Dear Iron Horse Youth Teams,

Welcome to Iron Horse.  We get started this weekend with team practices for 2032, 2031 Secretariat and 2030.  We will send more information via the Team Texas tryout registration on Wednesday about those events for 2027, 2028 and 2029.

After our partial/soft start this weekend we will have Labor Day weekend off and then really get into things the weekend of September 9th!  Hopefully by that time it will have at least gotten a bit cooler!

If you have a high school player as well, those players do not begin practices until September 19th.

If you ever want to look ahead in the schedule you can always do that by CLICKING HERE or the easier way to find the schedule is by going to our home page and clicking on the calendar graphic in the top left corner.  If you are on your phone it is the first thing that shows up when you go to the home page.  Sometimes on a mobile device it takes a second to load.

All of our practices are at Jesuit College Preparatory School 12345 Inwood Road Dallas, TX 75244 on either the turf or the grass fields.  Sometimes we will use the baseball field later in the season so we can utilize the lights.  

For the grass practices, please park in the new parking lot across Willow labelled Anderson Lot on the campus map attached and walk over to the grass field by crossing Willow at the crosswalk.  PLEASE DO NOT EVER PULL INTO THE GATE THAT LEADS TO THE GRASS FIELD.  That parking is for coaches and Jesuit personnel and although tempting if the gate is open,  it is not to be used by parents.  Thank you for your help with this matter as it is dangerous with all of the kids running around at any given time on the grass fields!   I have attached a link to the facility map below.  

For the stadium turf practices please park in the main school lot labelled Main Parking on the map.  

In the event that Jesuit asks us to park in a specific area on certain days, that information will be shared in either email or our GameChanger team app.  

All of you are getting bombarded with emails right now I know.  A few things email related that I wanted to touch on:

1.  These website emails can go to spam, get blocked, etc.  On my end I cannot help with getting you on my website email list.  The parent that registered will need to go into their account on our website and check communication settings.   One work around I have is I will always add the link to my weekly website emails in your GameChanger app.  

2.  Please make sure you email your coach directly about missing events.  Your coaches are the ones that need to know if you will be at your practices and we just want to make sure they get notified about absences.  

We are going to be using the GameChanger app for all Iron Horse teams this year.  Email has become a more and more unreliable way to communicate with spam issues and this will connect you directly with your team and coaches.  You will be getting an invite to join the team later this week so please accept that and download the GREEN GAMECHANGER app if you do not already have it.  Your invites may come from Lisa Kirkpatrick which is not a name you all are familiar with so I wanted to make sure you knew it was not spam.  

As many of your know, Iron Horse was asked to test the lacrosse part of the GameChanger app late last fall and also test the livestream/film component of the app.  This year we are switching all teams to GameChanger.  To use the film/livestreaming function it does take a team volunteer so let me know if you would be interested in doing that for your team.  I have the necessary equipment!

UNIFORMS

When and how do we get our uniforms?  This is probably the single biggest question I get when we start the season.  

Uniforms will be ordered this week so if you have any last minute size request changes please let me know by tomorrow.  They are shipped directly to us and we sort them by team and hand them out at a practice.  Expect them to take about 6 weeks.  

TEAMLAX SPRIT STORE: DUE SETEMBER 5TH

Optional spiritwear, helmets (+ decals) and gloves are at Team Lax in Frisco.  They have set up an online store that closes on September 5th.  Ricky is adding more items this week to the store!   Everything will be shipped directly to you once the order is processed.  Do you have questions about the Team Lax store?  Please contact Ricky at rickybrown0509@gmail.com or call (469) 362 8529.

CLICK HERE FOR THE TEAM LAX STORE

LAXGEAR LACROSSE BAG STORE: DUE AUGUST 30TH

CLICK HERE FOR THE LAXGEAR BAG STORE  You will need to use the password IronHorse 

The bag options are the Mega Bag, or the Lax Pack in Navy.  These bags are great for air travel but the Mega is the only one that will fit a short shaft.  I can't say enough about these bags.  In the 18 years of organizing lacrosse teams, I can honestly say this is the only vendor I have not changed and I have changed ALOT of vendors over the years.  

These bags are ordered directly from LaxGear and then shipped to your home.  Do you have questions?  Please reach out to Aaron at laaveg@laxgear.com.  

Regards,

Tiffany Surran