A few weeks ago I wrote about how horrible and damaging [some] of the coaching I saw on the summer circuit was. I expected a lot more push back than I got, but I wasn’t surprised to have a few bars spit my way about how yelling is normal and that some kids need that and blah blah blah. As a sound byte from “Coolhand Luke” repurposed in a Guns N Roses song (ask your cool uncle that drinks Budweiser tallboys, kids) - “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate...some men, you just can’t reach.”
I can’t beat you with one article. I can’t make you change who you are. What you are. But through happenstance, it occurred to me that I can do something else.
A month ago, my best friend from high school - who I guess by default is still my best friend; it’s funny how life works like that - asked me if I wanted to play pick up in “northern” (re: above the Concord line) New Hampshire. For those of you unfamiliar with how New Hampshire is laid out/works - anything north of Concord risks wandering into the territory of mullets, cut-off jean shorts, and dudes openly walking down the street with 30-racks and boom boxes. It’s not that time has been unkind to the middle of the shire; it’s that time stopped there in 1992.
(I’m allowed to make fun of this because I grew up in a small town in this vicinity. Except my town had a college and a ski mountain in it. Which basically made us all rich with counterculture from two of the most degenerate sources: ski bros and college burnouts. Memories.)
Anyway, I thought about it for a second and decided to give it a whirl despite the pickup game being on the one day in between both of my men’s leagues. Besides, despite coaching for over a decade, he hadn’t played in nearly a decade. If anything I was going to go for moral support. It’s a fun run, even when you’re nursing various wounds from an entire summer of being beaten by dudes that are 250 lbs. swinging metal rods at you because you exist in their corpulent orbit.
In that first run, I played attack alongside a player that looked oddly familiar to me. I talked to him during the break and it turns out he’s an attackman for a team that I coached against this past spring at Hopkinton. I told him what we did to try and stop him from scoring and he didn’t have the reaction I expected - he got excited.
“You change what you do during the game?!”
“Uh. Yeah. That’s, like, what coaching is.”
“Oh. I’ve only had one coach...he just tries to get us hyped up and tells us to try harder in huddles.”
I thought he was kidding. He was not. (And now you see why I’m not identifying the school or the player; these hands/words are for helping.) It immediately occurred to me that this kid - who definitely has the tools to play at least DIII - needed more instruction.
Here is where we go back for a geography lesson. Central-Northern New Hampshire does not have any club teams. At least, not towards the Western side of the state. If you want to play for a club team you have to drive to Southern NH where all the people/Massholes live to play for Tomahawks or over to the Lakes Region/Maine to get reps with 4Leaf. They’re both great programs - I have nothing against them and have written or worked with both of them in the past. This isn’t about them or their effectiveness; it’s about their location.
The instruction for this pocket of New Hampshire is lacking. It’s a ton of Division Three NHIAA schools with varying degrees of coaching experience huddled in a cloister that’s just out of driving and financial distance to next-level development. Even if that next level is just being good enough to make a college roster.
So. In the moment that all of this hit me, an extremely stupid thought entered my head. And then that thought turned into an even dumber thing that I said as I was talking to this player.
“You know, I’ve been thinking of doing an instructional-type club team up here.”
I wasn’t thinking that until that very moment. Why the hell did I say that? Is that something that I want to do? Do I REALLY want to join this twisted group of miscreants and introduce my admittedly brusque set of values into it? Am I going to make enemies of anyone just because I am talking about doing this? (If I do, and you’re one of them, just know that you’re only threatened because you’re insecure. It’s okay, therapy is cheap now. They have an app for it.)
But...what if I decide to do this? I see it as an opportunity to put up or shut up. I’m a good coach. I can teach the game, especially at the most basic level. It was my actual job for over a decade-plus. The skill is there. Thanks to my Hopkinton kids and head coach - plus this one random encounter - so is the will.
Here is what I need from you - How do you get started doing something like this? Do I need financial backing? How many kids do I need? How many fields? How do I get other teams to play us? Should it just be an instructional program and not travel? Is this the dumbest possible thing I could put time into besides acquiring vintage Transformers?
Let me know. Hit me on Twitter, Instagram, or in the comments.
Also, if you think this is dumb wait until I tell you about my dream of creating a developmental box lacrosse team in the region…Everything starts as an idea.