Dealing with Club Coaches

Disclaimer:  The opinions and feelings expressed in this blog are those of the author and the author only, however if you feel the same you will understand that these feelings are COMMON and very much TRUE in the goalie world. Most of what is expressed is true based on the experiences the author had as a player, coach, mentor, and parent.  If you would like to agree to disagree, please contact the author.  Thank you!!

I don’t get a ton of time to sit down and write out my thoughts on specific matters that are affecting our goalies in the goalie community or any sport related community.  Most of my content is derived from the experiences and stories of my students, campers, goalies I barely know personally, parents, and most of all fellow goalie coaches.  What I don’t ever hear from are regular lacrosse coaches.  Is it because they don’t know how to reach out, they don’t want to reach out to be proven they are handling goalies poorly, they have too BIG of an ego to listen to anyone other than themselves, or the fact that they don’t want to take the initiative to learn about the ONE position they know nothing about – GOALIES!?? Folks I hate to say this but we have a growing epidemic in this country and I wouldn’t be surprised if this is global and is more of a pandemic like COVID.  Our only vaccination is Goalie Education…..and just like COVID, you aren’t being forced to take the vaccine or in this case get goalie educated, it’s just highly suggested.  (SMH)

Today I am discussing how to deal with Club Coaches (non-goalie) as goalies and or as goalie parents.  I hope after this blog I will get some sort of push back from a Club coach who takes offense to this and challenges me on the facts I will be presenting based on my research and data collection.  Let’s be honest, that would mean that a club coach would have to take a liking to a goalie page of some sort and or follow Goalies Matter or actually just take an interest in goalies in general, but we all know that won’t happen. LOL!!  ONE question that I can’t seem to get out of my head and I continue to ponder to this day, is

When did Club coaches (most NOT all) care more about their bottom line and trophies then they do about furthering, improving and supporting their players in their skill development and recruiting process?????????

Lately, I have heard too many stories of how goalies get treated like dirt, gum, and that sticky mystery substance on the bottom of a shoe instead of helping them like they do the for the rest of their field players. If you are a club coach reading this, don’t give me this “we have a coach that works with our goalies”….yeah, like calling a college age kid who plays attack a goalie coach and all they do is warm up the goalies, say a couple things, and then proceed to take 5 light shots before they start ripping shots like they are making a highlight reel for themselves.  Generally speaking, goalies on club teams get treated as well as they do on their regular spring season team. I get it, goalie coaches are limited at best so if you have one you are lucky, it’s like winning a scratch-off lottery ticket, sometimes you get 4 in a row and $50 or you get 2 in a row and nothing.  Ok, ok, you are probably wondering where am I going with this…..well I’ll tell you, Club Coaches these days have a hidden agenda, because many of them have realized that running a (successful) Club Program is very time consuming and takes up a lot of time to organize from gathering quality coaches to uniforms, picking tournaments, finding players, travel etc…Trust me I give them a lot of credit for doing it, not an easy job, but most have quit their day jobs to make this their MAIN source of income.  Part of this decision leads them to assign costs for organizing everything from salaries, uniforms, tournament fees, travel expenses (if applicable), rental fees (if applicable), and then let’s not forget the Director’s salary for doing all of this.  I wouldn’t be surprised if you are shelling out somewhere close to $5-10k to play for a club team per year……and then multiple that by the # of teams the program has and how many players they have on each team.  So, I ask - what’s the Return on Investment?? Huh??  Hey, I get it there are costs that go into running a successful program, but there is still one thing these coaches leave out, that they “HOPE” they can hire a coach that also doubles as a Goalie Coach and/or Faceoff/Draw Specialist.  Getting one of these two individuals is like rolling the dice, you may get lucky or CRAPS and you might go broke.  Regardless, goalies and faceoff/draw positions are NOT getting the attention, guaranteed support or instruction.

            Club Coaches are like any other coaches when it comes to these two positions….with goalies the expectation is to Stop the ball, Possess the ball, and clear the ball……..with faceoff/ draw specialists its win and  get off the field or we will try someone else.  In my honest opinion, as a Head Coach/Director, you should be well versed in how to coach every position or at least be knowledgeable in those areas so you can help them, because if you don’t you are only as successful as your weakest link….SOOOO why not get them the help they need?  NO, instead we will just make them better by using goalies as Shooter Tutors and faceoffs/draws will just turn into providing loose groundball opportunities for the other players to pick up.  Lets be honest….Club Coaches care very little about these positions and furthermore even less about goalies causing them to feel more isolated = your mental health armor gets a chink taken out.  Grant it, I come from a non-hotbed region of the country and maybe things are different in hotbed regions, and hopefully things are better for them, but for most of the non-hotbed regions we aren’t so lucky. MOST clubs care about winning championships, getting the t-shirt, shamelessly plugging their victory on the Gram to justify their existence and proof they ARE in fact from a “Hot-Bed” when in actuality they are NOT, and all of this just to make their program “look” superior in their region to sucker more kids into trying out, as a result padding their bottom line.  I won’t get into the fact that they also aimlessly promote their players who commit to D1 programs for added proof.  This is ironic considering we are a non-hotbed region for lacrosse as soccer dominates everywhere.  AGAIN, hey it’s ok to agree to disagree, I won’t be hurt if you think I am way off base, but I know I am not. So what do we do, or what can you do???

It's really simple, you can either suck it up and play for this team due to notoriety, use them as an assist to get recruited, etc. ORR you can take control of what you can control like a TRUE Leader would.  If your coach doesn’t respect you, support you, they make decisions based on their own agenda versus why you joined the team in the first place, and you paid them the B$G BUCKS $$$ they require you in order to play for their program – THEN LEAVE.  Before you get all bent out of shape, I am not telling goalies to leave their team if they are NOT getting PT as if they are whining.  However, you paid money to be on a team that you tried out for and made and you should be getting equal playing time – it’s called fair treatment.  I also wouldn’t want to be on a team that took 3 goalies, when most tournaments only play 2 halves per game (1 goalie per half is EQUAL), because somebody is going to get passed over. NOW, if you are getting treated fairly, respected, supported, some goalie training, but minimal playing time then talk with your coaches about what you can do to improve.

 When I used to coach in the Club world, every kid who tried out and legitimately made the team based on talent and not #’s (and yes we took 2 goalies for EVERY team in our program), paid the same price and ALL had equal playing time despite what the score was at the end of each game in every tournament. NEWS FLASH!!! Club teams are supposed to help develop you to be a competitive athlete, improve your skill set to play at the next level, get you experience playing better teams, and get you in front of college coaches. You should never join a club team to win summer tournament championships, or EXPECT to get recruited to play at the D1 level or any level for that matter.  If you want to get recruited you gotta put the work in yourself (aka research), reach out to colleges, let them know you are interested in their program and then they will come find you…..I’m not going down the recruiting rabbit hole in this blog, that gets its own blog.  If you are not getting treated like you should, as mentioned above, find a new team.  It can be scary to leave a team that “Took you in” but if the grass isn’t greener, you need to make the tough decision to leave. No club team is going to help you get recruited more than any other ones, recruiting is in your control. Finding a new club team is like dating, there are plenty of club teams in the sea and if you can’t find one, play as a free-agent where each team will appreciate you and respect you. Look, if you are trying to play with a TOP club team loaded with D1 talent, make sure you have put in the work to get there, D1 athletes aren’t just naturally talented, they had to work hard to get to that level. OH, if you are trying to do all of this for the BIG SCHOLARSHIP….it’s funny because soon with all the new rules regarding NLI and Scholarships,  money will eventually be shifting away from lacrosse and you will get minimal scholarship money. NOTE: lacrosse is NOT a revenue making sport on most college campuses.

Time to wrap this up, in conclusion you have the power to make your own decisions.  Do your research into club teams, talk to the directors and or coaches about goalie training and goalie support, and if you get unlucky and strike out, might just have to make some BIG decisions.  Find a new team, play as a free-agent, get outside goalie training but whatever you do, do not settle for being disrespected by these Money Grabbing Club Coaches (again MOST not ALL).   You pay the same as everyone else does and you deserve and demand that you get equal playing time and opportunities. Remember y’all are paying to be on their club team, you’re paying for a service, YOU OWE them NOTHING!!!  Hey at one-point, old dogs like myself, got recruited without highlight videos, club teams, recruiting tournaments, and less than accurate stats. YOU CAN GET RECRUITED WITHOUT PLAYING FOR A CLUB TEAM!!! -  just saying, my opinions and not anyone else’s.

Why do Goalies Matter? Because they do.   Stay strong, and remember we are GoalieStrong for a reason.