Erin Smith still has a copy of Bob Scott’s “Lacrosse: Technique and Tradition” sitting on top of a filing cabinet in her office. Her husband bought it for her as a gift — and as a bit of a joke. It’s the first book she found in a Pittsburgh library in 2000, when she looked to learn more about coaching women’s lacrosse.
Materials were hard to come by for coaches back then, and she knew that needed to change.
“My coaching background and experience was more in field hockey. I had played lacrosse, but not until college and at the club level,” Smith said. “So I thought if I’m in this situation, other people are also in that situation.”
Just days before Smith was hired at US Lacrosse in 2004, it released its first online courses for men’s and women’s coaches. She quickly became an integral part of the emergence of Coach Education Program (now Coach Development Program) — which served to create nationally standardized and accessible education for lacrosse.
What started as a program well ahead of its time has now expanded to provide three levels of certification, more than 100 in-person clinics each year taught by experienced coaches and professional educators, access to more than 1,500 online courses and videos, a mobile app geared toward coaches and a curriculum adapted to the Lacrosse Athlete Development Model.
The way coaches consume their information is vastly different than in 2004, but the quality of the Coach Development Program has not changed.
In a world where YouTube videos and Google help teach coaches, Smith said the Coach Development Program offers credibility.
“Now, I can find a breadth of ways to educate myself,” she said. “That has changed how we as developers of education have to approach the way people learn. … What US Lacrosse can do is provide the best of the best, but also put it together in some type of framework. If there’s no system or structure to how you get educated, you end up with gaps.”
The US Lacrosse Coach Development Program has dedicated itself to giving coaches the best instruction. It provides coaches with the tools to coach any athlete — fostering a player-centered coaching philosophy, even more so after explosion of the Lacrosse Athlete Development Model last year.
More coaches are joining the Coach Development Program movement than ever.
“The mission of the US Lacrosse Coach Development Program is simple — to provide the best-in-class programs, resources and standards to support the development of lacrosse coaches throughout the country,” said Kevin Greene, senior manager for the program. “With a passionate and dedicated team and our unparalleled access to the best minds in coaching, athlete development, medicine and education, we are able to provide critical resources to create and sustain a future that allows kids to have the best possible experience through the development of their coaches. Investing $55 each year for the last 10 years to maintain my US Lacrosse coach membership was and is the best thing I could do for the kids I coach.”
Open Minds
Some of the game’s biggest names have been a part of the Coach Development Program. Here are their experiences.
Chris Snyder
Director of Coaching Education
United States Olympic Committee
“Quality coaching is a coach that looks beyond the professional X’s and O’s. Somebody that is looking at the interpersonal relationship with athletes and then the intrapersonal relationship you have with your own core values. US Lacrosse’s program is built on those principles.”
Joanna Lignelli
Key Account Director, STX
CDP Trainer, Club Lacrosse Coach
“Every year, the program evolves to meet the needs of the game as it is currently being played, officiated and coached. It’s constantly evaluated based on learning, coaching and teaching styles. There have probably been 26 revisions. Once you have that open mindset, you’ll get so much out of this program no matter what level you’re in.”
Chuck Ruebling
U.S. U19 Men’s Assistant (’16)
Delbarton (N.J.) High School Coach
“What’s really lacking in the coaching profession is understanding the development levels of lacrosse. What can a beginning player handle developmentally versus someone who is 12 or 14? I’m an educator, and part of my job is to evaluate teachers and their pedagogical methods, and the [US Lacrosse] trainers were very pedagogically sound in their delivery.”
Denise Wescott
Director, Capital Lacrosse Club
Former Division I Women’s Coach (Monmouth, Mount St. Mary’s, Delaware)
“Coaching an athlete is different than playing. Our job as coaches is not just to simply perform the skill and inform. It’s about transforming lives.”
Wendy Kridel
National Director, Tenacity Project
Former U.S. U-19 Women Coach (’99, ’03, ’07)
“I loved personally getting to teach new coaches the game. I get juiced up about it. I’ve had a lot of wonderful successes in the win-loss category, and that is great, but to me I feel like I best assess my success as a coach on the number of kids that I have coached that are currently coaching. I take any and all methodology I can to encourage young women specifically to give back to the game. Being a certified trainer is just one way.”
CDP Timeline
2004
First Level 1 online course offered
2005
First Level 1 instructional clinic (12 trainers)
2007
Level 2 curriculum developed, online course offered (20 trainers)
2008
First Level 2 instructional clinic
2010
Training pool grows to 65 trainers
2013
Level 3 curriculum developed, first Level 3 instructional clinic
2014
Fundamentals of goalkeeping online courses launched (89 trainers)
2017
Training pool grows to 168 trainers
Mobile Coach
A free resource provided by US Lacrosse to its members, Mobile Coach provides access to more than 500 drills sorted by skill level, gender and age, with diagrams and videos on your iOS or Android device.
In addition, the app provides pre-built LADM aligned practice plans, practice planning functionality, white-boarding (iPad users only), and a host of other great resources.