NS Coach Newsletter Vol 2(9) October, 2013

NS Coach Newsletter Vol 2(9) October, 2013
Volume: 2 Edition (9)
Posted: Tuesday, October 28th, 2013
All Newsletters available at www.laxcoachns.blogspot.ca

News: “Professional Development and YOU!”
Did you attend the Atlantic Coaching Conference this past year or coach a team or complete an NCCP module like, “Making Head Way in Sport”? If yes to any or all, starting in 2014, the Coaching Association of Canada (CAC) will give Certified Competitive Introduction coaches credit for attending these professional development (PD) events. And don’t think lacrosse is the only one who has figured out that life-long learning greatly benefits all our athletes, not just the high performance achievers.

The CAC is helping every sport across Canada to formalize the number of points Certified Comp Intro coaches will acquire and the time period, or cycle, with which to complete the total number of PD points. At the CLA coaching sector meeting held in Toronto last week, the committee recommended that CLA adopt a five year cycle in which coaches would achieve 20 points.

Professional development can come in many forms in the way of NCCP modules, sport specific clinics or sport related sessions like sport psychology or nutrition. As points for these events vary, CAC has set up a points matrix which can be viewed in the following PDF file (pages 9-14, points matrix table on pg 14: http://www.coach.ca/files/NCCP_Policies_ImplementationStandards_Jan2013.pdf )

In the future Certified Competitive Development coaches (the next step after Comp Intro) will work towards 30 points in the five year period. At this time, CLA is still putting the final touches on the Comp Dev program and plans to offer two of these clinics in 2014, roughly January and March next year.

News: “Team Nova Scotia Head Coaches”
Reminder that the Team Nova Scotia Head Coach application deadline is only days away, Friday, November 1st. If you have not received or require the Process and Application documents, please forward an email as soon as possible to lacrossetechdirector@sportnovascotia.ca . Like last year, applications will be accepted up to 5pm.

Teams requiring Head Coaches for 2014 include: Girls’ (box) bantam, midget and juniors; Boys (box) peewee, bantam, midget and Founders; and, men’s field U16 and U19. If you are interested in coaching any of the other potential provincial teams (eg. President’s Cup), please state your intentions, and submit your application, before November 1st.

Technical Director’s “My 2 Cents”

It just makes sense to me that we divide our box and field divisions into age groups, but after spending two very intense days working on CLA’s new skills matrix table last week in Toronto, the LTAD stage categories do better help coaches deal with gender and life stage development versus date of births. A case in point: Last January I posted the LTAD skills “wheel” diagrams on our blog, www.laxcoachns.blogspot.ca . The five wheels are separated by the age groups we use in box lacrosse, tyke to midget. What I wasn’t able to accommodate was the needs of female box lacrosse players because some of their guidelines run between the age divisions.

A quick review of the LTAD groupings:

Active Start – G & B 0-6 years MiniTyke: 4-6
Fundamentals – G 6-7 B 6-10 Tyke:Novice 7-8:9-10
Learning 2 Train – G 8-10 B 10-12 Peewee 11-12
Training 2 Train – G 11-14 B 12-16 Bantam 13-14
Learning & Training 2 Compete - G 15-21+ B 16-23+ Midget:Jr 15-16:17-21
Learning & Training 2 Win - G & B 17+ Senior & Pro
G=Girls, B=Boys

So at a quick glance, you can see that the box age divisions don’t fit neatly into the LTAD scheme which reflects “physical, mental and emotional capacities in athletes according to scientifically-recognized principles and stages of human development”. A great point raised last week while reviewing the miss-matches, what if a set of standards with measurable criteria were available to group players into their LTAD divisions? Certainly for boys at the peewee stage where height and weights seem to range the most, this plan could bear fruit. But lets get back to reality, that ain’t going to happen.
So what to do? Well, it was the committee’s job to identify every technical and tactical skill related to box lacrosse (men’s and women’s field to come) and create a delivery path for each skill based on INTRO, DEVELOP, REFINE and PERFECT (Each of these where also divided into three more divisions). These four pathway divisions were then spread across the LTAD divisions, which could mean that a single delivery division could span several LTAD divisions. An example: Scooping’s DEVELOP division spans Fundamentals to Learn 2 Train.

At this point the KISS rule (Keep It Simple Stupid) and our rapidly expanding skills matrix table seem to be at odds, but the key for every box coach is to know when a skill needs to be introduced, when its complexity needs to be enhanced and/or incorporated into game tactics and making sure players reach the appropriate skill level related to the highest standards and/or measurable levels for a specific LTAD division.

To put the highest standards in perspective of their impact, my first thought was National competition. However, listening to Ontario’s technical director, their apex is easily the NLL. Imagine then if we backtracked using my standard versus Ontario’s to the level of our peewee provincial and select teams.

To really go out on a limb here, what if we box coaches took charge and set one evening a week to novice, peewee and bantam divisions during the month of April at Rocky Lake Dome? An example: All novice teams and coaches meet every Tuesday evening for one-and-a-half hours (Three-hours if two sessions are required). Over three to four weeks, coaches and players review the basics and introduce all technical skills up to the level recommended by the present LTAD suggestions. For peewee and novice, basic tactical skills could also be reviewed. As players went through “basic training”, coaches could develop and refine their teaching skills with the help of more experienced coaches and work towards NCCP Comm Dev standards.

Another great reason for doing this is that the CLA coaching sector is working towards removing the workbook requirements for Comm Dev. We could kill two birds with one stone: Review basics for players and get them up to game speed before May 1st league play and more conveniently move coaches through the NCCP Comm Dev coaching process/manual (Completely admit to ripping off Wayne Finck’s coaching clinic “module” idea).

The Metro Minor Lacrosse League took a great step in grouping tyke and novice games last year, which absolutely helped the development of new tyke players and coaches. As technical director it was great to sit down and watch four or five novice games in a row, but as much as the MMLL wanted to help develop novice coaches, more focus had to be placed on the newer referees, who received great on-the-spot game feedback. The novice game schedule did not allow group coaching sessions like the tyke’s program, but perhaps we now have a time and a place to change that.

News: “Tips From The Crease”

“Get Coaching!”

The following link (www.coach.ca/get-coachings16572) says it all in its first paragraph, “Is this your first year of coaching, and you have no clue what to do? Or, perhaps you've been a coach for a couple of years, but know that there are still some things you could learn about planning your practices? Packed with tips, tools, and resources you can download, these FREE tutorials will set you up for success!”

OK, betting you have some sort of clue as to what coaching is about, but who hasn’t come out of a NCCP Comm Dev clinic and felt a bit overwhelmed or wished there was time to go into more depth on certain topics. Certainly for those looking to beef up their practice plans, the Get Coaching site is a great resource, whether you’re coaching lacrosse or any other sport.

News: “Next Month”

Keep track of up-coming events on LNSS’s website newslider and calendar.

 Team Nova Scotia Head Coach ApplicationDeadline, Nov. 1st

 Petro-Can Sport Leadership Sportif, Nov. 7th-9th, Calgary

 LNSS AGM, Nov. 9th See Website

 CLA AGM, Nov. 15th-17th, St. Johns

 Free Learning Facilitator modules (LF), Nov. 29th

“Players should expect the best - We can deliver”