What is "Joysticking" and Why is it Ruining your Development?

How's that for a clickbait title? Eh? EH?!

We’re well past the halfway point of the summer lacrosse season - in fact, we’re at the end of it. Two straight months on the road have been interesting, to say the least, but in that time I have encountered a bizarre phenomenon colloquially known as “Joysticking”.

Now, what is that, exactly?

Coaches and parents yelling “Wheels!” and/or “Value!” over and over ad naseum is not “joysticking”.

It’s just annoying.

No, Joysticking is when coaches on the sideline tell every single player what to do when they have the ball on offense and when they don’t have the ball on defense. It is the enemy of development being deployed, ironically, by the very people who are being paid to develop players for college.

Now, don’t take this as a sneak attack on club teams. The fact of the matter is that if you don’t play club lacrosse your chances of playing college lacrosse are now down to single-digit percentage points. The reps you get playing club are what make the difference. Hopefully, that time invested also comes with high-level individualized instruction as well. That’s what all the money you’re paying is for.

High school coaches are there to teach the macro elements of the game - offensive and defensive sets, positioning, spacing, rules, etc.

It has fallen to the club coaches to teach more of the micro aspects - dodging, shooting, one-on-one defense, footwork - those sorts of things.

The end product should be a well-rounded, skilled and disciplined student-athlete, ready to succeed at the next level. That’s why high school coaches and club coaches work together - it’s for the greater good of their players.

But…sometimes there is a huge disconnect in how those coaching responsibilities are executed and this summer it has been despicably negligent.

Going to all these tournaments and seeing club coaches, most of whom are well qualified to be doing their jobs, screaming instructions to the ball carrier, the middies AND the attackmen on every single possession has been eye-opening. Of course, we all want to set up our offense and defense for success, but when you’re telling everyone what to do and where to go - you might as well have Cheeto fingers and a headset on.

It’s always funny to me how much all these clubs try to overinflate their local rivalries with other clubs and how they place or rank in all these tournaments. Like college coaches are coming to these events to only watch the teams that win? They’re not recruiting teams - they’re recruiting players.

I get that the coaches want to win the games, but -again - if you have to yell out instructions on every single play to your offense and your defense (who definitely can’t hear you, by the way) you’re not actually teaching the kids anything. Furthermore, it shows how you have failed to fulfill your end of the coaching bargain.

You don’t need to put the joystick down - you just need to rage quit the game.