Major MCLA coaching news. More Nike gear arrives. Jared Allen approved moccasins. Let’s Lax.

Harrison Joins Chapman

Initial reaction. Great for Chapman. Bad for Whittier. In other words, good for the MCLA, bad for the NCAA.

Why?

Because, he is the first brand name player of his era that has entered the coaching ranks.

To us that means he has decided to give back in a greater capacity than four day camps or outrageously priced private lessons.

Took a step back and thought, “well, Chapman probably offered more money than Whittier could if they even wanted him around.”

Makes sense. Whittier has to raise money for airfare for almost every game. They likely have limited funds to bring in a celebrity assistant coach.

Then we got really cynical and thought, “dear God, if Harrison tries to teach those kids how to shoot on the run the program is doomed.”

Then we read the interview over at LAS and things became clear.

He isn’t a full time coach. It’s part time because he’s busy with Nike and STX which means he’ll be with those companies on the weekend promoting at college games and Chapman during the week.

Having a great D1 player around can only help your club team right? That’s assuming he knows how to coach.

This comment was made by “SELC  y’all” on LAS, who seems to be concerned with the attention the hire is receiving:

Interesting that this is seen as a big deal. If he’s only going to be there part time, and just at practices, will he really make a big impact? It sounds like he’s been with the team pretty regularly for the past year or two. How is this different? Is he even a good coach? There’s a lot more to coaching than being a good player.

As he said himself, he’s been pretty busy with all of his other commitments. How much time has he spent learning to be a coach? It’s not like Chapman’s offense was struggling. They may be the best offense in the MCLA.

If he joined an NCAA staff out east, even if it was a team that is not as good as Chapman, it wouldn’t be big news at all. But you would assume those teams would only take him if he could commit the time to be an every-day coach.

Very exciting points. Let’s break them down.

Beyond summer camps which are a purely a money maker, he’s never coached a team at the high school or college level.

His lacrosse IQ while likely at the D1 level isn’t that high because he relied on his athletic ability.

Thus, SELC y’all is justified in questions about Harrison’s ability as a coach. With the exception of Petro and Caravana off the top of our heads, the best coaches in the land weren’t necessarily great players. The old adage being, just because you were a great player doesn’t mean you’ll be a great coach.

See Phil Jackson. Coach K. Joe Torre.

Having said that this is great for the MCLA and for Chapman.

It suggests that even though its only a part time role for Harrison, he deems Chapman worthy of his time. More broadly, an MCLA team has become an acceptable coaching stop for a high profile lacrosse person.

Of course Harrison hasn’t been in LA that long, but if he was, we don’t see this move happening a few years ago which is a credit to Chapman and the work Coach Wood has done.

More Nike gear arrives.

Sweatshirt.

Extra practice shorts.

Basic Tee.

All ordered from Elevation Lacrosse, the Willy Wonka of team wear.

A 412 Lax endorsed vendor.

Remember Will Barrow

Trying to find out if these will be available to the public.

That was cooooooold blooooooded.

Kobe Bryant.

We want to enter the zone.

We want to enter it right now.

Wooooo

Arrow Moccasin Lace Boots

Beautiful.

Buy here.

Notes

Gisele made $35 million in 2009, Tom just quit

Oh Patrick Kane (TheDirty)

CSU 2010 Roster and Captains

Great article on Jason McElwain (Fanhouse)

Oops Kentucky (Deadspin)