Coaches Corner: Sunday 02/09/25

Welcome to the FCL newsletter for all coaches in lacrosse. As coaches ourselves, we are obsessed with learning and growing in our professions. Every other Sunday, we distill concepts and share the resources we find interesting. It is our goal to share nuggets and insights that we’ve been able to gather over the years from great coaches in all sports. At the end of the day, we all want to have the greatest positive impact possible on our athletes.

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Matt Dunn & Deemer Class

Today’s Menu Includes:

• Coach Spotlight: a quote from coach Wooden.

• Some Outside Inspiration: an article to help with practice design.

• A Trip to the Principles Office: developing deception as an offense.

• A Webinar Freebie: A freebie from Dartmouth HC, Sean Kirwan, in our coaches community.

Coach Spotlight: A Quote to Ponder 💭

Coaches don’t get into this profession for the money. They do it because they want to make a difference in players’ lives, big or small.

Coaches love the process—the details, the relationships, and the journey. Sure, there’s only one champion at the end of each season, but the relationships? Those can last a lifetime.

I recently reached out to one of my mentors after seeing one of his players score 5 goals in his season opener. His reply was perfect: “Such a cool thing to see these kids realize their dreams. We have the best job in the world.”

Outside Inspiration: A Semi-Easy Read 📝

A Trip to the Principles Office 🤓

Welcome back to the Principles Office. This week we are diving into the offensive principle of being deceptive through two concepts: windups and wall passes.

The Windup

To master deception, players need to manipulate defenses with their body language. The windup is an excellent way to do this. With this technique players focus on showing their hands, showing the shot, and becoming a threat. The windup gives them the ability to shoot, dodge, and feed—triple threat!

Early in college lacrosse we’ve seen the power of the windup. This Russell Melendez clip shows it perfectly. (shoutout Drew Carlson for inspiring this tweet)

Notice how Melendez (#31) probes in early offense. He comes off the pick, avoids dodging into traffic, and begins his windup.

He shows patience, eventually getting three defenders to commit. Chauvette (#91) works off-ball, and Hopkins gets a high-percentage look from one of the top shooters in the country. The windup was key!

The windup is so effective because it tells the defense a story. You create the threat of a shot or a feed, engaging both the goalie and the defense. Defenders read body language (whether they know it or not). The windup is a great way to manipulate this.

CLA Drill for Windup

This fall, I started testing a 2v1 zone drill. I believe it really reinforces the windup principle while giving players excellent shooting reps—plus, defenders get tons of valuable reps splitting 2!

The Constraints

• Spacing: 2 cones spaced around an arc (adjust spacing to skill level and desired level of difficulty)

  • As a rule of thumb, players should be able to get a quality shot 5-7 times out of 10. If it’s <5, the space might be too tight — it’s >7 the drill might be too easy.

• Rules: Hold space to coned areas; no dodging to goal

• Intention: Use windups, manipulate with body language

• Balls: Use tennis balls (to save goalies & work soft hands) or lacrosse balls

Let the drill run after you set the constraints. Pay attention to who’s actively looking at the cage, who’s faking and manipulating defenders, and who’s using different types of shots. I’ve absolutely loved this drill—so much can emerge from it. Every group is different, but the common theme of using windups to be a threat (and doing it more often!) has remained consistent.

Windup + the Wall Pass

A wall pass is a quick pass inside that is kicked right back outside (like throwing it off a wall). Notice Cuse EMO execute the windup to the wall pass in this clip below. You may need to watch a few times… that ball is moving quick.

While the windup from the point isn’t massive, it’s still deceptive. He could go a lot of places with this ball.

Trey Deere has great presence here to kick the ball out to Spallina. The wall pass concept is a great one to master on man/woman up offense. A crafty player can catch inside and shoot, or kick the ball out as the defense collapses.

See another film clip below of Maryland executing a wall pass on EMO. The Terps created a nice shot opportunity vs Richmond in their 3-3 set.

You will see more and more of these this spring. These are two concepts your offensive players need to build into their game.

Below, we’ve dropped a freebie drill from Coach Sean Kirwan’s webinar in our coaching community. Last year he presented on Man Up / Zone Offense and you’ll see this drill is a way to tease out some of these skills and concepts.

Thanks for taking a trip down the hallway. Stay tuned for more content all spring!

🚨 Webinar Freebie 🚨

As many of you may be aware, we have a community for men’s and women’s coaches where we host regular webinars with coaches. As a perk of this newsletter, we give away one freebie. This week’s webinar clip is from Dartmouth Head Coach, Sean Kirwan.

Watch Coach Kirwan’s 5v4 “One More” Drill here.

P.S. Here are some bonus windup to feeds. Enjoy 😎