With the start of practice for all New Hampshire high school teams beginning this week, I thought I’d go through some of the more…eccentric coaching rules that I have acquired in the last few decades of life.
Some are weird. Some are dumb. Others are just common sense. All of them are made/going to be broken at some point, EXCEPT ONE. (You’ll know it when you see it, I promise).
It is an honor and a privilege to coach high school lacrosse after 12 years of toiling away at the college level. It’s all about teaching the game and having a good time on the field. I’ve missed it and I’m glad it’s back.
Never wear gear from another team to practice or games
I acquired this rule from one of my college coaches. I always wore a Tilton Lacrosse hat to games at Clark because the hat represented the first time anyone ever believed in me as a player. I got it when I was accepted into Tilton as a PG as a gift from the program. I remember opening it and crying because it meant so much to me (again - I was an emo kid before anyone knew that emo was).
As a result, it became talismanic and I wore it to every game and a lot of practices. (I still have it). One day, my college coach asked me why I wore it all the time and I told him the story. He told me that wearing current team clothing was my duty as the captain. So, I kept wearing it because screw that guy. But also, he was right. There is something about wearing the thing that you put first. In college that was me; now it’s my team.
Never wear a hat on the sidelines
This runs somewhat contradictory to the previous rule, but there is a reason for it. I have - no, had - a tendency to, uh, throw things when I was upset on the sideline. Here is a shortlist of things I have thrown whilst coaching a lacrosse game:
A clipboard
Water bottles
An entire bench
A helmet
Gloves
A whistle
The scorebook
My assistant coach (he was very small)
A player onto the field
A half-chewed Altoid
Gum
My hat
So, yeah. I didn't wear a hat to any games last year. BUT - I also never threw anything. So, I’m going to start wearing a hat again. I feel as if I’ve earned it.
Never coach a game with a stick in your hands
This is it. This is the one that can never be broken. There is no excuse for coaching a lacrosse game - at any level - with a stick in your hands the entire game. Like. Nothing is more embarrassing.
Parents - if you see your kid’s coach doing this they need to be fired because it means they have absolutely no idea what they are doing. My proof is that I once coached against a college program that shall remain nameless, and their coaching staff was one guy with a stick that never left his hands.
(Their scorekeeper was an injured player. They had no assistants.)
This dude carried a stick the entire game. We were up by so many goals that I only let freshmen play and/or players use their off hands. He called a timeout with a minute left when we had the ball and made his defenders pressure out on the ball carriers out of the timeout.
My player looked to me as if to ask non-verbal permission to run past his guy. I nodded. He slowed to a walk. No one slid. He was one on one with the goalkeeper. He looked at me again. I made a motion to switch to his off-hand in order to shoot. So, he did and he scored. The opposing coach immediately called another timeout and tried to come into my huddle to tell me what a dick I was, but was stopped by his own players and the refs.
For clarification purposes: we were not up by 20 and the player in question wasn’t a starter OR a scorer.
The next time we played that school that coach was nowhere to be seen.
The moral is…don’t be either guy in that scenario.
Always wear khakis and a collared shirt to games
This is a weird one because a lot of coaches wear whatever they want on the sideline. When it comes to weather, that’s fine. But even when it was below zero, I always wore a collared shirt under my jacket and I just wore gore-tex pants over my khakis. I don’t coach in shorts on gamedays. I won’t rock a t-shirt and jeans.
I look at it like this: I spent my entire life working in jobs that don’t have dress codes. I never HAD to wear anything specific to the office as a college coach. A writer’s attire is whatever is clean that day.
Almost everything I own has a lacrosse logo on it. I hate wearing suits. I hate dress shoes. I hate ties.
But something about gameday makes me want to look official. It’s a self-imposed standard. Not a lot of people notice it because it’s sort of an expected thing to look presentable. But that’s never how it’s been for me. I know that I could get away with wearing a sloppy untucked t-shirt, jorts, and flip-flops if I wanted to. But that’s what college kids coaching club teams wear. That’s the official uniform of the state of New Hampshire in the summer. That’s not what I want to represent on a sideline.
Always bring stringing supplies to practices and games
Even if you can't string, this is a necessary part of being a coach. Just bring some stringing scraps to practice. I keep mine in my car year-round just in case. Are they in the same bag as the portable AED? Uhm. Maybe. But I have both just in case.
Pro tip: if you want to look like a hero, snag one ball from practice every day and put it in your trunk. That way when your entire team chucks the rest of the balls into the woods you can be the white knight and unveil your contraband as a fresh product.
Always be excited to coach
This - this is new to me. Prior to last spring, I hadn’t experienced this feeling since I was an assistant coach back at St. Anselm a lifetime ago.
(Yes, loss in life and losses in games will damage you that much.)
I no longer have to force myself to smile. Last year we coached with masks so none of the kids saw my facial expressions. But I knew I was smiling a lot because I would go home after practice and games and my face would hurt.
You see, coaching is not a right. It’s not a duty. It’s an earned calling. Just like writing. Just like playing. At least, it is for me. So, I’m thankful to have it back in my life. I’m excited to spend an hour in my car every day driving to and from practice and games. If you’re lucky, maybe one day you’ll get that feeling too.
Go Hawks.
Great Article! Love your rules! I coached HS for 7 years then 18 years as a DI head coach, then19 years as a HS Athletic Director and now in retirement it is year 7 as a high school coach again and I love teaching the game every day! Keep on writing!