Coaching Young Lacrosse Players through Game Day Anxiety

Daniel J. Mannix is the vice president of an international probate research firm and has been coaching lacrosse for over three decades. With experience coaching in 10 states, Daniel J. Mannix is currently a coach with the West Coast Starz program and the Under Armour American West team.

Lacrosse, like any spectator sport, can produce anxiety for players on game days. As a result, many coaches recognize how important it is to address pregame jitters beyond just a brief pep talk. To help players focus better, it helps to set process-oriented expectations beforehand. No player is going to perform perfectly throughout a match, but as long as key milestones in the player’s process are reached, it’s an opportunity for growth. Framing success in terms of a process helps remove some of the anxiety associated with winning and losing.

Also, coaches can encourage players to create rituals and routines that help them focus. Many professional athletes use simple rituals to get in the right mindset and clear their minds. The role of these rituals should be to exclude distractions and previous performances and focus on how to best help the team at the moment.

What is Lacrosse Sharks and Minnows?

Daniel J. Mannix leverages over three decades of estate resolution to inform his role as a vice president and chief operations officer at a leading probate solutions provider in Utah. Although he enjoys soccer, football, skiing, and golf, Daniel J. Mannix is most involved with the sport of lacrosse as a coach and mentor.

Lacrosse players engage in a variety of drills to hone their skills from catching and cradling to shooting, passing, and defense. Moreover, a variety of fun games give young players a chance to improve basic lacrosse skills.

One such game, Sharks and Minnows, divides a team up into either “sharks” or “minnows”. The minnows try to make it from one side of the field to the other while cradling a ball in their stick. Alternatively, the sharks try to knock the ball out. The game begins with all the minnows trying to cross the field at the same time, and each minnow that loses their ball becomes a shark. The game ends when only one minnow remains.

How Field Lacrosse Differs from Box Lacrosse

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Upon completing a bachelor's degree in history at Emory University, Daniel J. Mannix joined a Salt Lake City, Utah-based probate solutions company and has since worked for more than 30 years with the company in an executive capacity. An experienced lacrosse coach, Daniel J. Mannix has coached multiple high-performance youth programs, including the West Coast Starz and Utah Starz Elite.

In the United States, lacrosse is generally played outside on a 110-yard field with 10 players per side. Teams have three attackers, three midfielders, three defenders, and one goalkeeper on the field at all times. However, box lacrosse is a variation of the sport that is popular in Canada as well as in areas in the US where weather conditions limit the length of time fields can be in use. Coach Daniel J. Mannix coached several Canadian players with the Rocky Mountain Starz including Myles Hamm (Harvard) and Caelahn Bullen (Cornell).

While player skills are transferable between field and box lacrosse, the two games are dramatically different. In contrast to field lacrosse, box lacrosse is usually played in an ice hockey rink that has had its ice removed. There are also only six players, including the goalkeeper, on the floor for each team at any given time. Box lacrosse also involves a 30-second shot clock and requires players, particularly goalkeepers, to wear more protective gear. In terms of the sticks, in box lacrosse the players' sticks are shorter.