The Four Components to a Successful Season in Chicago
Congratulations!
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OPRF JV GIRLS LACROSSE
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Congratulations! 🥍 OPRF JV GIRLS LACROSSE 🥍
This year was a big year in Chicago at Oak Park River Forest High School for coach Ryan Magnuson and the JV girl's lacrosse team.
Ryan is the assistant coach and offensive coordinator for the JV team, and he works side by side with the head coach for the JV team, Sarah Wagner, who loves to coach defense. The pair work well together.
The OPRF squad had a very successful season this spring as defined by the record, stats, and most importantly, culture and relationships.
They had 19 players on the roster, including one senior, two juniors, six sophomores, and ten freshmen. The team ended their season 15-2 with 182 goals for and 83 goals against. However, the team defined their season with four themes:
1% Better Every Day
Hard Hat Effort
All Gas No Brakes
Tight Family
Below, Ryan breaksdown how each theme worked. Here is his direct quote:
"Behind these themes are many concepts, strategies, tactics, and drills from WLD and the Circle Up community. The information & knowledge sharing in the months leading up to and during our spring season was tremendously helpful to the staff and team.
💚 1% Better Every Day - This was our mantra at the beginning of the season. Its purpose was to ground our team in improving little by little every day and that little by little, a little becomes a lot. Whether you knew it at the time - this mindset began in the offseason, both in formal team workouts and in your own workouts. The foundation of any team is always built in the months before the season - when no one is watching or cheering. It's the weekend mornings getting bruised from shots; it's overcoming the frustrations with playing in your weak hand; it's tough workout after tough workout. Our team's success was built on the foundation that "each of you built before we were a team."
💚 Hard Hat Effort - At the beginning of the season, we all read the Hard Hat (by Jon Gordon), which gave us 21 ways to be a good teammate. This idea came from a coach in the Circle Up community. The general summary of the book is that being a good teammate starts with putting on the hard hat and going to work. Early in the season, we had to learn what Hard Hat Effort meant: It didn't mean just showing up, playing in the cold, or winning a game. It meant competing and hustling and constantly dialing in to get better. We dialed in competition at practice using two go-to drills—Tiger GBs (from Hopkins) and Waterfall, which is a build-up to a 4v4. To reinforce the Hard Hat Effort concept, we got a hard hat and painted it our team color, burnt orange. We awarded the Hard Hat to the practice player of the week every week. I'm proud to say that it got harder and harder every week to figure out who deserved it most.
💚 All Gas No Brakes - I didn't think we had the competitive edge in the first week or so of our season. If we couldn't compete with ourselves, how would we play against our tough opponents, Lane Tech or St Ignatius? Well, we won our first game 16-1 and the second game was much closer but we always held control and won 7-5. Despite the wins, I was still not convinced. How would we do when momentum was not on our side? How would we handle adversity? Our Head Coach Sarah introduced the expectation "All Gas No Brakes," which became the standard we set for each player. Our coaching goal was to make each of our players humble and hungry and know that we would out hustle our opponents to the last minute regardless of the score.
There were games we won but our All Gas No Brakes expectation was not met and we made sure that no one went home satisfied. As coaches, we had to commit to the standard. It would have been easier to celebrate those wins. Our players thought we were nuts, and we certainly had our doubts. However, the lesson paid off. We became an excellent 1st half team and an even better second-half team.
But here was the real point that we hit home. Talent is never enough, and real success is about continuous effort. Take nothing for granted and never get outworked. In practice, we used many of Emily Boisseneault's defense drills to give the defense confidence and challenge our attackers to overcome defensive advantage. We built these concepts into our small-sided games and into 7v7 play that we ended each practice.
💚 Tight Family - Early in the season, in our pre-game huddles, we would say Tight Family. To us, this meant getting shoulder to shoulder in a tight circle. As the season went on, it took on a different meaning. We didn't need to ask the team to form a tight circle; we were already there. Tight Family was a reminder that we trusted each other to work hard and do what was needed for our team. However, that trust didn't just occur because of wins. We worked our culture into our daily plans. We used many ideas from the Kristyna Templeton, Liz Beville and Janine Tucker sessions (check ins, team building activities) to build bonds across friend groups. We encouraged our defense to bond as a unit off-field. We challenged our attackers to bond in competition against defense. The culture work is what made our team and our season a success."
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A major congratulations to Ryan, Sarah & the entire Oak Park River Forest High School JV Team!
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