Hello Iron Horse Family,

It has been great to get practices up and running and getting the band back together.  Our family has grown this summer and we have added some wonderful players and families in Austin.  We are ecstatic they are part of the family.  For those that are new to us, the core mission of our organization is player development through skill work. This philosophy runs against the current culture of youth sports in this country and in the state of Texas, in particular.  The emphasis of many youth sports organizations and teams in the US is winning games first and foremost. As a result, you will see many youth sports teams spend hours upon hours working on plays or team schemes.  In the short term that may produce wins, especially against teams that are disorganized but in the long run the kids have a hard time progressing into elite players because they lack proper fundamentals, skills and creativity. 

At a practice recently, I overheard a mom ask another parent why we never work on  “plays” in practice.  She was new to the organization and was very familiar with youth football.  I was so proud of the other parent when I heard his answer,  “you will rarely see them work on plays because they will drill the kids in skills and small sided games so the kids get more repetitions and touches on the ball”. He then told the mom, “their primary goal at the youth level is not to win games but to make sure the kids are competitive in the games showing continual improvement in their skills”.   I literally almost turned around and hugged the guy.   Remember, especially at the youth level, this is a marathon and not a sprint. If your child continually focuses on skill development and general lacrosse knowledge they will be able to have a wonderful high school career and maybe, if the athleticism is present, a career at the college level.  We will help them get there if that’s what they want to do and we will have a lot of fun along the way. 

So many times in these youth tournaments you will see teams win just because they are bigger than the other team or they have one massive kid just running over smaller kids.  That only lasts for so long and eventually the team that is more skilled wins more times than not.  Please understand that as coaches, we want to win every game. …..in everything but we realize doing what is in the best interest of the kids is most important.  Focusing on skill development is in the kids’ best interests and will enable them to have more fun with the game and go further with it.  To be honest, if our philosophy was focused on anything else, you would be wasting money. 

I look forward to meeting all of you and can’t thank you enough for your participation in the program.  Let’s go Horse!

Chris Surran