The Scoop – Practice
I really value practice. If you’re in our Team 91 Charlotte program, you have an idea of how much it means to me. You’ve probably seen a passive aggressive (or outright aggressive) message from me over the last few years about getting to practice. We even take attendance during certain times of year!
Practice is important and we put a lot of effort into creating the best environment possible for our players to improve. We plan out every second of every practice and training session. We make sure practices are appropriately staffed and we expect that our coaches are bringing energy and teaching every day. We hold our players to a high standard with regard to attendance and expect that they are always making a reasonable effort to get to what they can get to and giving a great effort when they are there.
I also believe that the practice environment we have created, how we run training and how many opportunities we give players to train has helped boys from the Carolinas close the gap with the rest of the country. I’ll save it for another version of The Scoop but if you were to look at US Club Lax rankings, for what they are worth, our 91 Charlotte boy’s teams are right in the mix with all the best clubs in the country. Every one of our “Blue” teams is in the top 50 teams in the country and they are all the top teams in the Carolinas at their respective age. No other clubs – boys or girls – in the Carolinas can say that.
One very discouraging trend in club lacrosse is programs practicing less. I may be the dumbest guy in club lacrosse because we’re going the other way and practicing more lately!
If you talk to parents – boys or girls – around the Carolinas, more and more club programs are practicing 1-2x per week. For perspective, every one of our teams is currently practicing 3 times per week and some are 4 times! Our 2030 White team practiced 4 nights last week. Our 2031 Blue team will practice 4 nights this week. This all comes after our teams went 2-3x per week in December and January then practices almost every Sunday throughout the Spring.
Last week, I was sent a girl’s practice schedule for the Summer. Her youth team started practicing in mid-May and will practice about 4-5 times before her tournaments start. That’s not a lot.
By comparison, our youth guys will be at about 15+ team practices this Spring before they take the field for their first event. Again… every one of our 91 CLT teams is practicing 3-4x per week leading up to their tournaments. When you expand that over the season, that’s a HUGE gap in development time on the field!
Looking outside of Charlotte at other programs in club lacrosse:
MadLax will practice 5 times this summer.
M&D will practice about 7-8 times
Sweetlax Florida will do a 2-3 day training camp.
Laxxachusetts will practice 5-6 times.
Baltimore Crabs will practice 8-10 times.
West Coast Starz will not practice this summer
For perspective, most of our 91 Charlotte teams are going to practice about 15-20 times this Summer. While the teams above are very good, they are not practicing and developing players like we are. It’s what has allowed our teams to perform at a high level against teams from all over the country.
This is also all before you look at the quality of practice. I’d confidently put what we do up against any club in the country.
While a lot of club lacrosse programs are cutting practices and raising prices, we’re going the other way. We’re practicing a ton! When you look across the Fall and Winter, the gap of how much we train versus what other clubs do gets even bigger and it’s allowed our players to get even better.
I’m biased but I think we have a pretty good thing going and our practice environment is a big reason why.
If you have a son or daughter interested in getting better, we’d love to see them at our upcoming 2026/2027 Team 91 Charlotte tryouts.
While boys can learn more here.
We hope to see them on a field soon.
Ryan Flanagan