Avon Old Farms (CT)
(12) Salesianum (DE)

(4) La Costa Canyon (CA)
(13) Palo Verde (NV)

(3) Landon School (MD)
(14) Culver Academy (IN)

(6) St. Ignatius Prep (CA)
(11) Myers Park (NC)

(7) St. Anne's-Belfield (VA)
(10) Foothill (CA)

(15) Hoover (AL)
(2) Haverford School (PA)

Matching up against the Haverford school didn't give us much of a chance, here is what the outcome was (the initials before the result are sports writers comments/predictions):

(2) Haverford School (PA) 99.80 vs. (15) Hoover (AL) 88.45
• BM: If Haverford School played with just their sophomore class, they would win big, and they win this game with no problem. Pick: Haverford School
• RR: Haverford gets up big early and cruises. Pick: Haverford School
• GB: Pick: Haverford School
• MX: Hoover is athletic but so are the Fords. That and they are really good. Haverford big. Pick: Haverford School
• Computer: Pick: Haverford School
• Winner: Haverford School

Oh well, at least we made it into the tournament, may not have lasted long but at least we were there ! (virtually)

U13 Boys do it again !

2010-07-27T11:00:00.002-05:00

Highs and lows this past weekend at the Georgia Shootout. Our U13 boys once again were victorious going undefeated and winning the first place trophy. Our U13 boys went 19-1 on the summer taking 3 of 4 tournaments only losing in South Carolina in the final game 2-1 to the Florida Snipers. Matt Aiken has done an awesome job with that age group and our team has really been unstoppable. We'll hit two fall events and it looks like they may have qualified for the NDP National championship in January down in Tampa, just waiting on final confirmation of a U13 division being added.
The other great news coming out of the shootout was our U15 Rising stars going to the championship game finishing as runner-ups. Sam jefferson one of our starting attackmen had to suit up in goal with only a week of practice but did a terrific job helping us get all the way to the finals !
I'd say the low points of the weekend were our U15 Select team and the first game our high school Elite team played. U15 Select has some great players but the team concept really isn't clicking. After a tournament win at Catawba the team was overconfident and just didn't step up at the Shootout. Having confidence is a good thing but when you are so confident that it prevents you from working to improve then it becomes detrimental which is what happened in Atlanta. Talking about lacrosse all the time and wearing cool new gear doesn't make you a lacrosse player, passion, desire, hardwork and attitude do. Our high school boys learned that lesson Saturday losing to an inferior team. Our high school team started the weekend down our #1 and #2 defenders and on Saturday lost another top 5 defender to a family emergency which really hurt us. However, the lack of desire to win really disappointed me Saturday morning and I let the boys know. They came out in game #2 with more heart and were just over-matched. After the game I told the boys that winning and losing isn't everything, sometimes no matter how hard you try, the other team is just better and that is OK. We played hard, they had a phenomenal goalie and we just could beat them. No big deal, it happens but we worked hard and that is all a coach can ask for. The last game of the day we played our best and beat Georgia Select. The boys were tired but it was nice to get the win.
We are now regrouping for the fall, taking most of August off but our girls have their last summer tournament August 14th in South Carolina.
We had a terrific summer at all age groups, fall is looking good, should be interesting once the football players are gone, should give other kids opportunity to step up

Last practice

2010-07-20T15:02:00.002-05:00

My daughter saw this T-shirt at Penn State camp last week and even though it's not appropriate for everyone I thought I'd share it. Despite seeing inappropriate T-shirts, she enjoyed camp and won the "Sponge award" for absorbing everything the coaches told her, listened and tried everything she was taught. She said she held her own and felt she competed well so I couldn't really ask for much more.

Our Bamalax boys are preparing for our final tournament of the summer this upcoming weekend. The High school boys will have their last practice tonight while the U13A, U13B, U15A and U15B all practice at least twice more before we all head to Georgia. Should be some great competition, we'd obviously love to win at each age group but we are shooting for qualifiers for the Dick's tournament of champions in Tampa for the high school and U15 age groups since it looks like U13 may have already qualified. The organizers of the event dropped the girls portion which kind of stunk because our girls have been working hard for one more tournament and have been looking really good. Hopefully the girls will get one more shot before the summer ends, we are looking at an event at Converse College in South Carolina August 14th and we have already commited to the President's Cup in naples, Florida this November.

Well, don't know if I'm looking forward to no lax in August, I always think I want the break but then when we do break I miss it. Since we have so many kids wanting to play year round maybe we'll need to do something in August, we'll see but for right now the plan is to take a break until the fall but we'll see...

Interesting thread

2010-07-16T11:33:00.003-05:00

Next weekend we will face the Copperheads and they have a tremendous faceoff kid, Justin Evans (shown in the pic facing off against Robert Eckert). Happened to come across a discussion on the inside lacrosse forum where I thought Justin showed a lot of class on his reply to a thread that was unneccessary. Here was the post and Justin's response:

"I went against Justin Evans at the Top 205 Seniors All-Star game. Not bad. I went like 13 out of 18 against him though(3 illegal procedures with bad refs so he really beat me clean twice). He told me he was planning to verbally commit to Duke, I'm sorry but i have a hard time believing it. Amazing? Maybe for Georgia, but up in the DC/MD/VA...Thats a stretch...I've definitely faced better."

Justin's response: "I am Justin Evans and congrats on a good game. You were very good with your whistle timing and got in my head early. Not making excuses here but there was no way that was my A game... I played awful and you showed up. I would like to meet back up and go at it again if you're up to it."

Anyway, I have seen alot of faceoff guys and this kid is outstanding and I believe him when he says he had an off game, wish the kids up north didn't always feel the need to knock southern lax because there are some outstanding players down here and if Justin does decide to go to Duke, there is no doubt in my mind that he will be successful

Iroquois may finally make it to World cup !

2010-07-14T16:29:00.001-05:00

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. government, at Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's behest, agreed to allow a Native American lacrosse team to travel to England for a world championship competition under passports issued by the Iroquois Confederacy.

Clinton determined that the Iroquois team members did not need U.S. passports to make the trip and granted the players a "one-time-only waiver" to travel on their Iroquois Confederation passports, said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley. The team members regard U.S. government-issued documents as an attack on their identity.

Asked why the department had dropped its opposition, he said, "There was flexibility there to grant this kind of one-time waiver given the unique circumstances of this particular trip."

The team still needs British visas to attend the Lacrosse World Championship in Manchester, England. The British government said previously it wouldn't give the players visas if they could not guarantee they'd be allowed to go home.

A British Consulate spokeswoman couldn't immediately say whether the visas were forthcoming.

U.S. officials previously informed the team that new security rules for international travelers meant that their old passports — low-tech, partly handwritten documents issued by the Iroquois Confederacy of six Indian nations — wouldn't be honored.

The team needs to get on a Wednesday flight to make a Thursday evening game.

"I am relieved that this bureaucratic technicality has been papered over and these young men can go and do what they have trained to do: play lacrosse and compete on the international scene," Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., said Wednesday.

The Iroquois Confederacy oversees land that stretches from upstate New York into Ontario, Canada.

The Iroquois helped invent lacrosse, perhaps as early as 1,000 years ago. Their participation in the once-every-four-year world championship tournament is a rare example of international recognition of their sovereignty.

On Tuesday, the 23 members of the squad arrived at a Delta terminal at Kennedy International Airport wearing team jackets and shirts. Their manager, Ansley Jemison, didn't expect to be allowed to board their flight to Amsterdam and wasn't surprised to be turned away at the check-in desk.

But by showing up, the team avoided forfeiting its tickets. Airline officials said they would allow the squad to rebook its flight for Wednesday without penalty if it secured the proper documents, according to Jemison.

Good night of Lax

2010-07-14T10:35:00.002-05:00

Last night at Birmingham Southern College we hosted a great event to give the current Bamalax Select team a tune up for next weekend's Georgia Shootout and to recognize the first ever Alabama All-state teams. The game was the alumni who graduated from 2005-2010 against our current team and it turned out to be a very even match up. Seeing our current guys hold their own against guys like John Somerall (Hampden Sydney) Trent Chrane (Navy) Trey Atkinson (Robert Morris) Nick Goska (Washington College) Haden Smith (Mercer University)and Brendan & Connor Conway (Alabama) was pretty cool. Actually the alumni looked like they were going to run away with an easy victory building a six goal lead but the select team fought back cutting the lead to 10-6 in the 4th quarter. Quan Tellis wanted the win and caught fire in the 4th netting two including a great ride stealing the ball from goalie Jacob Winkles and putting it in the empty net cutting the lead to 10-9. After exchanging goals with just a few minutes left the score was 11-10 with 30 seconds left. Robert Eckert came up huge winning some crucial faceoffs in the 4th after Ashkan Isfahani and John Somerall dominated at the faceoff X for the alumni. Somerall won the faceoff with 30 seconds left but the select team stole the ball, came down on a break and tied it up with just about no time left. The game went into sudden death over-time and was ended on a Crawford Cox goal. It was a fun game, I think everyone enjoyed it even though I had to get on the Select team for being so relaxed and nonchalant. Pre-game chit chat and lack of focus drives me crazy. When it is an hour before game time there should only be one thing on a player's mind and that is lacrosse. For some reason our team loves to be relaxed and take their time getting suited up and then go through warm ups without focus. Then, we get down 3-0 like we did against the alumni and they wonder - why ? Even with 3 minutes left and down by 2 the attitude was that there was nothing to worry about. Luckily Quan, Walker, Crawford, Eckert, Skinner and a few others stepped up and wanted the win and we pulled it out but I definitely need to work on the team's intensity.

Coaching travel teams really gives you a perspective on how other coaches coach. You can tell that certain programs have no discipline and the players have no idea how important pre-game and preparation is. Also, when you get down by a few goals you can tell some players are not used to winning, not that they give up but you can just get a sense that they aren't used to coming back and fighting for a victory. What I hate is that some of them are OK with losing and have conditioned themselves to not get their hopes up. Hopefully they take the thrill of victory back to their regular season team and try to build a culture of winning. The interesting thing is that players like Quan Tellis that plays for our city team doesn't get to win very many games during his regular season but he knows how to win, he never gives up and when you need him to come through, he does. Winning is not everything but playing a game not expecting to win or trying to win is kind of pointless to me, I'm passionate about the sport and want my players to show that passion. Right now I'd say I have 8 passionate players, 8 players who are working to get their, 4 that will never get there and at least 2 that appear to not really care about much... at all. Guess that is what makes coaching exciting and challenging

Great week of lax

2010-06-22T14:21:00.005-05:00

Spent the weekend in South Carolina competing in the heat at the Catawba classic. It was the first time I was able to bring all of my boys and girls to one event, a total of 7 teams ! What a great facility, I have never seen a better one and unfortunately there probably isn't many better one's out there. Last week was crazy, all of our apparel came in so I had to sort through 150 orders to get everyone their shirts, shorts, hats, etc. and then 200 shooting shirts came in that I needed to get to each coach to pass out before the tournament. Got everything done by Friday and headed out with my daughter around 2PM for the long trip to the Charlotte area. We got to the field around 7:30AM to set up, her first game was at 10AM, which they won as well as their 2PM game but dropped their 4PM game. The girls mounted a good comeback, down 7-2 at half, ended up losing 8-6 but still qualified for the final four on Sunday. The HS boys were up during our 4PM game so I actually left at half to catch the second half of my daughter's game. The girls played their best lacrosse ever, they really worked together as a team, I was very proud of them. All of our age groups did well on Saturday and when Sunday came, the HS boys and girls, U15 A & B and U13A were all still alive for the championships. HS boys, U15A and U13A all advanced to the championships and the HS boys and U15A team ended up winning it with u13A dropping a tough 2-1 loss. Overall it was a great experience, glad the park was as big as it was because there were some obnoxious people there that referred to the folks in South Carolina as red necks and even were overheard smack talking about the Backward rednecks from Alabama which just made our victories sweeter. Several teams were very undisciplined which was a little disappointing, I heard coaches encouraging kids to complain about calls and even making excuses for losses due to officiating. Overall I thought the refs did fine, we had a tightly called game Saturday night but the ref told me he had problems with our opponent earlier in the day and didn't want the game to get out of control which was fine with me, penalties are just usually not as frequent at the select level. Now it's time to get ready for another trip to Georgia, my daughter is sick of Atlanta, we actually need to be there 3 weekends in July so I'm sure she will be thrilled ! Well, it's time to wrap up the tournament season and get ready for the fall, looks like we'll take August off but look to do some tournaments in October and November, can't wait until it cools off a bit, this heat has been a little ridiculous !

Duke win

2010-06-02T08:55:00.004-05:00

Came across an article this morning about a Duke family that I thought I'd share. Danny Loftus came to Hoover in the fall a couple year's ago and ran a clinic with Nick O'Hara, Ed Douglas and Dan Oppedisano that were all caught up in the Duke scandal. The clinic was one of the best I have been a part of, they even took some time to get some photos with my little Bamalaxers like my man Jackson who is pictured with Loftus, O'hara and Douglas sitting on my couch at my store. Anyway, I'm sure these guys had a great weekend and the win is even extra sweet but here is the story...

Duke Lacrosse Win Brings Loftus Family Full-Circle
Eddie Loftus earns national title at same school where brothers endured scrutiny.

Duke Lacrosse Win Brings Loftus Family Full-CircleSyosset Senior High SchoolSouthwoods Rd., Syosset, NY/listings/syosset-senior-high-school63925 /locations/495220
By Josh Stewart | June 1, 2010
Somehow in the midst of the Duke victory scrum, Syosset High alum Eddie Loftus was tossed right into the goal. The Blue Devils had just beaten Notre Dame Monday in overtime, 6-5, for the school's first national championship.

For a freshman who saw little playing time this season, basking in the net where the winning goal was scored was Loftus' signature moment.

Until he found his father.

"I came up to him and gave him a huge hug and he looked at me and said, 'I just don't know what to say right now.' He was just in shock. He was beyond happy," Loftus says of father Brian. "I remember a few years ago I was sitting in my living room and watching him on Good Morning America. And seeing him go from that to the biggest smile in the world on his face, it gave me a great feeling."

"That," as many know, was the Duke lacrosse scandal of 2006, when a woman claimed she was raped by team members at an off-campus party. Brian Loftus' oldest son, Daniel, and middle son Chris were on the team at the time, and the exasperated father was interviewed by the news program. While they were never charged with a crime in which three teammates were later exonerated, the scrutiny extended all the way up to Long Island.

"Eddie was at home," Brian Loftus says. "I remember when he'd go to school and people would ask him, 'Did your brothers really rape some girl or something?' And he had to put up with this. But as a family we held tight."

For many the headlines would be all the motivation necessary to play collegiate lacrosse elsewhere. But Eddie Loftus answers the question about looking at other schools with authority.

"Not for a second," he says. "Everything that happened, in '06, it's tough, and that's life. But my brothers made their best friends for the rest of their lives [at Duke]. The people are great. The coaching staff is awesome. It's just a good environment to be in."

Loftus' playing time was sparse, but when he got in he made the most of it. He scored all six of his goals this season in one game, a 19-8 win over Presbyterian late in the regular season.

His lack of on-field action, he says, makes him no less a champion because he feels--literally--where he contributed.

"I knew coming in I wasn't going to play a lot as a freshman, and maybe as a sophomore," Loftus says. "I'm playing behind three of the best attackman in the country. But every day in practice, I would go up against our best defenders. They beat on my arms, they'd rough me up, but I knew by Saturday I was making them better for our next game."

These days everybody in the Loftus family is doing pretty well. Daniel is the head coach at Jupiter High School in Florida. Chris, who made it to the championship game to see his brother, works on Wall Street. Brian, a retired Fire Department of New York captain, can now go to just about all his son's games. The only one he missed was, you guessed it, the Presbyterian game. But he can live with it because he was visiting daughter Alexandra, who was studying abroad.

Brian Loftus says he and wife Barbara have come full-circle after seeing the best and worst of human nature.

"I'm not going to lie to you, I found out who your friends were and who your friends weren't," he says. "There's people that I probably don't talk to, who questioned the integrity of my kids."

Fortunately, the way things have turned out he has no time for the negative voices.

"Some days," Brian says, "I have to pinch myself, that's how good life is."

Lessons From a Lacrosse Field Echo From West Point to Afghanistan

2010-05-20T12:32:00.001-05:00

New York Times article...

There is sports and there is real life. Sometimes they’re on the same page, sometimes they’re on separate planets, and sometimes there’s a little of both, like the picture of the Apache helicopter on the wall and the Lady Gaga song pouring out of the locker room at the Truxtun Lacrosse Center at the United States Military Academy.

So you can find your own message in the “Hoosiers” on the Hudson story that played out Sunday when an Army team that was given zero chance of winning beat the two-time defending national champion, Syracuse, in the first round of the N.C.A.A. tournament.

Since the tournament began in 1971, Syracuse has been the champion 10 times, more than any school. Army has never reached the finals and had a 3-15 tournament record. Syracuse had won 14 of the teams’ last 15 meetings. Army’s victory was described as the biggest upset in college lacrosse history.

If it were any other underdog, it would have been a nice niche sports story and not much more. But in a nation, it seems, perpetually at war, in an institution like no other, at a time when 78 West Point grads have died while serving since 9/11, it felt like more.

This Saturday, the seven graduating seniors on the team will be among around 1,000 cadets who will get their diplomas and their second lieutenant bars with President Obama on hand. Then — one part college kids playing a game, one part grown men preparing for war — they will get on a bus for Stony Brook, where on Sunday they will play Cornell, which lost in the finals to Syracuse last year.

At practice on Tuesday, a blur of sprinting bodies and lacrosse balls flung at impossible speeds, they were still trying to make sense of it. West Point is full of disciplined, supremely conditioned athletes, but it gets almost none of the high school lacrosse superstars, who typically go to powers like Syracuse.

But Army’s team found a theme when it lost four of its first five games. The mother of Head Coach Joe Alberici sent him a quote about a stonecutter hammering away, where one blow finally breaks the rock but a hundred others made it possible. They brought a boulder into the locker room, and the players pounded on it in a tribute to discipline and persistence. This being West Point, the search for meaning went beyond typical coach-speak.

“There’s a scene in ‘War and Peace’ where the commander of the Russian forces is counseling a younger officer,” said Col. Rickie A. McPeak, a professor of Russian language and literature and the team’s officer representative. “He says: ‘Look, anyone can seize a fortress. You just slam it with everything you’ve got. But what it takes to win a campaign is patience and time.’ Like this hammering the rock thing. It’s patience, and it’s time, and it’s poise.”

Army’s seniors, or “firsties,” will soon head for more perilous assignments. Tyler Seymour plans to fly helicopters. Andrew Maisano, a systems engineering major with a 4.0 average, is enrolling in the rigorous Sapper Leader Course for explosives. It seems a long way from this bullet-fast game on green fields, but players say it’s not at all.

The conditioning, discipline, and focus on detail, teamwork and leadership helped Army do more with less, the coaches and players say. And Tyler Oates, a senior who plans to attend Airborne and Ranger training before heading, he assumes, to Afghanistan, said West Point’s training for war was just as applicable to sports.

“We never go on the field saying, ‘We’re going to give them a heck of a fight,’ or ‘We’re going to play our best,’ ” he said, adding: “You’re not going to go into Afghanistan saying ‘I hope I do all right.’ That’s life or death, not win or lose, but what makes you think the way you approach a lacrosse game should be different than the way you approach a training exercise or when you actually go to war?”

There is plenty of dissonance to go around. We might not like violence in the abstract, but we have almost no limits on what we’ll accept in our culture, in our movies, in our games and certainly in our wars. We revere the military, but it is the warriors in cleats and pads who get all the money and acclaim. On the other hand, these days the graduates coming out of West Point are among the few who have a guaranteed job and future, however risky.

The miracle win on the field might be the easy part, and they will be big underdogs again on Sunday. But in a scary, hypercompetitive world, the fresh young lieutenants from West Point, after all those years of hitting the parade field at 7 a.m. while their peers elsewhere were hours away from opening their bleary eyes, might have the edge in the rest of life, too.

How it all started

2010-05-19T14:44:00.002-05:00

As our Bamalax group gets ready to head to Atlanta this weekend I thought I'd give everyone an idea of how the whole thing started. Bamalax played their first tournament in 2006 in Atlanta at what was referred to as the Bagataway tournament. The Mountain Brook coach, Tom Lewis, myself and the Vestavia coach at the time, Eric Stein, assembled some players and went over to compete and didn't do too bad, finishing 3-2 on the weekend. As we were kicking around the idea of an all-star high school team, Mark Goska asked to do the same with a U15 group that made the first trip with us and also ended up doing very well. During that first "all-star" trip it dawned on me that if our kids were going to play in college and get noticed they needed to play during the summer. At the time, Brye French was a sophomore and I knew he had the ability to play at a very high level so I committed myself to getting Brye and our younger players noticed. In 2007 Bamalax had a good solid high school team that went to 3 tournaments and started to build awareness of Alabama lacrosse in other areas as we started to be very competitive. In 2007 the high school boys qualified for the Dick's tournament of champions and we took the team to Tampa for the club national championships. By 2008 I started having try outs for the younger age groups as more parents wanted the opportunity for their sons and daughters to play year round. Teams at the younger age groups were formed and high school girls started to get involved. In 2008 we won the Bagataway tournament at both the high school age group as well as U15 that was coached by Hunter Faulconer and Steve Hines. That year we also had a high school rising stars team that lost in a braveheart to the eventual winners, the Copperheads out of Georgia. That summer we went to Charlotte and played and then hit Tampa for our second national championship experience. Also that Summer Richie Meade agreed to do a camp in Birmingham to get an idea of the talent and to see if Brye was as good as we said he was. Immediately Richie was impressed and Brye was pretty much a lock for the academy from there. Bamalax continued to grow and added a U11 team formed by Jack Sharman. This year has been our largest group by far, we now have teams at U11, U13A, U13B, U15A, U15B, HS boys and HS girls. Overall we have over 200 Bamalax players in the state of Alabama ! From our high school team, John Somerall is heading to Hampden Sydney, Trent Chrane is going to Navy prep, Trey Atkinson will play at Robert Morris, Julien Speyers will be at Millsaps College, Brendan Conway, Colby Maske and Jeremy Fikes will play at Alabama, Alex Mauro and Timmy Murphy will play at Auburn and on this year's team we have future DI players like Walker and Crawford Cox, Max Hines and Stephen Walker. Bamalax has accomplished a lot in only a few short years and we are looking forward to continuing to grow. Every time I watch a Navy game and see Brye winning a ground ball and driving down the field it motivates me to keep going and provide our younger kids the same opportunities !

Th Love of the game

2010-05-15T21:37:00.002-05:00

Still can't believe the situation at UVA, I just can't imagine what those families are going through. I've never been a big Virginia fan but I'll be cheering for both the men's and women's teams to win the National championships. How sweet would it be to memorialize Yeardley's death with a UVA sweep ?! The UVA men's team was already in good shape heading into the playoffs but this whole situation may be the fuel they need to get to the finals and win it all. Lacrosse has certainly received a lot of press lately, I hate that it is because of a tragic event but as terrible as it may sound, I thought it was pretty cool seeing a bunch of lacrosse pictures in People magazine this past week.

Some great college games going on today, finally getting to watch the Loyola game, I already know the result but I'm in the 3OT period just waiting to see the final goal. Well....there it is ! Cornell wins it ! After all that hard work and Loyola coming back from a 9-2 deficit, a long pole ends it with his first career goal ! The Loyola attackman really blew it forcing a bad shot that went right into the Cornell player's stick that lead to the break that ended it...man, what a game ! Now on to Denver and Stony Brook, first goal of the game for Stony Brook was by another long stick ! Intercepted clearing pass with goalie out of cage and he shot from almost midfield...nice !

Well, tomorrow our board of directors has our annual retreat for about 8 hours to review the past year and to strategize for next year. I'm going to have to bail early to get to HS Bamalax practice since we have our first tournament next weekend. Can't wait to get things rolling, U11, U13A, U13B, U15A and HS boys will all be in Atlanta next weekend, I think we have a shot to win at least two age groups, we'll see how we do but I think we are going to do well, I feel pretty good about this summer, can't wait to get things rolling !

Tough try-out for U15

2010-05-05T19:35:00.002-05:00

It is difficult to evaluate players in a two hour period even with five or six coaches. Last night we had about 70 kids try out for 25 spots on the Bamalax U15 roster. Needless to say there are some very disappointed players and parents today. The evaluation process is very fair, I actually had several coaches from other age groups evaluating to prevent any favoritism. Players had to be noticed purely on their performance. Obviously if a player had phenomenal seasons and are bigger, stronger, faster than the other kids at that age group, their coach had probably previously asked to keep an eye out for them but for the most part, everyone was on the same playing field. Having evaluations where coaches don't know players makes it difficult on the kid who has played for a bunch of years and has cruised by because coaches just know who he is. Many of those players don't improve year to year and eventually things sometimes catch up to them. When everyone around them gets bigger and faster and they still can't use their off hand, they wonder , "what happened ?" Parents have a tough time dealing with this situation and you hear things like "my son has played for 6 years, he was on Bamalax last year, why didn't he make it ?" To the coaches the answers are always obvious, he isn't growing, he is lazy, he only uses one hand, he doesn't pass or see the field well and all the things he got away with when he was younger are catching up to him and he is no longer an all-star for his age. When you are picking 25 from a group of 70, you need to be the best. Sometimes players are just more athletic than others, sometimes players just get lazy and don't hustle and don't work on fundamentals. One thing that always drives me crazy is when parents compare a player to another one and say "but my son scored more goals than Johnny, why did Johnny make it and my son didn't ?" There are different things coaches look for in players when forming a team and attitude, hustle and coachability are big one's for me. My program tries to give everyone as much opportunity as possible, we have developmental teams or even invite kids out to practice as the season progresses to see if we missed something during tryouts. For the most part, people email and say things like, "my son didn't make it, what does he need to work on ?" or "we knew he was a long shot but he wanted to try out just to see where he was at" The kids who we pick up later or put on rising stars are kids with great attitudes who want to work harder and make the team the next time around. The kids we try to stay away from are the one's who we have told 100 times not to twirl their stick or not to try to dodge through 3 guys and basically just keep doing what we tell them not to do, those are the kids we just don't have time to work with and sometimes those are the more difficult parents as well.
One thing I can tell you is that our U15 team is going to be good, we have some great young talent that I am very excited about. There were so many good players out there that I think even if we formed a second team we could have a very competitive one so those that didn't make it, keep your heads up, keep working on your skills and in a couple weeks you may see information about more teams being formed, so stay tuned...

End of season !

2010-05-02T23:27:00.002-05:00

What a great weekend of lacrosse in Alabama. Awesome youth championship games yesterday and some tough fought high school games today. Yesterday during the Cornell/Princeton game Quint Kessinck mentioned Alabama lacrosse and spoke about the growth. It was great to hear him mention Birmingham and how far we have come, it was a little disappointing that he mentioned a player from Spain Park "will" be attending the Naval academy but failed to mention that Hoover HS currently has a player seeing more and more playing time as a current freshman at the academy. Oh well, guess you can't have everything but it was cool to hear Quint refer to us as a new "hotbed" for lacrosse !
We were really lucky to get the games in today, the weather was not good, there were 2 rain delays but the varsity game started only a half hour late. Hoover scored the first goal but then we found ourselves down 4-1. We clawed back and kept trading goals and were tied at 6. Mountain Brook scored a goal when a player on the crease spun around 3 defenders getting his stick hammered but the ball never came out and he got a shot off. Something told me his stick wasn't legal and for the first time this season I called a stick check. His stick was pinched and when the ref turned his stick upside down, the ball didn't come out. The ref threw the flag, took the goal away and i think that was a momentum changer. Hoover was up 10-8 with 3 minutes left and Mountain Brook scored making it a one goal game with 2 minutes left. Both teams battled hard and clean. Mountain Brook played as a team, never yelled at each other and both teams played hard and with great sportsmanship. The was a lot of hard hitting and fighting for the ball and both teams left everything they had out on the field. It was a terrific game and both teams deserved to be in the championship game. I'm not going to lie, it was a sweet victory, I really wanted this one and the boys came through. I've mentioned retiring to the kids but games like this one and the one Friday make the sacrafices worth while and make you think..maybe just one more year but we'll see.....

Coaching high

2010-05-01T11:33:00.003-05:00

What an incredible state final 4 game last night for my Hoover Bucs. Playing cross town rival, Spain Park, with tons of fans and a lot of excitement, my Bucs prevailed 13-9 and advance to the state championship game tomorrow. Hoover HS hosted the state championship weekend last year and were expected to do so again this year but due to a conflict, championship weekend was moved to Spain Park HS. Needless to say Spain Park really wanted to win and be on their own turf Sunday but the rivalry continues to be dominated by the Bucs who have never lost to the Jaguars in the four years their program has existed. After Spain Park blew out Mountain Brook earlier the week 20-8, they had a lot of confidence coming into the game and the game was tied 5-5 at the half. Senior Brendan Conway scored his 100th goal of his career in the third quarter putting the game out of reach for the Jaguars. The game was 13-7 with a minute left and Spain Park go 2 past our defense, I think the last one came with 1 second left on the clock. The Jaguars put up a great effort and I know it was tough for their seniors who started the program 4 years ago but it was sweet for the Bucs who no one expected much from this year after graduating 9 starters last year. I'm hoping the rain holds out tomorrow, the championship will have Hoover facing the only team in the past three years from Alabama to beat them (Mountain Brook)who has been the favorite all year until the Spain Park game earlier this week. The championship game is going to be one heck of a game, both teams will be prepared, both teams have experienced coaches and both teams have several superstars that are sure to light up the score board. Wish it was game time, I am fired up !!

Growing pains

2010-04-30T11:03:00.003-05:00

There is an interesting debate in our league over how physical the sport should be. Lacrosse has grown so fast here in Alabama that rules and philosophies seem to change almost daily. On one hand you have players that were recruited to try a new sport who may have never played an organized sport before. On the other hand you have athletic kids who were attracted to the sport for the fast paced action and physical contact. When you mix athletes with non-athletes and football parents with debate team parents you get differing ideas on how the sport should be played. From a league perspective you have to protect all kids and unfortunately sometimes referees are forced to call games tighter and almost give an advantage to the smaller kids to prevent injuries. Some coaches, players and fans disagree and believe if you are on the field, the rules are the same for all and rules should not be changed regardless of size or athleticism. Lacrosse is a physical sport, sometimes it is violent and hitting within the boundaries of the rules is a big part of the game. I've always welcomed the physical play, I love the battle scars, I love a good hit, that is why I have enjoyed the game for 30+ years. It takes a lot away from the sport when refs flag someone because the other kid fell down but if they don't throw the flag, fans and coaches are screaming ! The ref is in a no win situation and unfortunately they are the one's receiving most of the blame. As we grow, everyone needs to work together for a solution, coaches need to have more patience, fans need to learn the game, referees need to communicate and adhere to the rules as written and everyone needs to honor the game. Anyone who reads this from Alabama, I encourage you to watch the high school games from New York that are shown on Sundays on CSTV. The stick checks are more violent, the body checking is harder, that is how lacrosse is intended to be played. I'm not saying we as a league are doing anything wrong, we are just putting way too much emphasis on how and who are reffing games when we should be focusing on setting expectations to create a culture of clean play (which sometimes includes hitting), proper fan and coach behavior and an increase of knowledge of how the game should be played, reffed and watched. Bottomline is: refs- stop calling everything, coaches -stop complaining (note to self), fans - shut up and learn the game, parents - if your kid gets knocked down, tell them to hit the weightroom, if they get a bruise, reward them for the big ones !

Changing gears, we are in the last week of the season, final 4 varsity games tonight, my Hoover JV team (really Coach Mauro's) won their semi-final game last night and will be moving to the championship for the 4th straight year against the winner of Huntsville/Grissom. Tonight's games should be exciting, looking forward to seeing who moves on to play Sunday !

Cartoon of the day

2010-04-28T09:33:00.002-05:00

I was sent this cartoon this morning, thought it was pretty funny . . .
It's interesting growing the sport down south because we recruit kids that like the fast paced nature of the sport and the opportunity to hit someone but then once we get them on board we have to do everything we can to prevent them from hitting anyone. It's a little confusing for kids at the younger age groups because our bigger athletes are put at a bit of a disadvantage not being able to really hit anyone smaller than them. It takes time to build stick skills and move the ball but we are getting there. This year I've attended U11 and U13 games where the ball is moving well, attackmen are looking for cutters and teams are running organized offenses. We have come a long way in a short period of time and I think as a league we are protecting the kids as best we can. This is playoff week and some good lacrosse is being played, hope everyone is enjoying themselves and honoring the game

If I can only survive this week !

2010-04-26T11:27:00.002-05:00

Wow ! Crazy stuff going on in the league, things that are even too controversial for me to blog about so you know they must be interested ! Anyway,
Daughter #2 game tonight
Varsity game Tuesday
Daughter #1 game Wed
JV final 4 game Thursday
Varsity final 4 game Friday
Hopefully daughter #2 will play in championship Saturday
and Hopefully varsity and JV will be playing Sunday
Oh well, with all this going on, one of my old college teammates reminded me today of a funny ref we had back in Vermont that did all the college games named Harry. Poor Harry had to be in his 70's back in the 80's so unfortunately I'm sure he is no longer with us but he was a riot and took no crap from us at all. It was like having your grandpa ref, he made you feel bad if you did something wrong, sometimes I felt like I let him down if I got a penalty. Anyway, one time against Norwich University I remember it was a close game, we took a shot and it was a race to the end line, we looked to Harry for the call, he paused and said, boy, there were 42 cars on that train ! There were train tracks near the field and he was watching the train instead of the action ! He gave us the ball (actually I'm not sure if he used alternate possession or if he flipped a coin) we all just laughed !

I had the pleasure of working with Harry reffing high school games around '89-'90. We did some great games together up in New England in Vermont, Mass. and New Hampshire. We did a championship game with Deerfield academy in the late 80's together, the game was tied with under a minute left. During a timeout, Harry walks over to me and says, "Son, we don't get paid for overtime, one of us is going to have to make a bad call to end this thing". He walked away, went on the other side of the field and stared at me (I really think he was serious !) Anyway, the game went into overtime, I couldn't even look across the field because Ole' Harry would just shake his head at me ! What a character,I bet he reffed for 50 years, anyone who ever played lacrosse in Vermont from the 50's-90's probably has a story about Harry, it made my day thinking about him today !

No time lately to blog

2010-04-23T09:47:00.003-05:00

If I could ever stop receiving e-mails and phone calls I could actually find time to put my thoughts down on my blog ! The past few weeks have been extremely busy, it's crazy that the season starts off so slow with a game here or there and then with rain, everything gets shuffled and the next thing you know everyone has games every night of the week ! Two Sundays ago we had try-outs for our Bamalax teams, we had U11, U13, HS girls and HS boys all trying to make the rosters. Trying to catch up with coaches to make decisions became almost impossible because Monday night daughter #2 had a game, Tuesday JV and varsity boys had a game, Wednesday daughter #1 had a game, Thursday JV and varsity played again and Friday I headed to Atlanta around 2PM straight from work.

The Atlanta trip was incredible, the Legacy Cup was a first class event that gave us the opportunity to compete against some great teams. Friday there was a great dinner with a terrific guest speaker and then we all headed out to the fields at Milton HS to see braveheart competitions as well as hardest shots for girls and boys. Caleb Sims from Hoover was my selection for the hardest shot and John Somerall was selected to represent Mountain Brook. Caleb is a fairly new player that is a terrific kid and a remarkable athlete. Since our first game I have been telling him that his shot was hard and sure enough, during the competition, he shot 92 ! The winner was TJ Kemp from McCallie who shot 98 twice and a kid from Milton shot 96 and 94. Considering this is Caleb's first year I was extremely proud of him for just getting the shots off with all that pressure ! The braveheart was fun, we won the first one but then lost to McCallie but it was a great night and a lot of fun. Saturday morning our #1 attackman let me know he was still in Alabama and didn't have a ride to Atlanta so we went into our games short handed and just didn't have enough to hang with the teams we faced. What a great event though, couldn't have been run any better, it was a great weekend of lax !

After our game ended on Saturday I rushed back to Birmingham to see daughter #1's 6PM game, pulled up just as the refs were checking sticks. After the game we took the in-laws to dinner, got home around 9:30PM and sorted out the U11 and U13 rosters and got the announcements of the teams out finally. I'm sure there were some kids on pins and needles waiting for the rosters to be posted but it was just a bad week to have the tryouts but unavoidable due to the previous 3 tryouts being cancelled due to weather.

SO much going on in Alabama lacrosse, Lot's of good and unfortunately some bad. We've cracked down on "football hits" and we've had issues with coach's conduct, player conduct and even fan conduct. As the sport grows it is amazing to watch the competition switch flip ! One year you can have the nicest coach, most well behaved kids and then the next year they win a few games and it is like playing a completely different program. Players talking trash, fans screaming at refs, coaches yelling and screaming, it really is an incredible transformation. I've strongly considered going back to coach at the younger age group to help develop players and teach them strong fundamentals. Some of our youth teams have as many as 5 coaches on the sidelines, all of them yelling at kids sometimes forcing players to get the ball to one "superstar" player and telling all the other players to get out of the way ! I'm a very competitive guy and it drove me nuts when my daughter's softball league decided not to keep score one year but at the younger age group that may be the way to go. No yelling, everyone playing, kids learning the game properly and no championship to fight for. Didn't think I'd ever say that but looking back, I handed out the state championship trophies last year and really couldn't tell you who won anything below U15 and two years from now, those kids probably won't remember either.

Well, I'm sure we'll work it all out, I am anxious for the season to be over though, I know I'll miss it once it is over but with all the drama, this season has been pretty long. It's amazing that I have not had one parent issue, one player issue, not one single event involving my own JV or varsity program but I have been part of numerous other issues involving parents, players and coaches that has me a little worn down.

Well, I finally get to strap on the pads tonight and run around. I'm so out of shape I'll probably hurt myself but I'm looking forward to seeing the guys and having a little fun of my own !

#1 and #2 match up

2010-04-09T09:20:00.002-05:00

Last night was a great night for Alabama high school lacrosse. We were fortunate to move the game to the high school stadium turf after there were heavy rains all morning that cancelled every other lacrosse activity in town. My Hoover high team has not lost to an in state team in close to 3 years, we have had some close calls but we have managed to pull out the wins. Going into last night I knew we had our hands full. The night started off with our JV teams battling, Hoover was down a few players and only had 4 subs. Mountain Brook jumped out to a 4-0 lead but somehow Hoover's JV faught all the way back and pulled out a 7-6 win scoring the game winner with less than 2 minutes remaining ! It was a great way to start off the night. The varsity game started with Mountain Brook controlling the time of possession and they built a 3-1 lead that eventually was a 6-4 half time advantage. In the 3rd quarter we figured them out a bit and jumped to an 8-7 lead to start the 4th quarter. In the 4th there was a questionable push call that resulted in a man up goal for Mountain Brook that turned the momentum of the quarter. Mountain Brook was feeling it and once they jumped ahead 9-8 I knew we were in trouble. Both teams faught hard, we gave up a few bad goals at the end and lost the game 13-8. It was disappointing to lose but I was excited to be part of the game and thrilled to see the level of competition. When the two teams face each other again it is going to be one heck of a game. Neither team has seen each other play this year and really didn't know what to expect but next time we will. Next game is Tuesday night, then Thursday and then we are off to the Legacy cup in Atlanta, 4 games in 6 days, need to win at least 3...we'll see

Making a difference

2010-04-06T09:35:00.002-05:00

I've always considered lacrosse a unique sport that had tight knit communities kind of like ice hockey. When you go to college and see a kid bringing a lacrosse stick into his dorm room you always felt somewhat of a bond more so than when you saw someone with a football or a baseball glove. There are all kinds of tournaments in memory of people who helped grow the sport and you always see lacrosse players rallying around causes. Last week I heard of a young man from our inner city program who was abandoned by his parents and was left homeless. The kid has never missed a game and is always at practice helping his teammates and it really bothered me when I heard the news. My wife said I mentioned the situation several times over the weekend and she knew it was getting to me. Yesterday I asked our league president to confirm the situation, which he did I wanted to do something from my community for the kid and we agreed it may be something our entire lax community could rally behind. Our president crafted an e-mail explaining the situation to our league and literally within minutes we had all kinds of responses to help. We had a family offer to be his foster parents, another offered a rental property, we had a coach who is a grad student offer to tudor to help him get back on track with school and we even had someone commit money on an on-going monthly basis for as long as he needs it. It was really great to know that people were willing to help, I think the best part is he never asked for help and his coach who has been helping him find a place to live and driving to and from school, work and practice never asked for a hand out. They were dealing with it, doing the best they could but with the support of our league a relief fund was created and I think we are really going to change this player's life. It is really cool that when a situation like this occurs everyone puts their competitiveness aside and just bans together as a lacrosse family. Hopefully we don't have more unfortunate situations happen but it is nice to know that the lax family has your back when things go bad !

Big night for lax

2010-04-02T09:49:00.002-05:00

We've had a busy week trying to adjust to my wife going back to work full-time and juggling my busy lax schedule with Daughter #2 in photo and daughter #1 who also just made the high school dance team and had mandatory meetings this week. Last night was opening night for the Lady Hawks who only have 12 players facing Mountain Brook's 20+ squad. The Lady Hawks pulled out the win and the "Goal troll" only let in 4 apprently coming up big with some spectacular saves. Unfortunately I had to leave to go across town to get my Hoover team warmed up for cross town rival Spain Park. The Hoover/Spain Park game is always one I really don't look forward to because even though we have never lost to them the gap is definitely closing and they always get up to play us. Hoover jumped out to a 5-0 lead but Spain Park clawed back in the 2nd quarter to make it 6-4 at half-time. The third quarter was huge for us and Spain park got a little frustrated with a lot of penalties which lead to Hoover pulling away for a 14-6 victory. It was a sweet victory, one that makes coaching worth while. It's now time to enjoy a long weekend and relax. Daughter #1 plays Spain Park tomorrow but other than that and men's practice tonight, it's a fairly laxfree weekend. Next week is Mountain Brook to decide who is #1 in the state, it should be a great game, that one I'm really looking forward to !

Busy weekend

2010-03-29T22:18:00.003-05:00

The Dan Anderson tournament is over but what a great event. The tournament had almost 70 teams participate and amazingly all games were played on schedule. The weather was warm one minute, rainy the next, then the winds came and blew all the tents around but with all that being said, I think everyone had a good time. It was a tough weekend to retail merchandise and it was hard to keep everything out of the mud but it was great getting to mingle with all the lacrosse kids and parents and I definitely saw some great lax action. Unfortunately some of our high school players, like my two favorite Huntsville laxers in the picture, had prom and missed some games. The rest of the season is going to be packed with games, not sure how many teams have been able to practice but it looks like from here until May, my team may get 4 practices in at the most considering how many games we have to make up. Well, at least it will be nice for the next couple of days so I'll be out at the field tomorrow, looking forward to seeing the boys and hearing all the prom stories, I'm sure something worthy of a few laughs happened !

Rain, rain go away

2010-03-25T20:41:00.003-05:00

What a pain !, this rain is just killing the lacrosse season. Fields are a mess, no one can practice and now we have more games to reschedule than we have open days. We were looking forward to a tough match up this evening against Mountain Brook who just came off of a 22-7 victory over Vestavia. Across town Spain Park took it to John Carroll (or now referred to as the Saints) 18-8. The only thing that is uncertain about our high school state playoffs at this point is who will be the 4th team that makes the final four because the top 3 teams are no doubt Hoover, Mountain Brook and Spain Park. Games between the top 3 will be very interesting, none have faced off against each other yet but they will be close games for sure !

In other southern lacrosse news, McCallie from Tennessee beat Maryland powerhouse McDonough in over-time. Coach Kemp's victory is huge for southern lacrosse and helps legitimize southern lacrosse when our players want to be recruited by college coaches. St. Andrews from Florida has been the top team in the south for a few years and will play McCallie this weekend. St. Andrews only lost to Boys Latin from Baltimore 12-11 this season and Boys Latin was a preseason #1 in the country selection. St. Andrews will also play Ponte Vedra later in the season who our Hoover team played very closely a few weeks ago. Not saying that Alabama lacrosse is ready to compete with the likes of Boy's Latin but if we could ever get more than 2 practices a week, I think we have the athletes to be competitive with most teams out there.

Both Mountain Brook and Hoover play in the Legacy cup in April where they will play Charlotte Latin and Alpharetta and Harrison from Georgia. We'll see how we both do, looking forward to the games and also getting to see McCallie play in person. Oh well, time to go throw my NCAA brackets away since Syracuse choked !! I knew I hated them for a reason, now I have even more reason to strongly dislike them !

Too much excitement for an old man

2010-03-09T08:23:00.002-06:00

Especially after this past weekend's close games I really need my daughter's games to stop being so exciting. Last night the Hoover girls played a great game losing in over-time to Oak Mountain. What a game, it went back and forth and Hoover tied it with under a minute to force over-time. It's bad enough that I get so worked up on the sidelines during the boy's games but now I've got to watch my daughter in these one goal battles, I don't think my heart can take it !

Tonight my varsity team plays John Carroll, it will be our first home game this year and last game before spring break. In an interesting turn of events from our league, the Homewood HS team replaced their coach, I don't know the whole story there but hopefully they can turn things around and get back on track to finish the season on a positive note.

Lot's of positive things going on in Alabama with lacrosse, games are picking up, almost all uniforms are in finally and the weather is getting warmer ! On a negative note we have had two complaints to high schools about rough play from parents. First of all, our high school teams are not sanctioned and have absolutely no affiliation with the school so a parent should never complain to a school since the principal or Athletic director (AD) probably wouldn't even know what the parent is talking about. Secondly, we are trying to gain the school's support to vote on lacrosse being a sanctioned sport, the last thing any of us need is ANYTHING negative hitting the desks of principals or AD's ! I'm not sure what complaining to another school accomplishes anyway. The league will handle any complaint and if the issue is severe, the US Lacrosse chapter head, Mark Goska should be made aware and he can investigate and address.

Enough about that, ending this post on a positive note, Hoover's Brye French a freshman at the Naval academy saw his first action of the season against Bucknell (navy won in OT). When you watch the game it looks like Navy has 100 players on their bench, to think Brye as a freshman was not only good enough to be on that sideline but he was good enough to actually get in the game !! It's amazing to think he is from Alabama, can't wait to see what this senior class will do in college, there are some great players out there !

Back to work

2010-03-08T09:14:00.002-06:00

Guess sometimes I forget that people actually read my blog and sometimes I make comments that I probably shouldn't. Last week I was upset because a change at half time in the way time was kept in the Hoover/Spain Park girls game effected the outcome of the game. As a parent I was upset for my daughter and didn't appreciate the fact that the Hoover coaches were not consulted when the change occurred. My comments were unfair to the Spain Park girls who were not part of the change in the way time was kept, they won and deserved to be congratulated and I certainly did not mean to take anything away from their effort. There was confusion in the way time was to be kept from the beginning of the game and the timekeeper consulted the rule book for clarification. The timekeeper wanted to make sure the time was kept properly and looking back no one knew it was going to end up being a decision that would no doubt effect the outcome of the game. There were a lot of mistakes made, #1, the refs should have known the rules, #2 there should have been published time keeping rules from the league #3 the time keeper should have consulted the refs and coaches at halftime and made sure everyone agreed to the way time would be kept in the second half #4 I should not have questioned the timekeeper's integrity and assumed that he changed the time to benefit his team without speaking to him personally. The situation was unfortunate for all involved, I didn't mean to make the situation worse, Hoover accepted the loss, didn't complain about the issue, the girls all played hard and we'll all just move on from here

Just back from long weekend

2010-03-07T20:30:00.002-06:00

One good thing about travelling is we get to see some awesome lacrosse, the bad thing is we have to go to school/work Monday morning ! This weekend we played the best team we have ever faced, Ponte Vedra, Florida. The team moved the ball faster than we have ever seen and never missed a ground ball. It was interesting that myself and their head coach both graduated from the same college, I'm glad we got the opportunity to meet. We ended up losing 12-6 but it was a very close game and we really gave them a run for their money. We are looking forward to playing them again next year in Florida along with Greenville HS who we played today. The boys came out ready to play, we had a fun night together but they were serious during pregame. We jumped out to a 4 goal lead at one point but Greenville went on a 6 goal run in the 4th and were up by 3. We came back within one with a minute left, cleared the ball, got a one on one look with the goalie with 10 seconds left and we missed the cage at the buzzer and lost 11-10. What a game, it was emotionally draining but our boys played their hearts out. Things have been so hectic lately, looking forward to spring break but we have one more game before then on Tuesday night. Our girls play tomorrow, looking forward to bouncing back after the loss last week.

Coaching high's and low's

2010-03-01T21:56:00.003-06:00

Spent last weekend in Memphis, had a great drive up on a nice sunny day. Boys watched Gladiators on the bus and a little of the NY state class B state championship from last year. Kids actually thought it was a college game and asked me if all New York high school games looked like that which was kind of funny. Anyway, we made good time, got to the hotel and passed out uniforms. JV played at 5PM and I rode on the bus over with JV to support them and keep stats while varsity hung back to relax an extra hour or so. Our JV is on the small side, we parked our bus and looked across the field at what appeared to be a varsity team with a defender who was at least 6'6". Houston HS had at least 30 on the squad and I thought our little guys were going to get killed. The game started and all of a sudden our JV kids were passing, cutting, clearing, I was amazed ! JV won the game 6-5 after allowing Houston to come back from a 5-1 deficit but it was a great start to the weekend. Varsity played down a bit again but had some major flashes of brilliance in the 4th quarter and managed a 9-4 victory. The highlight for me was watching Caleb's no look pass to a wide open freshman who scored his first varsity goal of his career, it was sweet. Then, with the kids all fired up on the bus the rap challenges began, the only time I heard more white kids obsessed with rap was at my last Beastie Boys concert. Needless to say our bus trips have been rather entertaining and with no parents on this trip it got even more interesting but alot of fun. Sunday we weren't so fortunate playing Christian Brothers. JV lost 8-4 making a lot of mistakes but definitely had a chance to win. Varsity came out flat, never picked it up and gave up 6 goals in the 3rd quarter ending up losing 11-2. I'm hoping these games have been great learning experiences for the regular season, we have 2 more really tough games this weekend in Greenville, SC that I'm looking forward to. After losing to Southlake Carroll and Christian Brothers I'm pretty confident our kids are athletic enough to at least be on the field with anyone. We have a lot of work to do but I think the kids are having fun, we have good team chemistry and I know they will keep imnproving. Looking forward to our regular season opener tomorrow, I hope the weather holds out for us

Opening weekend

2010-02-22T12:46:00.002-06:00

Long trip to Shreveport this past weekend, we ended up winning one and dropping one so overall it wasn't bad. The trip down on the bus was not bad at all, we stopped for lunch, had some laughs and got down in time to have dinner before we played Southlake Carroll from Dallas. Considering we haven't had two many solid practices due to the weather and we haven't even been able to go full field yet, losing 10-6 was not bad and I felt pretty good about the effort. We let one of their middies score 6 goals, mostly left handed drives from up top which we probably should have adjusted sooner but it was opening day for coaches too so we were a little rusty as well. We actually outscored Southlake 3-2 in the second half but blew 2 fast breaks and a man up situation that could have really put us back in the game but we'll learn from the game and it will make us better during the season. Saturday night everyone was pretty exhausted, not much fooling around in the hotel so for the most part, everyone got a good night sleep. Sunday we played Captain Shreve HS and we came out very flat. The boys did not play well at all but came away with a 9-6 victory so I guess I shouldn't complain. Our defense looked good and offensively we started moving the ball well but we still have a lot of work to do before this weekend when we face Christian Brothers out of Memphis.

Tomorrow night we get to watch Birmingham Southern play top 10 team, Washington & Lee. Should be a great game to watch, I know BSC will be a little out manned but I think they will give them a tough game. BSC has some great young players, if coach Bonasera keeps recruiting like he has been, BSC is going to be a very good team for years to come. Our whole league is pretty much cancelling practices to come watch the game, I know BSC will be nervous with all the fans but it will be a good time for everyone. If you live in Alabama, make plans to come to the game at 7PM at Panther Stadium.

Duke lacrosse devlopment

2010-02-18T09:38:00.004-06:00

The whole Duke scandal was such a terrible situation and now with recent development it proves that the accuser was a liar and scammer. Meeting several of the Duke players and getting close to two of them I feel terrible that they had to go through that whole ordeal. As they have always said, there wasn't complete innocence on everyone's part but dragging the whole team into a National scandal was an absolute disgrace and the driving forces behind the season cancellation need to do a lot more than just apologize. Here is what happened with the accuser recently... (where is Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton now ??)

DURHAM, N.C. — North Carolina police responding to a domestic violence call have arrested the woman who falsely accused three Duke University lacrosse players of rape.

WRAL-TV reported 33-year-old Crystal Gale Mangum was arrested late Wednesday on charges she assaulted her boyfriend.

Durham County jail records indicate Mangum is charged with attempted murder, arson, assault and battery, identity theft, communicating threats, damage to property, resisting an officer and child endangerment.

Durham police said they found Mangum and 33-year-old Milton Walker fighting. Police said Mangum went into a bathroom and set some clothes on fire in a bathtub.

Three children were in the house, but no one was hurt.

Mangum was in jail Thursday morning, with no attorney yet.

Snow again !

2010-02-12T18:47:00.003-06:00

Wow, last year we had a game almost snowed out and today it snowed again ! We have practice in the morning and our field will certainly be a disaster ! Everyone is struggling with fields this year, we finally were able to use the turf last night for the first time and we get one more night out there before opening day. Looks like we may get a total of 9 practices in before opening day, man we are in trouble ! I'm anxious to see how my team is going to perform this year, football has really become a problem for us this season. The first year of Hoover high lacrosse we started the team with about 15 footballers but by the second year, the majority of them quit football and focused on lacrosse. This year the majority of our varsity team are football players including a starting linebacker, cornerback and wide receiver from the state champion, nationally ranked program. Football down here is so much different than up north. Players started spring football already and are practicing in pads ! Varsity players are working out every morning at 6:30AM to the point that two of my starting defenders couldn't bend over to get ground balls because their backs were sore from lifting ! It's hard to compete with football, wish I could build the team with non-football players but the fact is that even though their stickwork never gets to where it needs to be they are still the best athletes and make up for their lack of stick skills with pure athleticism. It's going to be interesting to see if we can pull it together this year, I know when game time comes the boys will step up but I just hope their lack of work during the offseason doesn't catch up with us when games begin. Getting ready to watch the Olympics and cheer for USA, can't wait to see my man Shaun White compete !!

If the rain doesn't stop - we're in trouble !

2010-02-04T22:06:00.002-06:00

Must be nice being at a big school that takes lacrosse serious and has the facilities to support the sport. I'm sure Richie Meade never has to call his players and cancel practice because there is 3 inches of mud on the field. Hoover high school has a sport grass turf stadium that is not used nearly enough. Our lacrosse team will get to use the turf only 6 times over the course of the next 3 months and we'll have to pay for it. In the meantime, we are practicing on a field that our parks department provides us that was destroyed in the fall due to youth football and all the rain we had. Our first practice we actually lost a ball when our goalie cleared to midfield and over threw a cutting middie. The ball stuck somewhere between midfield and the restraining line and we never saw it again !
Tuesday night I suited up and ran a little bit with the offense but the ground was so bad I almost ripped my groin in two ! We are doing the best we can but with our aggressive schedule it is going to be tough to be as prepared as we need to be with all this rain !!
Opening day is rapidly approaching, just two more weeks and we'll be on a bus heading to Louisiana to face Capt Shreves and Southlake Carroll from Texas. Looks like Southlake will have a bunch of games under their belt by the time we face them which should make the game even more interesting for us. Good news is our top attackman is back from shoulder surgery this weekend and everyone else is starting to come together as a team so I'm feeling a little better than I did a couple weeks ago.
On a different note, if you get a chance to watch the Duke VS Team USA game, make sure you watch it. Duke was extremely physical and really took it to USA after the 1st quarter. One of the best hits I have seen in awhile occurred when Ryan Boyle was coming around the crease looking for a pass from Brandon Munford. Boyle was heading up field close to GLE looking back for the pass when a Duke defender just completely laid him out. Part of me felt bad because Ryan is a really good guy and a terrific player but I also felt the hit was legal and the Duke player probably shouldn't have been flagged. Quint Kessinich was arguing a point that was completely inaccurate but that's besides the point. Well, looks like practice is cancelled again for tomorrow, positive coaching alliance meeting in the evening, man, lacrosse just never ends !

Lax underway !

2010-01-29T19:43:00.002-06:00

The weather hasn't cooperated so far and my Hoover team has had a hard time getting any good practices in but we are doing the best we can. Excited to see lacrosse coming back on TV this weekend, there are two great games on ESPN U, Sunday night the USA men's team will play Duke and the USA women's team will play Duke's girls Monday morning. I'm supposed to head up to Nashville this Sunday to help with the Adidas try-outs for the Southeast regional team but it is snowing in Tennessee right now and not sure if the try-out will still take place but we'll see. The weather has already caused me to cancel my Bamalax try-outs twice and I'm having a hard time figuring out when we can reschedule but we'll get it done soon. It would be nice if we had a bunch of turf fields around town that we could actually use, the few fields we do have are not available when we need them and because of all the rain we had in the fall, most of the grass fields are almost unusable. I'm worried about the season only because our team is young, we aren't getting in the practices we really need and we have a very tough schedule. Last year Hoover went 16-0 and had a great class of seniors, this year we play teams from NC, SC, FL, TX, LA, GA and TN, I hope we didn't over commit ourselves but only time will tell. Even though we play some great out of town competitors, I think we will have a difficult time with our local teams since everyone has improved tremendously. Should be a great season in Alabama, let's hope it stops raining so we can all be ready when games start up in a few weeks

Signing day for Trey

2010-01-20T23:22:00.002-06:00

Great day for Trey Atkinson our Bamalax long stick midfielder who signed with Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh. Trey will get to play against teams like North Carolina, Virginia, Drexel, Penn State and several other top teams. Trey's ceremony was at Homewood High school and his AD and principal were both in attendance to say some nice things. It was only 5 years ago that Jake Ponseti and his father Jaime started the Homewood team with several other players and parents. Jake is now playing at Auburn University and Jaime reminded me today how he urged me to put Trey on Bamalax four years ago even though Trey was a first year player. We needed a long stick middie and Trey had developed a good stick so we took him to a Georgia tournament called TILT. Anyway, we were losing one of our games and since we were fairly physical I didn't like that we were being pushed around. So, I called timeout and tried to fire the guys up and told them they needed to make something happen. We broke the huddle, when the Georgia team cleared the ball the defensemen gave a cutting middie a buddy pass and Trey decleated the kid. The hit was completely legal, the kid he hit looked like Charlie Brown getting hit with a line drive, we picked up the ball, went to the cage and scored. The team got fired up and I just remember thinking, who is that kid ?! Well, 4 years later after going to 205 camp, he earned a DI scholarship, wow, amazing ! I'm going to miss Trey but I'm looking forward to seeing how he develops and can't wait to play along side him on our Magic City men's team !

2010 season is here !

2010-01-13T22:18:00.004-06:00

Getting ready for my big trip to Baltimore to the US lacrosse convention. I've been wanting to go to the convention the past several years but just never had the time. Funny now that I don't have the time or the money but I'm making the trip anyway ! My flight heads out of Birmingham at 7AM and as soon as I get to the convention center I have sessions to attend. It's difficult to choose what to see because there are so many things going on at once. Seriously, how do you choose between seeing Ryan Boyle teach attack and off ball movement or Mike Pressler instructing how to design effective practice plans ? Each hour and a half has about 6-7 sessions to choose from but most of the one's I want to attend revolve around effective offenses, defenses and practice plans. Here in Alabama we have such limited field space and usually get rained out of half our practices that effective practices are critical so the more I can learn, the better. I've got so many meetings and have promised so many people dinner or drinks that I'm not sure how I'm going to squeeze it all in but I'm sure I will and I think I'll manage to have a good time.

The Greater Birmingham youth lacrosse league starts practicing next week, should be an interesting year. Our senior class of high school kids is pretty impressive and each team will have at least 3 very high level players which is a huge difference from the several years ago when maybe every 3rd team had one very high level player. Last year I made some high school predictions which I'm not sure if I'm going to stick my neck out and do again, I may wait a few weeks to see how things are looking before I open my mouth. My Hoover team is going to have a tough schedule this year, we start off in Louisiana playing Capt Shreves from there as well as Southlake Carroll from Texas. We then travel up to Memphis to play Christian brothers who have a tremendous faceoff guys (like they always do) and two ridiculous goalies, one who just commited to play D1 next year. Then we head to South Carolina to play Greenville and Ponte Vedra Florida and manage to also pick up games against Cape Fear, North Carolina as well as two Georgia teams including Harrison HS. It is interestig that after you have two good seasons in a row, everyone wants a piece of you, just hope we didn't graduate too much talent and can hold our own against all the great teams we will face in state and out.

Well, guess I need to blog more, too much going on and not enough time to write it all down. I'll do better for those that actually spend the time to read what goes on in my crazy lax life

Christmas around the corner

2009-12-18T16:13:00.003-06:00

I know everyone in Birmingham is getting sick of hearing about Brye on the football field but it really was awesome to see his big hit and to know the journey it took to get to that point. If Coach Meade didn't have his lacrosse camp here in Alabama, Brye would have never been noticed and he never would have been on that football field making a big hit in a bitter rivalry against Army. Actually Coach Meade had shared with Dan Jordan and myself a few years back that he couldn't wait until the day Navy beat Army and Brye scored 4 goals and he could walk across the field at the end of the game, shake hands with the Army coach and say, "yeah, he's from F-in Alabama" I hope Coach Meade isn't disappointed that the football coach got to say it first !

Great write up about the SoCo tourney we attended..

2009-12-07T21:09:00.001-06:00

SOUTHERN COMBAT FALL TEAM SHOWCASE ALL-STARS
The Alpharetta Raiders (Georgia) were led by two strong midfielders: DJ Nuckolls (AHS ’11) and Stephen Dolbow (AHS ’10).Both players are multi-purpose middies with a propensity for faceoff dominance.“Brass” Nuckolls was a ground ball hog throughout the weekend while Dolbow collected All-Tournament honors.

The BamaLax Select team didn’t have to travel far as they hail from the Birmingham area, much to the delight of attending recruiter Birmingham-Southern head coach Andy Bonasera.The gargantuan John Somerall (Mountain Brook ’10) led the way for BamaLax as he controlled the game between the boxes with strong offensive play from the midfield as well as several faceoff wins.Somerall’s high school teammate Walker Cox (’11) added to Bama’s midfield play, as did the versatile Trent Chrane (Spain Park ’10).Brendan Conway (Hoover ’10) was the 4th Bama All-Star nod with solid play at the attack position.

Will Char (McIntosh ’11) enabled his Brothers of War (Georgia) team to shut down several opponents throughout the weekend with a staunch defensive effort.The 6’1” longpole stripped numerous attackers and picked up several GB’s along the way.

Claddagh LC was comprised of players from MA, VT, TX, FL, and WA.Leading the way for the fine Irishmen was Tyler Galownia (Plano, TX ’10) on defense.Galownia showed a great ability to inspire transition on the offensive end after picking off several passes throughout the weekend and playing great position defense.Leading the offensive charge for Claddagh was sizeable (6’1”, 185) yankee attackman Jake Waldie (Lawrence Academy, MA ’11), who powered through defenders for multiple scores on dodges and feeds from X.

The Copperhead North (Georgia) team was led on the offensive end by the due of Jay Desnoyers (Eugene Ashley ’11) and Hunter Edens (Hoggard ’11).The athletic Reid Bass (’11), goaltender for state runner-up Harrison HS, shut the door on opposing teams with great play in goal.

With 6 all-star selections, the Copperhead South squad cleaned house. Tournament MVP attackman Scotty Smith (Grtr. Atlanta Christian ’11) used a big body (6’3”, 185) to back down foes as he scored multiple goals in each game.Jay DeBole (E. Coweta ’11) and Connor Squires (Collins Hill ’10) rounded out the All-Star attack unit, with Julian Gonzalez (Peachtree Ridge ’10) and John Avent (Newnan ’10) adding midfield firepower. All-Tournament Goaltender Mike Nugent (Milton ’11) communicated greatly while making many saves.

The Tennessean D1 Destroyer team was led by defenseman Michael Plisco (Franklin ’12).Plisco ignored the discomfort of a recent hand fracture and instead gave pain to his opponents en route to an All-Star selection.

Peyton Klawinski (Memphis Univ. School ’13) was one of the top players at the Southern Combat showcase despite being the youngest player in the tournament field by several months.The freshman midfielder got on the radar of several D1, D2, and D3 colleges by lighting up the scoreboard all weekend.Joining him as All-Stars from the Flying Elvis (TN) team were midfield teammate Drew Connors (MUS ’11), goaltender Francis Nayan (Christian Bros. ’10), and the defensive tandem of Chase Schoelkopf (MUS ’11) and Mike Shelton (Christian Bros. ’10).

The Minnesota Lax Loons traveled nearly 1,115 miles but left with no disappointment after having two All-Stars named, defenseman Kyle Mork (Totino Grace ’10) and big midfielder Mitch Sierakowski (Champlin Park ’10).

The well-rounded Samurai Black (St. Louis) squad received 5 All-Star nods.Division I Manhattan College commit Gerald Leonard played his way to the All-Tournament team with Top Midfielder honors.Joining Leonard were the defensive trio of Andy Kihn (Christian Bros. ’10), Craig Harris (’11), and Jared Crowley (’10).Attackman Christian Tubbs (’10) added great offensive play as well.

The Southern Combat Solider team (Georgia) was paced by the great play of defenseman Bryce Patterson (Milton ’10).

Players who were named All-Star at last June’s Southern Combat 99 Invitational Showcase were assembled in a new edition for the Fall Showcase.Eight of the SoCo99 All-Stars got an encore appearance on the Fall All-Star list.Memphis University School (TN) teammates stood together with honors, FO/Midfielder Ben Charpentier (’11) and keeper Rob Dickinson.Kyle Clemenza (’12) of national power St. Andrew’s (FL) was one of the top midfielders at the event, and was joined by middies Richard Mallory (Christian Bros., TN ’10), Matthew Cummings (Milton, GA ’11), and Bryce Busey (Stadium HS, WA ’10).All-Tournament defender Russell Scott (Memphis Univ. School, TN ’11) was joined by All-Star Alex Utt (Mariemont, OH ’11).

These players, and several other standouts from the SoCo Fall Showcase, can count on receiving invitations to the next edition of Southern Combat 99 which will be held June 12-13 at the picturesque Darlington School in Rome, GA.

The season is getting close

2009-12-06T13:37:00.002-06:00

Football is finally over and everyone can start thinking about lacrosse. Five years ago my Hoover team was made up of mostly football players but over a dozen of them quit football to focus on lacrosse. Last year our varsity team had only 4 football players but the majority of our JV team was footballers. Now those JV kids are moving up and these kids aren't quitting football since many of them see significant playing time and several of them are starters. League wide we have always had a "gentlemen's" agreement between the coaches not to practice during the fall/winter and some of us that are majority football players can't. For whatever reason this year we have had breaches of that agreement and the practices continue even though everyone knows it's wrong. Well, no use complaining about it, I'm looking forward to the season and it's just one of those things you have to deal with. Hoover high won the state football championship Friday night and I got to see some of the boys after the game that are pumped for the lacrosse season to get underway. I'm sure we have a lot of work to do since many of them haven't been able to pick up their sticks for a few months. We don't start practice until mid-January and we are having our first pre-season meeting next week so needless to say, we are way behind those that are already on the field. I've been spending a lot of time in league meetings and conference calls helping make decisions for the upcoming season, I think this will be the best season of Alabama lacrosse, registration opens today, I'm sure we will see record growth in our league, can't wait to get out on the field next month with the majority of the teams that follow the rules.

Derek Pieper Memorial tournament

2009-11-19T14:57:00.002-06:00

Heading to Tampa with Bamalax U11 and U13 boys as well as our high school girls for the Derek Pieper Memorial Cup. Looking forward to the trip, looks like we have a great hotel close to the fields and Maverik is going to be on hand doing clinics with Dan Hardy, John Gagliardi and Casey Powell. Overall there will be 56 teams on hand, should be a great time !

Last year our high school girls won the tournament and should have a good shot again this year. Our U13 team has been together for a long time and has been able to get a lot of practices in so they should be in good shape to compete for the title. U11 was looking shaky at one point but has really come a long way and did very well a few weeks ago in Atlanta so I'm actually expecting a lot from all of our teams down there. Should be fun !

Heading to Atlanta

2009-11-05T20:36:00.002-06:00

Heading to Atlanta tomorrow with the high school Bamalax boys for the Southern Combat. The event is a little different than the tournaments we usually attend since it is really intended for recruiting. Sounds like the organizers of the event have a good amount of college coaches coming so it should be a great opportunity for our boys. It's going to be a long weekend, check-in is at 7AM and warm ups start at 7:30 ! The NCAA coaches will run a team practice and then games begin at 9AM. After lunch there will be a skills session and then more games in the afternoon. I'm looking forward to meeting the coaches and watching our kids play against good competition. Our Bamalax team will be solid, midfielder Trent Chrane commited to Navy last week Trey Atkinson had already commited to Robert Morris University (DI)but John Somerall is still choosing but leaning toward Hampton Sydney and Brendan Conway is still weighing his options visiting Lenoir Rhyne University (DII) this past week. After this weekend I think a lot of our players will get noticed, I'm hoping our younger players do really well to get on the radar for the future and it would be nice if our upper classmen step up and give themselves some more opportunities. On Sunday there will be an all-star game which I think we could have at least a half dozen or more of our kids earn a roster spot in. Well, time to pack....

Full swing

2009-10-23T12:34:00.003-05:00

Well, fall ball is well underway with all of our age groups in the Birmingham area playing on Sunday. Some of us high school coaches are coaching JV teams and then getting to play in an "open" division which includes our better varsity players. The games have been a ton of fun and very competitive, some of our high school kids have improved so much over the summer that I'm a little nervous about facing them in the spring during our normal season ! Tomorrow the Washington & Lee head coach, Gene McCabe will be in town running a clinic for 80 of our best players along with the W&L women's coach who will be instructing about 30 of our high school girls. Gene does a great job, I enjoy his coaching style and I'm looking forward to being a spectator tomorrow for a change.

The next event we have coming up in town is a shooting, feeding, defense clinic run by Liam Banks and Andy Bonasera at Birmingham Southern college. The clinic is November 14th at BSC and there will be other former Syracuse players in attendance including recent graduate Pat Perritt who was part of that amazing overtime national championship victory.

Bamalax has been busy this fall with the high school boys and girls preparing for tournaments, the boys will be in Atlanta November 7-8th and the girls as well as our U11 and U13 boys will be heading to Tampa Nov 21-22nd. Looking at my schedule I don't think I have a free weekend for several weekends in a row but we'll manage.

While everything else is going on we are preparing for the regular spring season trying to schedule games, organize fundraisers, get uniforms together, etc. I'm holding a Hoover new player clinic November 15th at Hoover high school to help recruit more elementary and middle school boys and girls to try to keep up with Vestavia and the east side of Hoover which feeds into Spain Park high school. Don't know what we are going to do with all these kids and what fields they are going to play on but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. More to blog about later but got to head back to work...

Lacrosse video game

2009-10-09T16:31:00.003-05:00

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/sports/collegelacrosse2010/video/6232549
Looks like the developers of the 2010 college lacrosse video game are getting close to a finished product. I'm sure the first game will be a little "old school" looking without all the flashy graphics but it's a start. I'm thinking if the sales are good on the first version it won't be long until others jump at the chance to capitalize on the growth of the sport and tap the 10-16 year old demographic. Looks like they did a decent job on the actual realism of the play and the movement, it just looks a little rough compared to todays standards of video games. For me, i just think it will be great for the sport when I see the game on the shelf at the local Walmart !

2010 Maverik Maybach review

2009-10-04T10:21:00.002-05:00

All I have to say is "wow" ! I received a sample glove today for the 2010 Maverik Maybach gloves and I have to say, they are awesome. The gloves are extremely soft, they are very comfortable and do give decent protection. The palms are soft leather but do not appear to be as vulnarable as the 2008 K18's that were comfortable but the leather wore out almost immediately. The Maybachs have a small strip of added protection call Shark gel right across the thumb which should help the protection. I'd recommend Maybach's for advanced players, due to their comfort and light weight, they aren't going to have the most protection but definitely more than Brine Silos. The other thing I really like about the Maybach's is that they aren't super tight. The trend seems for glove manufacturer's to make gloves smaller and smaller, King II's and K18's run very small and the new GAIT RECON gloves are rediculously tiny. All the gloves I mentioned are good gloves, it really comes down to what the player feels most comfortable with but I really think Maverik has come up with a winner. If you are reading this blog and you are interested in custom gloves, e-mail sales@bamalax.com and I can help you out.

AHSAA meeting

2009-09-24T16:13:00.002-05:00

Had an opportunity to meet with the Executive director of the AHSAA yesterday, along with a few other GBYLA members, and I was very encouraged by his excitement toward lacrosse in Alabama. The AHSAA created an emerging sport category recently and a letter has gone out to schools informing them that they can choose to participate in the sport during the 2010/2011 season. We only need one school to say they will participate when their annual declaration is made (May 1st) for lacrosse to be considered an official emerging sport. Once a school participates they will have to completely adhere to AHSAA rules and regulations but it will not be considered a championship (or varsity sanctioned) sport until at least 10% of schools in the state participate. With Huntsville's growth, what we already have in Birmingham and what is coming in Prattville and Mobile, we may be closer than everyone thinks to that number. The AHSAA won't effect anything below the high school level, all of our current youth programs will stay the same and working within AHSAA rules there may even be opportunity to have recreation lacrosse at the high school level to accommodate players that don't have participation at their schools. The AHSAA has begun preparing and during the meeting the head of officials even passed out federation rule books and other information which shows they know that it's coming and they have a plan in place to be ready for lacrosse. The GBYLA has done a great job working toward this goal and I really feel we are close to taking the sport to the next level which should be exciting to our younger players and parents. Fall ball is finally starting this Sunday, with about 200 new players and many more ready to start playing in the spring we are exploding, can't wait to opening day !

Love the game

2009-09-15T21:27:00.002-05:00

It's really interesting being in an area where lacrosse is growing as rapidly as it is. This past Sunday the league hosted a new player's clinic and almost 200 new kids showed up ! We have players being recruited by DI, DII amd DIII schools and we are adding high school, middle school and even elementary school teams. Fall ball is always a challenge because you want to use the time to develop new players but you also don't want to bore veteran players or frustrate them by sticking them on a team with beginners. Some of our kids have the right attitude, they love the game, don't care who they are playing with or playing against, they just want to play. Back in New York as a kid we didn't have the luxury of having organized youth leagues but we never stopped playing. Fortunately I grew up in an area where just about everyone in my neighborhood played lacrosse and we had 6 on 6 scrimmages and sometimes full field games often. The ground was usually the street in a culdesac and we didn't have store bought goals so usually our hand made hockey goals made from left over 2X4's with chicken wire as a net had to do. One of our favorite things to do was to grab plastic milk crates that were about 2'X2', place them about 30 yards apart, get a tennis ball and play what we referred to as box lacrosse. No equipment, modified checking but trying to catch and throw a tennis ball with old school leather and then hit a 2' target from 10 yards or so out made you pretty deadly come the spring season. We'd run around for hours but what else were we going to do without computers, Playstation, 300 TV channels, cell phones and everything else that keeps kids from just playing in the neighborhood nowadays. I'm excited for the start of fall ball, long Sundays ahead for me, 1PM daughter #2, 3PM daughter #1, then 7PM I get to run around with the men and our better high school kids. Should be fun, the fall tells you a lot about who really loves the game, lookinf forward to it

The 50 Lacrosse Commandments

2009-08-28T12:23:00.000-05:00

1. Thou shalt never hit the goalie in the chest when shooting.
2. Bounce shots are best.
3. Listen and talk to your stick; this will insure good stick protection.
4. A goal proves that you can beat the goalie; an assist proves that you are smart.
5. Always look to make the extra pass.
6. Thou shalt never pass the ball close enough to the goalie or the cage such that the goalie intercepts your pass.
7. Thou must have the ability to catch and throw with both hands.
8. Thou must move whenever you do not have the ball; in other words, keep your defenseman thinking and occupied; remember the words of wisdom from the cavemen: He who stands still, is lunch!
9. Never "telegraph" a pass.
10. Thou must practice "on the wall" in order to be good.
11. Thou shalt always move towards a passed ball; never stand still.
12. The best players pick up ground balls.
13. "Vee in and Vee out" in order to be open for a pass.
14. Never get caught offsides.
15. Poke check and slap check on the hands and gloves of your opponents.
16. Always congratulate your teammates; you are nothing without them.
17. Thou shalt always keep your head up; don't look at the ball inside your stick.
18. Always stay in front of your fellow midfields on a fast break. They will not be able to pass to you if you are behind them.
19. If the goalie comes out of the cage, turn him to his weak hand by shutting off his strong hand side.
20. Never, never, never hang your stick.
21. Always be alert of your man and the ball's position on defense.
22. Play the Ball-You-Man triangle.
23. Always be ready to slide to a teammate to help him on defense.
24. You have a stick, use it: poke, slap, push.
25. Use your stick not as a caveman's club or ax, but as a surgeon's scalpel.
26. Don't lunge at the offensive player, be balanced, poke, wait for his move.
27. Do not allow the offensive player to crowd or push you. If he is too close, push him out.
28. Remember this: thou shall be intimidating on defense.
29. If your man beats you and there has been a slide, go to the hole and pick up a player.
30. Always talk and communicate. The best players are talkers.
31. Choke up on your long stick if you have difficulty handling it.
32. After picking up a ground ball, put it to your face, and run to an open area.
33. Defensemen, stay tight on the fast break.
34. Every time the ball moves, you must move.
35. Stay intense by anticipating what the team will do next.
36. If you double team, do so with authority; ask yourself, do I want to be a hammer or a nail?
37. Great defensemen, like great offensive players, see the entire field: keep your head up when you're clearing the ball. Impress fans with your smarts.
38. Keep players out of the funnel.
39. Be economic with your checks.
40. Great defensemen do not take the ball away, they prevent their opponent from scoring. Simple!
41. Love the game and play and practice with passion. Ask your coach for magazines, books, and tips. Be a student of the game.
42. A great man once said, "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." In other words, give everything your all.
43. The saying "Practice makes perfect" is incorrect. "Perfect practice makes perfect!"
44. When in a game, never dispute a call or argue with an official for any reason.
45. Always know the score of the game.
46. Always congratulate your teammate. As well, encourage and uplift your teammates who are not playing well.
47. When coached or told to do something in a practice, ask yourself why? You may then come to a better understanding of the game.
48. Always have your equipment ready prior to a game.
49. Accept the responsibilities of being an athlete: work hard in school, represent your family, community, and team with pride and honor.
50. Practice, practice, practice, then practice some more.

Inside lacrosse may have crossed the line

2009-08-20T12:38:00.003-05:00

Wow, Inside Lacrosse magazine is now ranking RISING sophomores ! Apparently the trend for college coaches is to start the recruiting process at the high school freshman level. This year there were Blue chip events for rising sophomores which in my opinion is just way too early. I'm thinking back to my high school days and the egos that were formed when players received a couple of letters from interested colleges but I couldn't imagine the ego of a kid who is ranked in a National magazine when he is only 14/15 years old ! Setting the ego aside, I think it is damaging to a sophomore to think he is "all set" for college with 3 full seasons still left to play in high school. How can a sophomore stay focused on school work when they think they are lacrosse God's ? What happens when they get injured and no school is interested in them ? There are so many things that can change in 3 years it is just surprising that college coaches would even spend time looking at freshmen players. The recruiting process is crazy, I don't know how the big time coaches find time to do all the recruiting they do but I guess that's what assistants are for. If you get a chance, pick up a copy of Inside lacrosse or go on-line and check it out, other than ranking sophomores I think it is a great magazine !

College recruiting

2009-08-13T14:27:00.002-05:00

It still amazes me that in a very short period of time Alabama has been able to develop some great college prospects. This year we have several rising seniors receiving interest from DIII, DII and even DI schools. Each team in the state has players moving on to play in college and with Birmingham Southern College's successful inaugural season, many of the state's best players are committing or at least considering staying home and attending BSC.

There is a lot to consider when choosing where to play lacrosse in college especially for players that are not true blue chip prospects. The following is a portion of a letter from a DIII coach interested in one of our Bamalax standouts. This coach makes some great points about school and a few things to consider when choosing that I thought were interesting and worth sharing.

"It is with great enthusiasm that I write you this note. I was very impressed with your play this summer and think that you would be a great fit for our school. In this exciting time of our program’s development, you have the chance to make a difference for us on the field immediately.

Selecting a college is likely the first major decision you will make in your life, so let’s stop to consider some important questions: What distinguishes one school from another? What is the educational experience going to be like? How will a given college help prepare you for your future? And finally, because of the commitment required of a college athlete, you need to believe in the direction of the program and understand how the program will help you develop as an individual."

Great points, tough decisions - wish I could go back and do it all over again !

2010 season just around the corner

2009-08-11T19:49:00.002-05:00

2010 is just around the corner, I have all my ordering for the upcoming season done and will be posting some reviews soon. I've added some Warrior apparel to the www.bamalax.com web site and put some of the FIT 2 WIN NCAA shorts on sale along with the women's FIT2WIN shorts that we also have in stock at the store. This time of year is tough to be a lacrosse retailer because sales are slow waiting for fall ball to start but you have to make commitments for purchasing items that will come in late fall, winter and spring. The 2010 gear is really awesome, the lacrosse head situation is a pain because each manufacturer has 3 different types (HS only legal, Universal-legal for HS and NCAA and the NCAA legal only) My store will be stocking mostly the Universal heads but we will also have some of all the other one's as well. The universal heads are 6.5 inches across the top and 3.5 inches down low. NCAA heads only need to be 6 inches across the top but to me the heads look too narrow and I wouldn't feel comfortable using one but that's a personal choice. Well, if you are looking for some back to school sales on Warrior shorts and NCAA lacrosse shorts, visit www.bamalax.com and look for the 2010 stuff to be rolling in soon.

Pic of the day

2009-08-06T14:20:00.003-05:00

Finger Lakes classic, the Central New York Nike team defeated Atlanta 10-3 and this goal was scored while the CNY player was diving, shooting behind the back, one handed. Not much the defense or goalie can do. Thanks Coach Hines for sending the picture

Today show segment

2009-08-04T20:53:00.004-05:00

In case you missed the TODAY show this morning, lacrosse was featured. It was a quick piece but excellent for the growth of the sport. Here is the link you can view it at:
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/32282175#32282175

It's amazing that my high school team started in 1970 and in 1980 I remember how lacrosse was considered the fastest growing sport around. Back then it was growing but I remember graduating college in 1990 in Vermont where there were no youth teams and very few high school teams and while living in Cincinnati in 1996-1999 there were only a handful of teams. When I moved to Alabama in 2000 I didn't think there was any lacrosse here but was happy to find a men's team in 2004 and a small youth program with about 150 kids playing. In just a few short years the sport has just exploded, everywhere ! I look back at Cincinnati and there are youth programs in every community, varsity teams at almost every school and several men's and women's college teams. Vermont has Division I and Division II varsity programs and Alabama is moving toward sanctioning with over 1200 kids playing and a very competitve DIII college program in Brimingham Southern College. Amazingly there remains under 60 division I men lacrosse programs and to think that kids from Alabama are playing and being recruited by DI and DII coaches is just incredible ! 2010 is going to be a huge year for lacrosse, it is exciting to be part of it.

John Pepper tournament

2009-08-01T11:44:00.002-05:00

Getting to watch Walker & Crawford Cox, Eli Stevens and Max Hines at the John Pepper memorial tournament. Games are streaming live at WWW.LIVESPORTSVIDEO.COM. It is half-time and the Atlanta team is down 3-2 to Carthage (home of the Powell brothers). The Atlanta team is 1-1 on the day so far with an upset over Lafayette and a loss to Skaneateles. Eli just had a solid play on defense and Crawford had a nice clear. Overall it looks like Atlanta is holding their own and were in the game with Skaneateles until they opened it up and took advantage of a bunch of Atlanta turn overs. Steve Hines was instrumental in putting this trip together for the Bamalax boys, the opportunity came up when Bamalax played the Southern Empire men's team and their goalie mentioned the tournament to Steve and he invited several of the Bamalax players to join the DoubleStixx Atlanta team. What a great opportunity for the Alabama boys to get to play with the great talent. As I type this, one of the Cox boys just tied the game up at 3 !! Can't tell if it was Walker or Crawford because they are twins but it was a nice left handed shot regardless !

Back from camp

2009-07-31T09:14:00.002-05:00

It's been a busy lax week in Alabama for several of us. Sunday started with the 3rd annual Laxapalooza event that was created by Vestavia's Dave Link. Several years ago all the high school teams started using a web service, Varsity networks, for their team web sites and our rep has been Tim Byrnes who played for the Long Island Lizards and Philadelphia Barrage. Dave set up his YMCA web site and since Tim and Dave were both Syracuse grads they put their heads together and decided to do a new player camp here in Birmingham. Since the coaches were flying in on Sunday, it just made sense to create some type of event to promote the sport and the camp and Laxapalooza was born. Tim, who just retired this year has come down all three years along with MLL all-star Chris Fiore and former Syracuse All-american Billy St. George. Last year Liam Banks attended along with Kevin Levielle. My job during Laxapalooza is to hold the radar gun and try not to get killed. This year Dave had the net strung with a 4mm net but Fiore still ripped through it. Chris' shot went through the net, my Warrior plastic banner that was hung on the back stop fence and then proceeded to go through the fence just missing me. Last year he hit 100mph, this year he was at 99mph and I was surprised that Tim's shot hit 96mph but for some reason wasn't as scary as Fiore's (go figure).

Monday Dave took his group to Libery park for Primetime lax camp with Fiore and Byrnes and I checked in my campers at Lightning lacrosse camp at the University of Alabama. Scott Urick from Georgetown and Dan Chemotti from Loyola have run the camp with me the past three years and for the past two, PT Ricci (Loyola All-american long pole and teammate of Scott and Dan's on the Washington Bayhawks) and Jake Hagelin the starting goalie at Loyola have been counselors as well. Both camps went very well, lot's to blog about but need to get back to my real job and try to de-lax for at least a few hours....

Big news for Alabama high school teams

2009-07-23T19:28:00.002-05:00

The Alabama high school athletic association (AHSAA) Unanimously approved allowing schools to add club teams in "emerging sports" beginning with the 2010-11 school year. Once a sport has 10 percent of member schools fielding teams, a championship program will be added. This move will allow schools to sponsor club teams in sports such as lacrosse, bass fishing, rodeo and bowling, among others. New sports will be designated as "under jurisdiction," meaning they must follow AHSAA rules and use approved officials.

This is really good news and something that the GBYLA President, Ralph Yeilding has been very helpful in obtaining for the players here in the state. Many of our GBYLA high school teams have had loose affiliation with their schools being allowed to use the name and even gaining field access at times but being recognized by the school as an official club will help the growth tremendously.

As with all good news, there will be some challenges. Ralph will have the board busy working things out but this is a great step in the right direction.

Ready for Syracuse

2009-07-22T12:51:00.002-05:00

I'm excited for our local Alabama kids heading up to the Syracuse area to participate in the John Pepper tournament at West Genessee high school next weekend. Max Hines (Spain Park), Walker & Crawford Cox and Eli Stevens from Mountain Brook will be making the trip there. The four of them will be playing for an Atlanta Elite team run by Double Stix lacrosse. Several of our players were noticed when the Bamalax team played the Atlanta Southern Empire men's squad in the Nashville tournament and were asked to play on the team. We had a few others that were asked to play but couldn't make the trip for various reasons but these four are looking forward to the trip and I'm sure they will represent us well. The tournament is at West Genessee high school which has always been one of the top teams in the country even back when I was in high school. As a kid growing up I had the opportunity to play against some of the best teams around even by today's standard, teams like Yorktown, Garden City, John Jay, we even played Ward Melville once but I never had the chance to play against "upstate" teams but all through college I had to hear about how good they were compared to us Hudson valley guys. Anyway, my Alabama kids now get to do what I never had a chance to do which I think is really awesome. The boys will play teams like Carthage (home of the Powell brothers) Penn Yan, Lafayette (home of the Thompson boys that I have blogged about in the past) Baldwinsville (where my Magic City teammates Dave Brandt and Chris DiCicco attended) and ofcourse West Genney. Hopefully the Lax to the Max blog will have good coverage so we can follow the boys but looks like a great chance to once again show how far Alabama has come in a very short period of time. Maybe Mr. Cox will be my guest blogger again since he did such a great job from the Adidas tournament !

Laxed out ??

2009-07-18T16:07:00.002-05:00

I heard a term yesterday that I didn't think was possible. One of my former players said his brother is "laxed out" and is taking a break. Some of the "laxed out" issue is laziness, I can understand a break but when you want to play the sport in college or "think" you want to play in college, you can't afford to be "laxed out". Lacrosse is not work, lacrosse is fun, you truly need to love the sport to be good at it. While I'm typing this, I'm watching the MLL all-star game and it is clear that none of these players have ever been "laxed out". Guys like Paul Rabil and Brett Queener just absolutely love what they do and want to be around the game as much as possible. I'm hoping more players in Alabama grow to truly love lacrosse and really want to put in the work that is necessary to be a great lacrosse player. I'm a little discouraged that more of our players are not jumping at the opportunity to go to camp. Our University of Alabama camp last year had over 100 campers and keeps growing but this year our parents are waiting until the last minute to register and it is driving me crazy. We have top Division I coaches and MLL players coming and out of the 100 campers we will have, I bet more than half of them attended another camp already. So, out of 700 boy's playing lacrosse in Birmingham, I'm guessing a total of only about 200 will attend camp which means 500 of them will not improve one bit over last year which really sucks !

It's crazy to imagine that players like Trey Atkinson are good enough to play division I lacrosse (he just verbally committed to Robert Morris in Pennsylvania) but during his regular season he will play on a team that right now doesn't have a goalie ! Spain park's Trent Chrane's summer included Top 205 camp, Combat 99 camp, Bamalax tournaments, Fellowship of Christian athletes, Adidas National tournament and a trip to Syracuse to play at West Genessee high school in two tournaments next weekend. Trent will then be on a team in the spring that a good portion of his teammates haven't picked up their stick since the season ended in May. As a coach I can not wait until Alabama makes lacrosse a sanctioned varsity sport so that the majority of the players will HAVE to go to camp and play a good portion of the year.

If you live in Alabama and are reading my blog, register for camp at WWW.LIGHTNINGLAX.COM or for the younger kids, don't miss Primetime camp, register at WWW.PRIMETIMELAX.COM

Lax Power National on-line tournament

2009-07-15T16:56:00.002-05:00

If you haven't seen it already, Lax Power created a National On-line championship bracket that is very interesting. The link for it is www.laxpower.com/laxnews/news.php?story=15814
Hoover was matched up against the #1 team in the country, West Islip and needless to say, Hoover lost. I'm thinking Alabama is a few years away from competing with Long Island but the area is improving tremendously. St. Andrews in Florida has been able to compete and beat some national powerhouses so it's not out of the question to think that someday Hoover could hold their own against some top tier teams.

If you look at the forum it explains how teams were selected but just like all forums you will see some knucklehead kids who are just plain nasty and think that lax life revolves around the hotbeds and no one else playing the sport is worth a damn. I'm not sure why there is always negativity toward non-traditional hotbeds especially when you see rosters on all D-I teams that include players from Georgia, Tennessee, California, Texas and even Alabama. In my opinion lax is lax and where you live contributes to your skills but athletes are athletes and speed, strength and coachability are things that are unique to only a handful of kids regardless of what state you live in. Oh well, check out the Lax power tournament, will be interesting to see who wins and I'm sure there will be some interesting postings from those that don't win !

Adidas National tournament

2009-07-07T22:02:00.002-05:00

With 4 Bamalax players in Baltimore (2 playing for Atlanta and 2 playing for Nashville) I'll try to give updates on what is happening. Today's guest blogger is Taylor Cox, a Mountain Brook parent who's son, Walker is playing for the Nashville squad:

It was a pretty good day. The teams all got in about an hour of practice and then scrimmaged for maybe 15-20 minutes against just one opponent. Atlanta scrimmaged NorCal and probably scored 9 goals to none in 15 minutes. Nashville played Baltimore Prep and let up one cheap goal and I think it ended 2-1 (advantage Baltimore) after about 15 minutes. Both of our teams look to be able to compete.

Most of the teams seemed very well mannered. They had a 3 vs 3 single elimination tournament which is basically a Braveheart with an extra attack guy. You had to shoot in under 5 seconds after crossing midfield. The faceoff was good for one point, a goal was worth two and a goalie save was worth one. The games last 7 minutes. Atlanta only had 3 players show up and lost 11-10. Nashville beat Boston, Baltimore and Columbus but lost to Orlando in the semi final. It was fun for the kids, but the games start tomorrow.

Nashville plays Denver, Columbus, Baltimore and Boston. (morning games)
Atlanta plays Baltimore, Long Island, Philly and NoCal. (evening games)

The top 8 teams out of 20 advance to play on Thursday. Everyone else is on the bleachers.

Hopefully I'll get more updates from Trey Atkinson (Homewood), Trent Chrane (Spain Park) and Brendan Conway (Hoover) that I can post to keep everyone up to speed

Charlotte Southern Sizzle

2009-07-06T21:41:00.002-05:00

Drove to Charlotte with the family Friday and arrived around 7PM at the Marriott. Things were a little hectic, I had planned to give all the players lanyards with a laminated roster and schedule but ran out of time so my wife and I spent an hour laminating and cutting rosters before we headed to dinner. At 9PM our U15 team had a meeting and I passed out uniforms. Around 9:30 the U13 parents came by to get their uniforms and I had a chance to hang by the pool and relax before going upstairs to bed for the evening.

The first games of the weekend started at 9AM, I checked in our U13 and U15 team's and got to watch our U15 team beat the Copperheads from Georgia. The high school boys played at 10:20AM and they really took it to the Triad Blackhawks 10-0. The victory was a great start but I think we got a little over-confident and played absolutely terribly against Winston-Salem and lost 6-2. I'm not sure why we can't get motivated and we start most games without any emotion. The game really upset me because we should have won and I knew that losing that game was going to make it difficult to win the championship. We came out at 2PM playing much better against a much better team but ended up tying Old North state. The boys played well, we had a lead with under two minutes left but got two penalties that unfortunately cost us the game. With the tie we still had a chance to win but needed to win all three on Sunday.

Saturday night was great, the boys had a blast hanging in downtown Charlotte. Everyone was hanging by the pool and the hot tub and then several of us went to watch the fireworks. It was great to see about a dozen of our high school boys, all from different schools, walking around downtown and just hanging out. Unfortunately I enjoyed myself a little too much and lost track of time getting in a little later than I should have. Our first game started at 8AM so needless to say, I wasn't thrilled when that alarm clock went off.

On Sunday the weather was rainy and it was cool so we had no excuses. Once again we came out flat and were lucky to tie the Winter Park team that we really should have been able to beat. The game really ticked me off because we were so much better than we played, we acted like we didn't care in the beginning of the game so I called time out and blasted the boys. I'm a little too emotional at times, I was just fed up with the lack of leadership and emotion, the boys showed a little more emotion after the time out but still not enough to win.

The U15 team won their morning game and had a shot to get to the playoffs but lost their second game of the weekend and finished with a 3-2 record. The U13 team had it tough, they lost their first game 2-0 but won their second. The teams for the U13 group just seemed to keep getting tougher and they lost 3 straight but had a great learning experience and a lot of fun.

After the terrible performance against Winter Park, the high school boys came back and played much better against the Copperheads. Bamalax lost 6-2 but it was a tough game and we played with a lot of emotion which made me feel much better. The Copperhead's goalie was excellent, he really kept us out of the game. The tournament ended with Bamalax tying Top Tier in a really good game. The lead changed hands several times with Bamalax having a two goal lead that we gave up with only a couple minutes left. The boys showed a lot of heart and really fought for the win but just missed a couple opportunities at the end of the game. Overall I was happy with the performance and I think we are building a good base for the future teams of Bamalax. Bamalax is on a break for a couple weeks but we are considering opportunities in the fall, I'm looking foward to some time off and recharging the battery a bit.

Getting ready for Charlotte

2009-06-30T10:38:00.002-05:00

Bamalax is ready to hit the road this weekend heading to the Southern Sizzle in Charlotte. Summer time tournaments are great but it is always tough to get good quality practices in with so many camps and vacations to plan around. Bamalax has entered teams at U13, U15 and high school elite. Our U13 and U15 teams have had a few more practices than the high school team but most of the high school players have been attending camps and tournaments so they should be in decent shape. Our high school team is down a few good players but overall I think we should be OK. Losing our top face off guy will hurt but if we can get over that hurdle and our defense and goalies step up, we should be able to contend for the championship. I'm excited to see our U15 players, I think we have a good shot at that age group as well as the U13 division. Alabama is slowly getting there, with players now starting in first grade and high school players with 7+ years of playing experience we are able to compete with most teams out there and often surprise teams that don't expect Alabama to have quality players. Our high school team has 9 players that attended Top 205 rising junior or senior camp and at least 3 legitimate division I prospects which is a far cry from where we were just 3 short years ago. As quickly as we are improving, everywhere else in the country is improving just as quickly so we have to work even harder. The number of good players in the US and Canada is staggering, I don't know how college coaches can keep up. One of the boys who came back from 205 said that players were complaining about a new DI program's coach because he never returns e-mails and I was thinking with only 56 DI programs, how could he keep up ? Every player thinks he is better than he probably is and pushy parents probably don't help the recruiting process by overwhelming coaches with videos and e-mails. My goal is to just create a legitimate program with the best possible talent so when I contact a coach about a player he knows I'm not wasting his time. We still have a ways to go to accomplish that but with the athletes we have coming up I think we will have several players playing at big time programs in the very near future. Having Brye French at the Naval academy next year will certainly help raise everyone's awareness about Alabama lacrosse and open doors for the younger Bamalax players coming up following in his foot steps

Opportunites are what you make of them

2009-06-25T12:47:00.002-05:00

Well, can't say our Bamalax kids aren't working hard to get noticed. The next couple weeks are busy for a lot of our players, should be fun but a lot of work and commitment. Last week Walker and Crawford Cox attended Top 205 rising junior camp at Towson and with their speed, I'm sure they were noticed by the coaches in attendance. This week, Haden Smith, Trey Atkinson, Brendan Conway, John Somerall and Trent Chrane are all at rising senior's Top 205. Once they get back in town, they head out to attend the Southern Sizzle in Charlotte. Trent also attended the South's version of Top 205 last week in Nashville and will be playing for the FCA team next week. Once Charlotte is over, Walker, Trent, Conway and Trey will head back up to Baltimore to play in the Adidas National tournament. While those players are busy there, Stefan Pajaro-Van destadt and Eli Stevens will be at Top 205 West and then a handful of the boys will be heading up to West Genesee high school August 1-2nd to play for a Georgia team competing in two tournaments in upstate New York ! Wow, that's a lot of lacrosse ! If you are a player in Alabama who is reading this and hasn't picked up your stick all summer you are going to be really behind your competition ! It's not too late, stop reading my blog, go pick up your stick and register for the Lightning lacrosse camp in Tuscaloosa www.lightninglax.com and start practicing !!

Lafayette VS Manhassett

2009-06-19T10:03:00.006-05:00

Had some time last night to catch up on my recorded high school games and watched the New York state class "C" championship between Lafayette from central NY and Manhassett from Long island. I've got to say, I've watched a lot of lacrosse the past few years but this game just amazed me. The heart and determination that both teams showed was incredible. Lafayette has several Iroquois players that had stick skills above and beyond anything I have ever seen. Two brothers, Miles and Lyle Thompson just absolutely blew me away. Miles scored his 100th goal of THE SEASON during the championship and was just a beast on attack. Single coverage was a joke, double teams worked sometimes but even being triple teamed he was able to get free and either score or assist. Miles brother Lyle is only a sophmore and could possibly be the best midfield sophmore in the country. Lyle faced off, had incredible speed and had the same type of incredible stick skills that his brother possesses. Lyle had 60+ goals and 60+ assists and just absolutely dominated the game. Even with the Thompson brothers, Manhassett was able to build a 12-4 lead and looked like they were easily going to win. The lead never got Lafayette down and they came back to a 3rd quarter score of 12-10 ! Lafayette was extremly physical, bodies were flying everywhere, kids were fighting for ground balls and truly playing like a state championship should be played.

Unfortunately for Lafayette they could not stop All-American Connor English who ended up scoring 9 goals !!! Are you kidding me ?? 9 goals in a NEW YORK state championship game, as Carcattera said, this isn't Kansas lacrosse (which I'm just really glad he picked on Kansas and not Alabama !) Other than Billy Bittner from North Carolina, I would say that English is the best attackman I have seen this season at any level, Lafayette just couldn't even slow him down. English is going to Virginia next year, he just amazed me with his quickness and shot speed, I would kill to have a kid like him on one of my teams. The game ended with Manhassett running out the last few minutes just playing keep away but if you get a chance to watch the game from the middle of the 2nd quarter until the middle of the fourth, you will thoroughly enjoy it !

Travel season underway

2009-06-15T09:01:00.003-05:00

Interesting day on Saturday, weather was crazy but we amazingly got five games in. The day started a little earlier than originally planned trying to beat a band of storms heading toward Birmingham. Once the U13 game started, the rain started falling but thanks to the great turf at Birmingham Southern College, the boys were able to play without a problem. The Bamalax South team was up on the Huntsville team 8-1 at the end of the third quarter when lightning came in. Our head referee stopped the game and we had a 20 minute delay that became a 40 minute until we finally called it. Things were not looking good weather wise but the Copperheads had already made the trip over from Georgia so we waited it out and the game was able to start. The Bamalax / Copperhead U15 game was great, the teams were evenly matched and the lead exchanged several times. Bamalax was up going into the final minutes but the Copperheads tied it up and scored the game winner with just seconds remaining for a 15-14 victory. The Bamalax attack played great, Trace Hudson controlled the ball well, David Arnold posted 5 assists and Tommy Hirsch netted 3 goals. The next game saw the high school boys compete with Bamalax falling to the Copperheads 11-7. It was good to get the game in as a warm up for Charlotte because there are a lot of things the coaches saw that need improvement. It's amazing the difference one week makes and a slight change in personnel causes the team to play completely different. Bamalax did not have Chase and Scott on defense and it was like the whole team forgot how to slide. We were missing one midfielder and one attackman and all of a sudden our offense was stagnant and forgot how to move the ball. I'm glad we had this game to make adjustments because it was apparent that we have work to do before we enter serious tournament play.

On a disappointing note it looks like we will have to cancel the Alabama games this year. We had a tremendous event last year but it took constant phone calls and e-mails to get everyone signed up. This year I had a lot of other things going on and just didn't have the time to keep pestering coaches and parents to get kids signed up so very few paid attention to the deadline and the Alabama games coordinators weren't willing to extend registration. I'm not sure why but our league has always had problems with everyone waiting until the last minute, it has caused problems for scheduling, uniform ordering and team selection in the past and it continues to be a problem today. It never fails, once deadlines pass we have tons of parents and kids calling and e-mailing asking if they can still register. Camps and clinics are the same problem every year and honestly I'm getting to the point where I'm thinking that it's just not worth the effort and stress to do all of these things outside of the normal spring season. I'd like to think that non-Bamalax all-star kids are working to get better during the off-season and welcome the opportunity to play more lax but unfortunately I think lake houses, the beach and Playstation are taking priority for the majority of our league players.

This weekend on TV were the New York state HS finals and when I watch those players, see their size, speed and stick skills I feel bad for some of our kids who want to play at the next level. There are a handful that can play big time college ball but until they get players around them that are dedicated to the sport they can't develop into the player they have the potential to be. It's time to get to the next level, this process is just taking way too long for me, I'm too impatient, I thought we would be there by now

Lot's of lax going on this summer....

2009-06-10T16:29:00.002-05:00

Busy day yesterday, I stopped by the Birmingham Southern camp and was pleased to see some great lacrosse going on. Yesterday was a game day at camp so it was fast moving and it looked like a lot of fun. The kids really liked the counselors that Coach Bonasera selected, Brett Hughes was there over the weekend and he left a great impression on the kids. All the kids were wiped out, which is a good sign, the coaches all lost their voices and at the end they were all smiles. After the BSC camp visit I headed up to Huntsville to check out the Lightning lacrosse camp run by Fairfield University's head coach. The camp had over 70 kids, all from Huntsville and all under the high school age group. It was good to see a nice turn out, the talent looked solid and it was well organized. I'm looking forward to my Lightning camp in Tuscaloosa at the end of July. Last week I e-mailed PT Ricci who worked the camp last year to congratulate him on being selected in the top 10 for the MLL's Washington Bayhawks and to wish him luck on the team USA try-outs going on this week. PT shocked me when he let me know he was returning to Alabama for my camp which is terrific for our campers. PT was DI's top long stick midfielder and was an All-American this past season at Loyola. I'm really psyched to work with him again. If our kids would register sooner we could bring even more college coaches and MLL players down, it's hard to commit to too many counselors when numbers are low so if you are thinking about going to camp, REGISTER NOW !, it helps everyone out tremendously and the organizers have a better opportunity to commit to big name talent.

Bamalax is humming along nicely with U13, U15 and high school boys and girls all practicing getting ready for upcoming tournaments. If you haven't checked out our new web site, visit www.bamalaxselect.com and try to catch an upcoming game. Bamalax will be hosting the Copperheads from Georgia this weekend, game schedule is as follows (all games at Birmingham Southern College):
10AM U13 boys
12PM U15 boys
2PM HS Boys
4PM HS girls
6PM Bamalax HS VS Magic City men's team

Not the game of the week

2009-05-29T20:14:00.002-05:00

Well, last week I got to watch Yorktown play John Jay in the game of the week and today my former high school got to play that same Yorktown team in the NY state playoffs. I'm sad to say that my old Raiders got crushed, it was 12-1 before half and it ended 21-5. Johns Hopkins bound John Ranagan and Kevin Interliccio each scored 6 goals ! Well, my Raiders finished 13-5 and had a great season but Yorktown is top 5 in the country so I can't feel too bad.

This week's HS game of the week is Don Bosco Prep from NJ and Iona Prep from Westchester county, NY. Amazingly, one of the Iona Prep attackmen, Nick Trizano, is only a few goals away from his 300 career goal ! That is truly amazing ! Trizano is heading to Drexel next year, his career has just been remarkable, looking forward to watching him play.

If you live in Alabama and are a lacrosse fan, you need to invest in Tivo or a cable hard drive. There are games on ESPN U constantly and we get the MSG network's HS game of the week replayed at least 2-3 times.

Well, in what is certain NOT to be the game of the week is the Magic City men's team VS the Magic City alumni. Last year one of the old guys brought an oxygen tank, looks like it is going to be close to 90 degrees so they are going to need it again ! I'm looking forward to it, should be fun !

Syracuse wins again

2009-05-28T08:50:00.004-05:00

If you missed the game, you need to catch the replay sometime soon. Syracuse was down by three, looked like Cornell had the game in hand and all of a sudden, Syracuse scored a couple and got within one. The last 45 second of the game were probably the most exciting seconds in lacrosse history. Syracuse did not give up, their attack rode the ball incredibly hard and the Cornell defender made a mistake by not just chucking the ball up the field. Syracuse caused a turn over, connected on an unbelievable behind the back pass and then miraculously caught a feed right on the crease and scored to tie it with 4 seconds left. Once over-time started and Syracuse had possession, I knew it was over, it was amazing. So, for my friends from Syracuse, Liam Banks, Tim Byrnes, Brooks Neal and the great Dave Link, congratulations, the win was well deserved !

More good news from New York, North Rockland HS (I graduated in '85) won their opening round playoff game last night against White Plains, in over-time ! North Rockland has to face the #1 seed, Yorktown HS tomorrow evening. Wish I could be there, my Red Raiders are 12-5 on the season but got smoked by Yorktown opening day so hopefully the result will be different this time around !

Finally, the Bamalax travel program has a new web site, http://www.bamalaxselect.com/, check it out, I'm still adding content but I think it looks pretty good, let me know what you think

Lacrosse the way it should be

2009-05-20T09:29:00.002-05:00

I was fortunate to catch the Yorktown VS John Jay HS team on TV this week, it took me a couple nights to watch the whole game but it lived up to my expectations. Growing up in the Hudson Valley region of NY, Yorktown was the lacrosse king and still is in that area. Playing them twice each year was always an experience, playing for North Rockland HS I never beat Yorktown and the closest we came was a 6-4 loss my junior year. That same year they beat us 17-1 and I scored the only goal late in the 4th quarter so needless to say, they blew us out. There is a story about that game where I severely hurt one of their players on a clean hit that ended his All-American season but didn't prevent him from going on to college and becoming an all-american there but that's a story for a different time.

Probably the most impressive player I have seen this year, college or high school is the player pictured to the right, John Ranagan. John is heading to Johns Hopkins and I'm sure he will become one of the greats in college. This kid did not stop, he is exactly what you want in a player, he's big, tough and seems to be an all around good kid. Ranagan took almost every face off, I didn't see him slack off of one ride or clear, he was a machine. Probably one of the things that impressed me the most was when he laid a John Jay player out right at midfield and the ref threw his flag. John walked over to the ref, put his arm around him and asked him what he did, the ref told him he saw a cross check and he just nodded his head and went and served his time. The replay showed that it was not a cross check and he probably knew it but he didn't get upset, didn't yell at the ref and he respected the ref's call.

Too many players don't honor the game. I've seen players throw their helmets and gloves, yell at referees, I've even seen kids disrespect timekeepers. I've been known to yell at a ref or two but it's never personal, it's always about the call and sometimes it's more strategy to get the refs thinking before they throw the flag the next time. Players need to keep their cool, respect the fans, coaches and refs and work hard to do what they can to contribute. Ranagan is someone I want my players modeling themselves after, he lead on the field and I have the feeling he is a leader off the field as well.

Tonight we have U13 boy's Bamalax try-outs, I'm looking forward to working with this group and seeing what talent will be out there. Looks like we will have a Bamalax North and South squad which is very exciting, I'll blog about it tomorrow I'm sure......well, back to work !

This week in lacrosse

2009-05-15T09:28:00.002-05:00

Tuesday was the 2nd annual Faceoff classic which features the top graduating seniors and the East/West all-stars which are made up of the state's best underclassmen. Both games went into over-time with the seniors pervailing over the coaches and the West team defeating the East. The underclassmen game was very exciting, all the players played hard and we even had several injuries. Two players needed stitches and one seperated his shoulder on a major "buddy pass" right in the middle of the field. The field was in bad shape from all the rain but there was great ball movement, some awesome defense and some terrific goalie play. Wilson Wingo from Homewood scored the game winner in over-time but overall the game was a huge success and I think the kids will continue to look forward to the event year after year.

From the East/West game we were able to select the Bamalax high school elite travel team. Several players were already on the Bamalax roster but for more than half of them, this will be their first all-star experience. The first Bamalax event will be June 13th at Birmingham Southern college and then the team will head to Charlotte July 4-5th for the Southern Sizzle. The Southern Sizzle this year will have Bamalax teams at the U13, U15 and high school levels and may even include our U11 group. Last night was the second round of try-outs for our U15 group and the roster has been finalized and should be posted later today. Tomorrow morning will be the try-outs for the Bamalax girl's team, I'm excited to see how the girl's skills have developed and I'm interested to see who steps up and makes the squad.

Also this weekend is the NCAA regional games on ESPN U and then there is a can't miss high school game between Yorktown high school and John Jay. Yorktown is ranked in the top 10 in the nation and John Jay is always strong, ranking very highly themselves. The game is Sunday afternoon, it's on one of the ESPN or FOX sports channels, set your Tivo, I guarantee it will be incredible. Growing up in the Hudson Valley area of NY, I played against both teams back in high school so it will be good for kids in Alabama to see where they are at compared to where I am trying to take them to.

Southern lax updates

2009-05-12T14:57:00.003-05:00

Thanks to ESPN U we get to see a lot of lacrosse on TV which I hope our Alabama players are taking advantage of. For me, my DVR is about to blow up and I can't move the games to DVD quick enough ! If games are close, I put them on DVD and bring them up to the store. Apparently you can make good money if you are a teenager just sitting on the couch at the store watching game videos and not vacuuming or cleaning the glass doors (hint, hint) !! Anyway, this weekend we had the opportunity to watch a few Southern boys compete in the NCAA playoffs. Nolan Vihlen from Christian Brothers in Tennessee is the main faceoff man for Villanova and my credit card rep's son, Eric Soto from Atlanta is the starting long stick middie for UMASS. Villanova got crushed by Virginia and Nolan struggled through his first 10 faceoff's until he got his groove and won a few. Nolan kicked our butts facing off last year when Hoover played Christian Brothers and I remember John Somerall from Mountain Brook, who is Alabama's top face off guy, did not do well against Nolan either (I know what the W/L was but I won't embarrass John). UMASS also lost but for a freshman, Eric has had a great season. His dad is a real good guy and helped me get set up when I started the store so we chat about Eric every once in awhile but I've been impressed that not only is he seeing playing time as a freshman but he is contributing and seems to be a ground ball magnet. Next year we'll get to see Brye French at the Naval academy and as the sport continues to grow we'll be seeing more and more players from Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama.

One more huge update and I probably should have started with this story but 4 Bamalax high school players have earned roster spots for the Adidas National showcase that will be played in Maryland in July. Trent Chrane (Spain Park) and Walker Cox (Mountain Brook) made team Tennessee and Trey Atkinson (Homewood) and Brendan Conway (Hoover) just found out that they were selected for Team Georgia. I'm really happy for the boys, they will all do great and all will be attending Top 205 camp as well this summer. I'm really looking forward to Bamalax starting up, we have a great group of kids that all get along very well (sometimes too well). Heading out of town and staying in hotels with the boys and parents is always fun but this year I think we have the makings of a very special team, we'll see in June when we hit our first tournament on our way to Charlotte over 4th of July weekend.

Lacrosse has come a long way but is still challenging

2009-05-08T08:42:00.002-05:00

Well, we finally got all of the state championship games completed with Hoover Junior varsity defeating Vestavia last night at Birmingham Southern college for the final state championship of 2009. With all of the rain it was impossible to get the game on grass so we were lucky that Coach Bonasera came through for us and allowed the game to be played on his turf at BSC. All the games went great, we had good fan support, all but one of the championship games were competitive and overall the state championship format was a success. It was unfortunate that the swine flu prevented Huntsville from participating which may have changed the outcome of at least 1-2 of the finals but we did the best we could as a lacrosse community to pull off a great end of a terrific season.

Lacrosse in Alabama will always take a back seat to football but I was a little disappointed on the way our football playing laxers were treated this past week. We have always ended the lacrosse season in early May to prevent any conflicts with football but due to circumstances beyond our control we had to extend the season which made it very difficult for our players. I'm not sure what other teams dealt with but the Hoover boys were up at the high school every day for the past few weeks for 6AM conditioning. Spring practice start immediately after school and is supposed to run until 6:30PM but the first two days of the week the kids weren't out until after 7PM. We moved our state championship, due to tornadoes, from Sunday to Wednesday and our girls state championship between Mountain Brook and Vestavia was scheduled to start at 6:30PM. Well, as expected, at 6:30, the Hoover football team was still running special team drills, finished about 6:40 and then had a meeting at midfield for at least another 5-10 minutes. The girls game didn't start until after 7PM which pushed the boys varsity game to an 8:30PM start. Needless to say, the football kids were a little tired and really felt it.

Going into last night's JV game I was more concerned about the football impact because more than half the JV starters are football players and moving the game to BSC was going to cause more of a challenge. Knowing that our boys had their state championship game didn't matter to the football coaches, our three starting defenders were not released from football until after 7 and arrived about 7:45 for their 8PM game start. Remarkably, one of them, Braxton Lowe, managed to fight through his fatigue and was the MVP of the state championship game ! Don't take my complaining about football as any type of excuse because I noticed 2-3 Vestavia players coming down the bleachers around the same time so it's something all of us deal with.

Playing lacrosse and football is an individual choice and many of our players have an equal love for both sports. However, pushing the kids with 6AM work outs and 3 hours practices and limiting thier opportunities to explore other options outside of football is tough and it has caused more than a few great athletes to quit football. Last night Hoover varsity's starting long stick midfielder, Jeremy Fikes, seperated his shoulder at football practice and will now miss the all-star game and the Bamalax summer season. Jeremy played great Wednesday night in our lacrosse state championship and was awarded the most improved player award for the season. As I said, kids have the choice not to push themselves and play two sports but does one of the sports really need to be a year round commitment ?

As a 3 sport athlete in high school I can tell you that our seasons were completely seperate, no early morning work outs, no off season practicing, I went from one sport to another, to another. Each season my love for the next sport grew, when football was winding down, I couldn't wait for hockey season, once hockey was midway through, all I could think about was lacrosse. Lacrosse season ended, couldn't wait until the end of summer for double sessions (or 2 a days as Hoover has made famous) All of my coaches respected each other and athletes weren't fought over or forced to choose one sport over another. Well, I've lived in the south for 10 years now so I should be used to it but I wish more of the players truly loved the sports they were involved in and didn't feel like it was a job or something their parents were making them do just so they could be socially accepted. That last comment wasn't a football remark, that goes for lacrosse as well, if you don't truly enjoy it, don't play it, go find your thing and do it 110% whatever it is.

Tornadoes cancel state championships

2009-05-03T18:13:00.002-05:00

This season has been crazy, first game of the season Hoover played in 3 inches of snow, last game is cancelled due to tornadoes touching down around Hoover !! The plan was to play the JV game and postpone the varsity girls and boys games until later in the week, now that all three games were cancelled we have to regroup and evaluate when the best day may be. Spring football has started which becomes a huge issue and then next weekend is prom. During the week we are scheduled to have U15 Bamalax try-outs on Tuesday, the end of year all-star game on Thursday so I'm not really sure how this is all going to shake out. The best option may be to just move all three games to next Sunday but we'll see what works for all teams involved. What a mess, as soon as something is decided, I'll post it

Alabama 2009 state playoffs

2009-05-02T21:55:00.002-05:00

Well, it's official, I'm an idiot. After I requested not to host the Alabama state championships at Hoover I was convinced that I wouldn't have to "worry" about anything. Well, got to the field to line at 7:30AM with Al Mauro and Dan Jordan, ran clocks, cleaned trash and finally got home about 8:45PM. So much for not worrying about anything. We had several great volunteers that made the event possible, two huge helps were my wife, Valerie and Jame Knickerehm who was still cleaning up water coolers when my wife and I took off at 8:30. Overall the day was great, we had some serious rain come through while my daughter was winning her state championship for the Lady Lizards but other than that, the weather was fine. If you didn't make it out to the games today, here are the results:
U9 Boys - Hoover Hawks won 7-2
U11 girls - Lady Lizards won 14-12
U11 Boys - Vestavia Lightning 18-2
U13 Boys - Vestavia Lightning 9-8
U15 Boys - Berry Warriors 9-8
U15 girls - Vestavia Lightning 9-8 OT
There were some great games, one of the best was the Warriors VS the Homewood Patriots. The game was clean, the coaches didn't complain to referees, kids didn't lose their cool, overall it was just a hard fought game that came down to the last second. The Homewood team lost with class and the Warriors won without disrespecting their opponent, it was real lacrosse, the way it should be. Well, I'll sleep well tonight, tomorrow Hoover JV plays at 1PM against Vestavia, Mountain Brook girls face Vestavia at 3PM and then the Hoover varsity boys square off against Mountain Brook at 5PM. Should be a great day of lacrosse, hope we get a turn out like we had today !