Lax Goalie Rat is a site created and run by me, Coach Damon Wilson, to teach you proven strategies for improving your lacrosse goalie game. But why dedicate so much time to helping lax goalies?
Lacrosse is my passion. The game has given me so much and this site is my way of giving back. After learning to play goalie from scratch, I wanted to create a resource where I could share everything I learned with other goalies.
I started playing goalie as a freshman at Cal Berkeley. I was fortunate enough to have some great head coaches and goalie coaches and All-American teammates to learn from as I progressed through my goalie career.
After being completely scared of the ball my 1st day in goal, I went on to start by my Junior year and then post a 63% save percentage my Senior year. I was also elected Captain of the team and named 2nd team All-American.
I wasn’t the greatest goalie when I played in college but I do consider myself to be an outstanding teacher and motivator of lacrosse goalies. I was blessed with the gift of teaching, motivation, and patience and when I combined that with my passion for lacrosse and helping others, the mix was magical.
I actually think my coaching benefits from the fact that I didn't grow up being a lacrosse goalie. In Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath, they talk about something called The Curse of Knowledge. This is the “curse” people have that makes it hard for them to teach something they know to a person who knows nothing about it. It can be tough to gauge and hard to assume how much your student already knows. Since there were some areas of goalie there were new to me, as I do the research, it was easier to translate into something young goalies can understand.
With all the lacrosse goalie knowledge I was accumulating I wanted a method to share it with more people. With young goalies, coaches, and their parents who may not have access to lacrosse goalie coaching. That’s where the idea for Lax Goalie Rat came about.
But I had never written anything before in my life apart from some essays while studying at Cal. Albeit I was an engineer so even those opportunities where few and far between. Still every time I was at the gym, my brain would not stop thinking about different things I wanted to share related to playing to lacrosse goalie. So in September of 2015 I launched LaxGoalieRat.com and started writing. I wrote everyday. I wrote when I probably should have been working on other things. But like I said, lacrosse is my passion and I enjoyed putting together detailed and in-depth posts to help lacrosse goalies learn a particular element of this position.
The response I’ve gotten from the blog has been amazing. Young goalies from all over have reached out thanking me for sharing the information that’s so lacking in our lacrosse goalie community. Even if the answer to your goalie question exists somewhere out there many said it was nice to know that LaxGoalieRat would always have everything they were looking for.
With the explosion of lacrosse's popularity there exists a large void in high quality lacrosse coaches, especially lacrosse goalie coaches. Many parents have children who are getting into playing goalie and have no idea what this sport is all about. This site is to help fill that void.
Here are some other interesting tidbits about Coach Damon:
I’ve built this site for you. I love hearing stories of your own successes—so much that I’ve built a special page just to highlight some success stories I've received.
Thanks for reading this! I’d love to have you join me and my community of thousands of lacrosse goalies, coaches, and parents who dedicated to producing great lacrosse goalies.
