Bel Air, Maryland – After speaking with some parents about the U-15’s this year I wanted to put into perspective how awesome it was for our club to perform admirably in the event. First, bowing to West Genny/Baldwinsville (Upstate NY), Phantastix 2012 (Philly) and Cardinal Lax (DC Private Schools) and fighting well is not a problem. In fact, had our girls played well in both halves of the games, they may have beaten the Phantastix and Cardinal.
The wins against Ohio and Hotbed team Massachusetts were sweet indeed. Being down 3-1 at half against Ohio and rallying to a 7-5 win is a beautiful thing for Florida lacrosse and for our U-15 team. Getting into the final round and earning a top-20 ranking at the end of the event was OUR GOAL going in (winning some games and being competitive vs. 2012 teams).
But wins and losses are not what we should be counting. We should be looking at improvement and catching up with the top northern programs. That is what the Maniax system is all about.
But we are getting greedy. I asked one parent who was not happy about losing games to better teams up north at the IWLCA’s whose daughter was discouraged. I asked her “How many games did her team lose at the SAT this year?” Her answer: “Zero.”
So, at the tourney with the top clubs in the south: Hotlanta, Fever, Cardinals, TNLax, yatayatayata, you go undefeated, yet your child is not happy? Your team is not good enough? Well, we did not enter the fifth bracket out of six just to try and ‘win’ the games at the IWLCA’s.
And when you do that (enter the tough brackets) you really CAN’T win them all if you live in Florida. Some people may think they can. They cannot. There are much better teams out there than any team in Florida. Period. You just have to play in the toughest brackets to find them.
And who wants to win more than I do? I have eight (8) championship rings. I like to win. Love it as a matter of fact. But this insanity of comparing us to “Hero’s” is crazy. We will get there in a few years, but in order for us to get there our kids and parents have to work harder than ever before on the skills of the game and the game knowledge and aggression needed to play at that level. THAT is why we GO THERE.
If your child is disheartened, maybe YOU are not helping them to see things correctly. You have by far one of the finest club programs in the country. With effort and repetition, by the time your daughters are rising juniors, they will be close and rising seniors, they should be even with the best in the country. That still does not mean you are going to WIN all the games. But then again, I have yet to see a college care about your team winning – they want to see your kids PLAY. That again comes down to their SKILLS, SPEED, and LAX IQ. All things that they should be evaluating themselves on each day!
I learned more during the Super Bowl Season from the special teams plays we messed up during the season than the ones we scored touchdowns on. And it was our ability to adjust, under skilled teaching and smart players, that made us a World Champion.
Let’s also use this perspective from the U-15 tournament:
LaxManiax U-15 Girls = 2 wins, lots of competitive games (mixed ages)
Georgia Lax Girls = 0 wins. Did not show up, even though they had registered a team. Can’t compete if you are not there.
Texas Girls = 0 wins. Did not win a game. Lost by 10 goals often.
NorCal Blue and Gold Girls (2 teams) = 1 win in 10 games combined.
North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, and Tennessee – Did not enter teams and were not there. They did not win any games either.
Boys U-15 results from teams similar to our own geographically:
Creeks Lacrosse Boys (Florida) = 0 wins, a couple competitive games. Lost by 10 goals a few times. They played three non-traditional programs.
Texas Boys = o wins. Not competitive.
Georgia Boys = 0 wins. Only close in one of their games.
OK – so look at all the teams from the south and from California (like Florida but bigger) and how many WINS did you add up? 1 (ONE). UNO. I wonder how discouraged the collective non-traditional states are because they lost?
The LaxManiax as a team won more games and were more competitive against very strong competition than the other teams from similar areas. But, all the teams who went to the event deserve a pat on the back for going. If they are coached well, those kids will have learned a lot and be the best players in their area and be a step ahead next time they attend a tournament like that.
Or, they will become discouraged because they lost and get worse. And this is the ultimate failure of coaching solely for the sake of winning and not focused on developing winners as players.
There are only two responses to adversity. Players either get bitter or players get better.
For the sake of the kid who is working her butt off on the field, parents had BETTER help them to get BETTER before allowing anyone of them to get BITTER. Perhaps if Florida lacrosse players would stop worrying so much about losing and focus more on playing up to their potential and working their butts off they would raise their level against the top programs in the country.
Florida high school lacrosse needs a lot of work. Even the very best who can’t get past mid-tier MIAA high school opponents.
Performing at the level we did at the U-15 is a great start for those girls who are working at catching up with the Check-Hers! We are not THAT far behind! But to get there, it all starts with the work-manlike attitude required to make the trip NORTH and a level of ferocity that our girls our top players in Florida are working on each day.
1 comment
Comments feed for this article
July 10, 2009 at 10:28 am
loulamb
Good Comments! I couldn’t agree more. Just a few thoughts of my own:
1. The real value of playing sports for most people is not the actual athletic accomplishment. A U-15 national championship would have been great, but my daughter will have a successful life without one. The real benefit is learning how to work hard, be part of a team, perform under pressure and most importantly learn from your mistakes and continuously improve your performance.
2. Losing to a superior foe is nothing to be ashamed of and may actually be better than winning – if your goal is to get better at what you are doing, as it points out your weaknesses. Mark Lieberman, a multi time US NAtional Championship wrestler told me that the six losses he had in his NCAA career taught him more than his 75 wins becuase losing made him want to get better and showed him where he needed to improve.
3. It is just not reasonable to think that a Florida team can go up and beat teams from hotbed areas where the coaches can select from girls that live, eat and breathe lacrosse all day. It takes about 10,000 of practice to be elite at something. Are all of our girls dedicated to putting in that kind of time? The fact that we were not embarassed, given the newness of the sport and geographical challenges to getting people together for practice and the disparate interests of the kids, was awesome. It also shows with hard work and single-mindedness we could compete. But the kids will have to understand and commit if they want to move to be elite on a national level. What a great life lesson!
4. Lastly, I think the achievements of the Laxmaniax club has been nothing short of amazing. To grow from essentially nothing to where we are now in a few years is a real testament to the work, skill and organizational skills of the people running the club. Things could always be better and there are occasional annoying hiccups (which are actually relatively few) but if you stop to look at things objectively this has been an amazing ride. What a well run and sucessful operation! I heard one of the North Carolina coaches at the SAT talking about how well run Maniax days were and how the were going to emulate some of the organizational practices in their own group.
We are proud to have been members for the last three years.