Leadership can’t be taught, but it can be learned.
Andy Shay, head coach of the Yale men’s lacrosse and U.S. Sixes teams, shares these tools as part of a USA Lacrosse Coach Development Program Platinum Certification course.
Start your certification pathway today at usalacrosse.com/coach-certification.
1. COACH CAMEO
When freshmen arrive at Yale, they’re the ones who install the systems. At random, Shay will call for a Coach Cameo and they have 48 hours to develop a plan. They meet with upperclassmen to learn the schematics of rides, clears, offense (6v6 and extra man), defense (6v6 and man-down), transition and substitution patterns. Then they run that part of the practice.
“They’ll fumble it and screw it up, and that’s OK,” Shay said. “The highest form of mastery is teaching. It’s much better than me trying to cram it down their throats.”
2. SPEED LACROSSE
Before every practice, even during the season, the Bulldogs play Casey Powell’s Speed Lacrosse. They set up the small, portable goals that come with the kit in an area that’s 40 feet long by 20 feet wide (with space left behind each goal) and play 4v4 with a tennis ball or squishy ball.
“They keep score. They set up teams. They set up the field. They shut down the field,” Shay said. “I don’t have anything to do with it.”
3. COUNTDOWN
The best coaches use station-based practices and timers to ensure equal opportunity at each station. Between drills at Yale, there’s a 10-second countdown to get players to hustle to the next station and eliminate costly transition time. Players oversee the countdown.
“They are to set and enforce the standards,” Shay said.
4. INTERVENTION
Shay intentionally has an upperclassman leave his locker messy or violate a team rule and puts the onus on a freshman to address the older player.
“It’s completely staged,” Shay said. “We’ll tell the younger guys, ‘Hey, are you going to allow this to go on?’ The older guys love being a part of it because they’ve gone through it themselves.”
5. PARAMETER SCRIMMAGING
When teammates hold each other accountable, leadership and culture will blossom. Establish parameters for your intrasquad scrimmage that will emphasize the standards you’ve set and leave it up to the players to police those standards. Step aside or ref the scrimmage and let them lead.
30-second setup: From the moment a team gains possession of the ball, they’ve got 30 seconds to clear the ball, sub, set up the offense and echo what offense they’re running.
Hustle points scrimmage: You get two points for a goal and one point for a hustle play like diving for a ball, soaking a shot or an endline run.
Pass Tally scrimmage: You get a point for every completed pass. This puts a premium on ball movement, clean exchanges and possession.
Narc scrimmage: Everything you do is up for judgment. Any violation of standards is a turnover or a lost point, and it’s called out by the opposing team. The score goes up and down.
“What we found is that guys would call their own team out,” Shay said of the first time Yale implemented narc scrimmage. “They weren’t trying to win the scrimmage. At that point, we knew we were onto something.”
