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Lax Link-O-Rama!

Lax Link-o-rama

Another week has passed you by.  How much wall ball did you play?  Not enough, probably.  That’s the boat I’m in anyway!

Denver Head Lacrosse Coach, Bill Tierney, has been all over the news this fall what with his monumental decision to leave Princeton after a long and accomplished run, hiring his highly qualified son as his assistant and recently being named as Lacrosse Magazine’s Person of the Year.  In a very synergistic move, Lax.com released a really solid article on breaking down defensive concepts and how Tierney was behind the most complete overhaul of team defensive theory college lacrosse has ever seen.  For newer coaches, the ideas laid out in the article will generate a whole slew of new questions but will, in the end, be very beneficial.

And for those of you that are curious what kind of a program Tierney wants to run out in Denver, look no further than this Westsidelax.com article.  As usual, Tierney is being conservative.

Lacrosse Magazine Person of the Year Bill Tierney (via US Lacrosse)
Lacrosse Magazine Person of the Year Bill Tierney (via US Lacrosse)

I think Tierney is an absolute top notch coach.  His kids graduate on time, do some pretty impressive things after graduating and before that, they win games.  Lots of them.  I don’t think there is another active coach in Men’s Lacrosse that can really rival him right now, especially when you throw players’ academic success and coaching longevity into the equation.  If you look to the Women’s game, you might not find a coach just like Tierney, but there is a woman at a Midwestern, top tier academic institution that is doing amazing work right now.  Her numbers speak for themselves.  She’s also picking up some awards of her own and was Lacrosse Magazine’s 2008 Person of the Year.

The NLL season is right around the corner and training camps are ramping up.  A lot of Americans don’t know a ton about Boxla so IL has been running through their top 50 players.  You may not recognize a lot of the names on the list but these guys can ball.  If you want to get a solid lax jones going this winter make sure to go to NLL.com and look for their NLL Network links.  You can watch entire games right from the comfort of your laptop!  Could be worse…

IL also dropped Pre-season All-Americans, Top 20 Predictions and all conference lists for NCAA Divisions 1, 2 and 3.  Check it out, store some of the names away as players to watch and then forget about it.  Pre-season lists mean very little and while anyone can get caught up in arguing about meaningless rankings, I try not to.  But usually fail.

LPG chats with lacrosse legend, Jesse Hubbard (wow, even more Princeton in today’s post!), about stringing, traditional, mesh and how each has benefits.  It’s a candid interview and any young player should read it to understand why knowing your way around the want is important.

You saw our review of College Lacrosse 2010, right? Now check out Kotaku’s sweet review that was published this morning!

As Winter continues to descend on the lacrosse nation, I’m sure you’re thinking about your cable packages.  Consider adding CBS College Sports if you don’t already have it because they will be showcasing a good deal of college lax… they’ll even show Navy play FOUR times!

Looks like I’ll be going down to play in the Miami Bump and Grind Tourney.  And the New Orleans Mardis Gras Tourney.  I’m pretty pumped about both.  Looks like I’ll be playing with STX/StrikerDanger in Miami and with the New Orleans Lacrosse Club (with my brother who lives down there) in the Big Easy.  We’ll provide coverage just so you know what’s good.  Now who wants video?

Keep it laxxxy.

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About the Author:
After helping to start the program at Weston HS in Massachusetts, Connor Wilson went on to play at Wesleyan University for a 4-year career playing defense. Post-college, Wilson stayed on and coached at Wesleyan for 2 years. He also played in Australia and the American Lacrosse League for teams in CT and MA. Currently Wilson plays for the Southampton Lacrosse Club in NYC and enjoys dyeing lacrosse sticks, eating breakfast sandwiches and having a really pretentious bio on LAS.