Randolph College Women's Lacrosse: A Summer Coaching Experience

I am Taylor Klevenz a Senior Captain on the Randolph College Women’s Lacrosse team. Our team is full of players with different life aspirations such as doctors, teachers and nurses. Ever since I was a little kid I was always outside playing sport’s which has had a big impact on why my personal life aspiration is to become a Head Women’s Lacrosse Coach. This past summer I was offered an opportunity coaching for a travel team, Ultimate Lacrosse. Ultimate Lacrosse is a high level travel program located in Pennsylvania. They have team ranging from sixth grade to twelfth grade. I was the coach of the sixth and seventh grade team. I have coached in the past for small clinics and JAB lacrosse in Lynchburg,Virginia but this was my great learning opportunity because it was my first experience being a Co-Coach of my very own team. Joining me on this coaching experience was KarlaAne; a graduate from Chestnut Hill College.Practices were held twice a week.

Practice planning was something that was new to me and I quickly realized that I needed to be strategic as well as put the time into developing practice. I learned that planning practice is a lot more difficult than I had imagined. I came to realize that it is really important to make sure to incorporate drills that will benefit your team on their strengths and weaknesses. Since my team did not have the best stick skills I made sure to include a lot of wall ball, passing and dodges. With this being a young age group, I knew with practice I wanted to stick to the fundamentals of lacrosse. One of my favorite practices was when I brought water balloons to practice to have the girls learn how to give with the ball. Using water balloons is a good idea for this age group because it keeps them interested and focused on not breaking the balloon but at the same time they are learning how to give with their sticks. Seeing the improvement of their stick skills from the first practice to the last was one of my biggest accomplishments of coaching.

My team went to tournaments every weekend for two months out of the summer. Attending tournaments was my favorite thing about coaching. I got to travel to different places such as New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and one tournament even took place in my hometown Cherry Hill, New Jersey. A typical day at the tournaments starts off with registering your team. Once everyone is registered we can start warming up, which usually consist of a warm up lap, stretching, shuttles and three v twos to goal. We would play around three to four games in a day. Each game would last an hour thirty minute halves with a five minute half time. While we had breaks the girl’s parents would have a tailgate set up for them with food and drinks. This was a good place to rest and refuel throughout the day. The tournaments had a great atmosphere and we were able to be surrounded by lacrosse all day long. One of the best experiences was when we played in our first tournament, The Round Up which took place in Downingtown, Pennsylvania and we went undefeated on the weekend. As coaches we were very happy to have gone undefeated in our first coaching experience and it gave the girls confidence going into the rest of the summer.

Part of my responsibility at the tournaments was to be in charge of making substitutions during the games. Since we had a young age group everyone was guaranteed playing time. I still had to make important decisions during close games of who should be taking the draw or having our best defenders and attackers on the field. This was a key aspect in some of our wins. There was a lot of pressure to make these decisions but towards the end of the summer I found out what girls worked well together. This taught me an important aspect of coaching, knowing your team.

Overall this coaching experience really opened my eyes to a lot of new aspects to coaching. Watching the girls develop into better lacrosse players and knowing I helped make that possible was one of the most satisfying feelings. It was hard work and required long days and hours of planning but it was all worth it to see the smile on my teams face after a big win. From planning practices to subbing on the fly there is nothing else I can picture myself doing than coaching the sport I love.