Camps, Showcase Events, Now What?

[00:00:08] Hey guys. Jonathan Edwards here Coach Edwards, with LacrosseGoalieTips.com and LacrosseGoalieUniversity .com.

[00:00:16] Hope you’re having a good time at the start of school and you know it’s interesting this time of year because people are taking a count into account what it is they’ve done over the summer. New school year starts. You know, new goals, new dreams. Those sorts of things which are really really really cool.

Get Updates For My New Book

[00:00:32] So as I mentioned last week I’ve been working on a book and am hoping to have that published pretty soon here. It’s called An Athlete’s Guide To Winning In Sports and Life. You can check it out over at www.AthleteSpecific.com And while you’re over there sign up for the newsletter. I’ve got a free audio for you. And you can check that out. And and I hope that when the book is ready that you’ll buy one and you’ll give it to an athlete in your life not necessarily a lacrosse goalie but any athlete in your life who is looking for ways to improve and really make their athletic dreams happen.

Welcome To New Lacrosse Goalies From…

[00:01:07] So hey, this week, new goalie’s welcome from the newsletter from Winter Park, Florida. Potomac Potomac, Maryland. Kings Park, New York. Birmingham, Michigan. Sweet and Penfield, New York. Love that the game. Lacrosse is growing and always loved it here, and you know ,from people in the traditional neighbourhoods like New York but then Florida, Michigan, Ontario It’s pretty cool.

This Weeks Question

[00:01:38] So this week’s question comes from a dad: Dear Coach Edwards. While the summer is over, my son has played in two skills based camps two showcase events and two tournaments with his club team. Now what. He’s a sophomore in high school and has the Division 1 dream but he’s not sure where he wants to go. What’s the next step?

My Answer For This Lacrosse Goalie Dad

[00:01:58] Great question. So first answer is grab a copy of my book which is The Ultimate Guide To Lacrosse Recruiting . You’d find it in the link below. It’s also on the product page on the Web site. But in that book you’ll find everything that I tell a young goalie about lacrosse recruiting.

You Have To Be a Proactive Lacrosse Goalie

[00:02:15] But you know first and foremost when I think about this question, it’s that your question is retroactive. You’ve done all this work and now you’re wondering if the work was the right stuff. It’s better off being proactive when you pick all these camps. And one of the things that I tell a lot of lacrosse goalies to do is that you need to take inventory of your game. So while your goalie may have the dream of playing Division 1 , playing lacrosse Division 1, are they worthy of being a Division 1 lacrosse goalie?

A Lacrosse Goalie Has To Test Outside His/Her Team

[00:02:51] So the first step to look at is, are they the best on their team? Probably in this case. Are they the best in their league? Are they the best in their state? Right. Are they best in their region? You know, are they the one of the best in the country? The only way you find that out is by doing the approach that I did when I was in high school.

[00:03:10] My goal was to be the best goalie on my team. And when that was done I wanted to be the best goalie in the league. And when that was done I wanted to get away from my league and go out into these other areas to test myself against other goalies. So if I went to a skills based camp while I was learning lacrosse goalie specific skills and being in a multi position environment, (There’s middies and defence and all the stuff) I wanted to make the All-Star team at that event.

[00:03:43] And then I wanted to get around other players other positions you know get around better shooters and challenge myself at that next level. So while you’ve done all these things. OK. There’s a lot of things to come out of it. One, did your goalie find out what it is they need to work on right now? What’s interesting is some of these events I understand there’s no contact between coaches and athletes. But this is where your coach on your team. You know, if you’re on a club team, needs to be telling you… this is what needs to be worked on and you need to then take that information and then improve it.

Focus On Being “Seenable” Not Being Seen

[00:04:30] One of the worst things I see is when people invest a lot of money in a showcase event and they’re just trying to get seen when they have no reason to be seen yet. Right. They’re just, you know, the idea is not to get seen. The idea is to be seeable. Right. You want to be good, so good, that you’re worthy of being seen and people flip that around a lot. It’s like they’re going to these events trying to get seen. Now you’ve got to be seeable. So start there. You have to be when it comes to recruiting from these events and to kind of make it to the next level. You have to be proactive. Just like what I mentioned to Kim in last week’s blog post. You know, your goalie has to take the time to know where they want to go to school. OK.

[00:05:22] One of the worst things I see is what goalies play what I call the Match.com game. Right, where they put up a recruiting video and hope somebody will swipe right and like them. Right? A goalie needs to be proactive in where they want to go to school. So that’s you know, the first step is finding a school that’s a good fit. You may come from a small town and want to play at Ohio State and not realize that it’s like 60000 people there. Right. So it’s like a city you know that may not be a good fit for you. Right so just blindly wanting to go to a division one school is really not, It’s really not the approach you need to take. OK. So keep that in mind.

Have a Plan For Improvement

[00:06:18] Also have a plan for your recruiting. Right, so yes you did all these things this summer. But what was the plan? What were you trying to do? Were you trying, you know, did you go to a skills based camp at a school that you may want to attend? You did. Like when I was growing up I wanted to go to Cornell so I went to the Cornell lacrosse camp and learned some of the best stuff I ever learned and also got on that campus and had a chance to see myself and feel what it was like. Did I like it? I want to be there you know and those sorts of thing?

[00:06:51] That was one thing, I also went to the Syracuse camp. Why did I go to Syracuse camp? Well I wanted to play Division 1 and Syracuse was the hot team at the time so I went to the Syracuse camp, but that probably wasn’t the best choice. But I did learn that Syracuse wasn’t a school that I wanted to go to. Right. So no offence to people in Syracuse or people who go to Syracuse. But the point is I went to that camp to get around the coaches to get around a school and see if it was going to be the right fit for me as a as a person. So. So take inventory of your game. So your goalie did all these great events this summer but what did they learn like what did you come out of this summer with?

[00:07:34] What deficiencies does your goalie need to work on. You know are they too slow? Is their footwork bad or is their outlet passing not good? Do they have trouble reading the shooter? Like what. You know what is it. Are they good. You know with time and room shots or shots on the mov? You know those types of questions you have to take inventory of and decide what it is we need to work on so that we can be a “seeable” recruitable lacrosse goalie.

[00:08:04] . OK. So thanks for the great question this week. If you’re in you know one of things I recommend to everybody is take advantage of www.lacrossegoalieuniversity.com. All right. One of the things, I’ve put everything I know as a coach on that Web site and if you want it and also when you are member you get a free Golie Critique. So you get to send me a video and I critique it and I will tell you what I think you need to work on. All right so to take advantage of that head on over to www.lacrossegoalieuniversity.com and or, you can join right a t the link above this video on our website. But I would be happy to have a look and have you in there and coach you like I do many goalies from across the world which is very sweet. All right so Coach Edwards www.LacrosseGoalieTips.com, if this video helps you do me a favor, like it share it. Be sure to subscribe on YouTube and send this to somebody that you know needs it.

[00:08:56] And if you have a question for me, you can email me at coachedwards@LacrosseGoalieTips.com