New to lacrosse. What skills does a player need to be successful?

[Anonymous]

Child switched from a different travel sport.

[Anonymous]

Depends on which position, but generally: Strong runner with good balance. Hand eye coordination. Upper body strength.

[Anonymous]

If your child is an athlete then as long as they get their stick work in everyday they will catch-up quickly. Basketball is the best complimentary sport, followed by football and soccer.

[Anonymous]

Catch and throw!!!!!!!

The fundamentals of the sport.

Without that there is nothing.

[Anonymous]

lacrosse is much harder than it looks- stick skills are essential.
hit the wall.
practice working with bad passes
also lax IQ is important -just watching DD high school team the younger players always got too anxious with the ball and made bad shots turning over the ball.

[Anonymous]

Needs to be older, have them repeat a grade or two.

[Anonymous]

Speed, strength, and willingness to run through contact

[Anonymous]

I think that it would be helpful to know if this was Boys or Girls- similar skill sets BUT many different ones too. Age too!

[Anonymous]

The stick skills and game are IQ are easily learned. I am a former D1 player and current HS coach, so please believe me when I say these two things are the most essential, and neither can really be learned. #1: Speed. #2: Size--for girls that means tall, for guys that means tall and large. I don't the boys side as well, but I promise you, for girls, if a player lacks with speed or size, they will not be a great player. They can play well enough, but will not be serious D1 bound. Yes, unfortunately, girls lacrosse basically comes down to genetics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The stick skills and game are IQ are easily learned. I am a former D1 player and current HS coach, so please believe me when I say these two things are the most essential, and neither can really be learned. #1: Speed. #2: Size--for girls that means tall, for guys that means tall and large. I don't the boys side as well, but I promise you, for girls, if a player lacks with speed or size, they will not be a great player. They can play well enough, but will not be serious D1 bound. Yes, unfortunately, girls lacrosse basically comes down to genetics.

I think your definition of "successful" may be slightly different than OPs.

[Anonymous]

Yeah in terms of becoming an elite player, say from 8th grade on, for boys size and speed swamp everything else. Average athletes with good stick skills do well in the elementary years. But for high school and beyond it is really about athleticism. Stick skills are easily learned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah in terms of becoming an elite player, say from 8th grade on, for boys size and speed swamp everything else. Average athletes with good stick skills do well in the elementary years. But for high school and beyond it is really about athleticism. Stick skills are easily learned.

Clearly this is a dad post from a non player. Stick skills take hours and years, great athletes without stick skills cannot play this game. All the kids at the elite level have speed, size really depends on position, lots of great players who were not huge. Stick skills and lacrosse IQ are key. Some kids are just ballers.

[Anonymous]

one thing I wish we had done for my DD was to emphasize building upper arm and body strength and core. Looking back I think we should have encouraged them to do swimming in the summers which would have helped with that and with core strength as well.

Running sprints would have been helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah in terms of becoming an elite player, say from 8th grade on, for boys size and speed swamp everything else. Average athletes with good stick skills do well in the elementary years. But for high school and beyond it is really about athleticism. Stick skills are easily learned.

Clearly this is a dad post from a non player. Stick skills take hours and years, great athletes without stick skills cannot play this game. All the kids at the elite level have speed, size really depends on position, lots of great players who were not huge. Stick skills and lacrosse IQ are key. Some kids are just ballers.

Another lifelong, D1 lacrosse player here. Lacrosse stick skills are super easy to learn, seriously. Those saying they aren't are the ones who obviously never played. Athleticism, specifically speed and size, are the key. Without those, don't bother.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah in terms of becoming an elite player, say from 8th grade on, for boys size and speed swamp everything else. Average athletes with good stick skills do well in the elementary years. But for high school and beyond it is really about athleticism. Stick skills are easily learned.

Clearly this is a dad post from a non player. Stick skills take hours and years, great athletes without stick skills cannot play this game. All the kids at the elite level have speed, size really depends on position, lots of great players who were not huge. Stick skills and lacrosse IQ are key. Some kids are just ballers.

Another lifelong, D1 lacrosse player here. Lacrosse stick skills are super easy to learn, seriously. Those saying they aren't are the ones who obviously never played. Athleticism, specifically speed and size, are the key. Without those, don't bother.

Not buying it. No lifelong D1 lacrosse player would ever post that. The rest of us just know.