The lacrosse industry’s incredible ability to crawl out of a pit full of sharpened sticks only to pick up a loose handgun loaded with greed and shoot itself in the foot is...unparalleled. It’s a zombie vampire hybrid fed by the blood and sweat of one ever-replenishing resource: young lacrosse players.
Yes, the biggest commodity in lacrosse is players (followed closely by 90-dollar hunks of nylon that are made up of three dollars worth of material, at most - but I digress). Specifically, I’m referencing high school players looking to get into the best possible college they can. Part of that process involves playing for a club team that travels to different parts of the country, which [allegedly] assures that you’ll be seen by the maximum number of college coaches. The fee for this is established to be either reasonable or exorbitant depending on several factors. (Don’t worry, I’m not here to tell you that you’re overpaying for your club team. You already know that.)
In the last few weeks, I’ve thrown myself into the recruiting scene. I’ve seen stellar coaching, incredible players, and even above-average refereeing. (Once. I saw that last one once.) In that same time frame, I’ve seen the same troubling thing happen multiple times. I knew it was happening but turned a blind eye to it because, frankly, it wasn’t my problem.
I want to tell you this one thing. This thing that I absolutely cannot believe I have to type and you allow to happen:
It’s never okay for someone to walk up to your kid (or you) and scream in their/your face on a lacrosse field because they/you made a mistake.
Most of the time it’s their/your coach - sometimes it’s the opposing team’s coach, which I actually CANNOT believe that I witnessed on more than one occasion, but then again I can’t believe that narwhals are real and my own brother doesn’t believe in seahorses. In all instances, there is a better way to convey a point than screaming loud enough so that the stands can hear every syllable and all but taste the sunscreen bleached spittle blasting forth from that gaping maw.
The irony here is that I used to scream and yell and freak out and throw things. I used to think it worked. That tough love was real. It’s not. I was wrong to coach like that. When you do that it’s a manifestation of misplaced frustration and/or anger mixed with an inability to articulate salient points. It’s failure to communicate caused by the adult; not the child.
Yes, there was one incident that inspired this whole diatribe.
A player lost the ball on the offensive side of the field. He tried to chase the ball down, hustled all the way back, and even chased down the first ball carrier. But the opposing team still scored. Right before the next face-off that player, clearly upset, stood on the sideline as his coach stalked the single-file group, stopping at him and screaming “Don’t look at me like you’re mad, I’m not the one who lost the ball!” I was sitting with the parents, not the coaches. I looked around and no one so much as flinched. This was normal. Apparently so was all the swearing, which, look that happens - the only person that can swear better than a lacrosse coach is a soldier - but the F-Bomb was WILDLY prevalent and at full volume. Your mileage on that will vary, sidelines are R-rated not PG-13, but it was still a Giannis Antetokounmpo usage rate.
I do want to say that this really doesn’t apply to some silent majority. While this sort of thing was shockingly evident, it was still somewhat uncommon by conventional measurement standards. Because of that, the kind of people that need to read this probably won’t bother to seek it out. They’re beyond reach because they believe they are beyond reproach. But if you are one of these face-screamers and you happen upon this by some magisterial means -
I know that you are a huckster. A charlatan. A loser. Even if your team is winning games and you’re sending kids to colleges you’re still doing a poor job of teaching them what’s important. What’s valuable. This is America. You’re always free to be an asshole - in fact, you may even be celebrated for it. But you’re actually where the problem starts. You suck at coaching because coaching is learning how to deal with what you can and cannot control and then teaching that lesson to your players. You teach nothing because you learn nothing. You’re a husk. Once you may have been a great player or a celebrated leader, but now you are a g-string for desperate parents to stuff their monies into. We both know they’re just names and numbers on a spreadsheet to you. But they don’t. They think you yell and scream and break things because you care. You don’t. You just want to make them think you do. And that - THAT - is what makes you a dirtbag.
This...this abuse - that EVERYONE can see with their own eyes - isn’t just hurting the game; it’s hurting the kids. It’s not normal. It’s not okay. It’s not old school. It’s harmful, shameful, and disgusting. You all love rankings so much - what if one day we just ranked club coaches by their ability to actually coach lacrosse without turning into a raving maniac? What would you do then?
You’d probably still cash your checks and laugh. It’s okay. One day you’ll be replaced by the kid you screamed at. My only hope is that he’ll be better than you.
Hard to be worse, bud.