Mentality

Thinking Inside the Crease

Chris K. Buck

Oran Gelinas

“You must work on strengths and weaknesses in order to move up the pyramid” (Buck 60). As a goalie in a lacrosse game or any position in any sport, in order to move up the pyramid -the various levels of development- you must work on strengths and weaknesses. “It takes SO MANY hours of practice in order to play at the next level.” (Buck 52). For me, it’s high school varsity but it still requires hard-work like someone trying to play in the pros or a 9-year-old trying out for his club team. The other levels to the pyramid are passing/catching/ground balls, position-based fundamentals, understanding team offense/defense, game scenarios (Rides/clears), composure, mastery of skills, and improvisation and creativity. “Take responsibility for ALL shots that go in.” (Buck 64). Taking responsibility is another problem for goalies that is covered in this book. Goalies often blame their defense for not sliding or the mid-fielders for dropping a pass on the clear leading to a 1-on-1. It may have put on odds against you but it’s still a goalies job to stop the ball no matter the circumstances. Another chapter in this book is about the Downward Spiral; it “is when you let in a couple goals (without making any saves), then another, and so on, and so on…” (Buck 74) The downward spiral happens to goalies all the time and feels as if you are trapped and there’s no way to get out of the slump. You always need to focus on the next shot because you can’t go back and change the ones that you already let in. The next shot is all that matters.

There are many challenges a lacrosse goalie faces. The mental challenges can be a huge deciding factor in the game yet one of the most overlooked. As a Lacrosse goalie myself, I think this book is very helpful. As goalies, we aren’t taught how to deal with the mental challenges like the downward spiral or having a lot of confidence in the cage which are really important things. Getting a good warm-up -before a game or practice when you take some shots to get the blood flowing and feet moving- is really important and you want to make sure you get a good warmup that will get you ready to play. This book is a must-have tool for learning how to cope with mental challenges. It goes into great detail about every single interference or mental challenge you will face and how to deal with it. Another great point of this book is that the end of every chapter has a recap. It covers the main topics of the chapter and what is important. If you struggle with a certain interference, you can read the chapter and study the recap of what is most important. One of the points of recap in the chapter “Tryouts and Showcases” was “Play each game like you’re playing for your high school team” (Buck 116) There are about five points in the recap which shortened down a few pages which is a feature of the book that I think is a great idea by the author to integrate into his book. I recommend this book a lot to any other lacrosse goalie or goalie for that matter because it is not just a book, but an excellent practice and training tool. I take a new skill from this book each week and try to work on it daily. These skills have greatly increased my performance in net because I improving on parts of my mental game like trying not to fall into the downward spiral. I found myself getting into that in a practice and I focused on getting out of it. Lacrosse and sports aren’t just physical but there is also a huge mental portion so you need to practice your mentality too.