Performing at an elite level isn’t about doing special things. It’s about focusing on the basics and the fundamentals; then executing them with precision. A coach’s job is to harness the energy of the players and direct it towards a common goal.
As we gear up for the first ever Stars and Stripes Classic, Fran Racioppi sat down with the Head Coach of the California Redwoods and Army Reservist Nat St. Laurent. Nat’s primary mission is to take a group of elite alpha lacrosse athletes all capable of big things and get them to focus on the little details; a skill he learned teaching soldiers to throw hand grenades as an instructor. He shares his Army lessons learned and how they made him a better coach.
Nat also provided his perspective on the growth of the Premier Lacrosse League, how regional affiliation has enhanced the fan base, and how everything the PLL does is all out; including the 2-point shot.
Take a listen, watch, or read our conversation with one of the PLL’s inaugural coaches, then head over to our YouTube channel or your favorite podcast platform to catch all the action from the Stars and Stripes Classic.
Don’t forget to go to Green Beret Foundation to join our 18 Series Match Challenge to support our team as the Snakeeaters take on the Frogmen.
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Coach, welcome to The Jedburgh Podcast.
Thanks. I’m excited to be here. What an honor. This is awesome.
You have a busy day ahead of you. You’re playing now, so it’s the second day of the Fairfield weekend. You’re the last game so you’re going to be the main event of the weekend as this place gets packed.
I can’t wait. What an opportunity to play the defending champs in our last game. That’ll be awesome.
You’re the head coach of the California Redwoods. You’ve been there since the beginning. You’re the only coach of the California Redwoods, but also the newly minted California Redwoods because this year is the first year where there’s been a regional affiliation. Talk for a minute about the evolution of the PLL. If we go back, it started in 2019. You had these six teams. It grew to eight. Now, here we are. We got regional affiliation. We’re no longer doing total independent neutral venues. We got home teams. You got to be in San Diego, which honestly isn’t that bad. Talk about it.
I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting on that lately getting ready to go out to California. So far, we’ve played at two venues where we were the actual real away team because we were playing the home team and you knew it right away. We had the off week this year and then we played our first game against the Chaos in Carolina and as soon as you took the field, it felt different. You’re like, “There are Chaos bands here.”
You’re looking around and everything is Chaos. It wasn’t the PLL brand everywhere but to go all the way back to being able to be a part of this since 2019 and being that inaugural championship game, I was fortunate enough to coach the all-star game that year, meet Jim Brown, and just watch this league develop the way it has. It’s surreal. My son’s watching some of the old games back he kept on the DVR. We’ve been watching some of those old games back and there’s been some pretty awesome moments.
It’s been special to watch the players get elevated to a stage that they’ve never been elevated before in lacrosse. Also, there’s the merge with both weeks coming together. Now, we’re finally regional and this week is huge, but next week’s very special. It’s so special where the whole family’s going to go out. We’re going to spend a week in California and just try to take it all in with that experience.
Being in San Diego is pretty cool. I was fortunate enough the last time we were out there to head through the SEAL school, the BUD/S, and the facility over there. We walked through that, which was extremely special. To see the World Games at this same stadium and now we’re going to go play in it is pretty exciting.
You talked about the players, the game, and the PLL. We’re sitting here at the entrance to the stadium right here. We joked that the PLL doesn’t do anything half-assed. When they do it, they’re all in. The crowd’s building as we get closer to the start of the first game and we got people around us. Talk about the fan base.
It’s pretty special. Again, it’s one of those things where you just feel it growing and growing. Again, I’ve been part of pro lacrosse for many years. Starting in 2019, you’d go some places and people would be like, “You coach lacrosse. What league is this?” Now, you fast forward it two years later, you go through the airport. It’s to the point where a lot of times I’m not wearing my redwood stuff just because people are talking to me. They stop and it’s getting to the point where it’s that big and it’s something that I ask myself all the time like, “How lucky am I? How fortunate am I to be a part of it?”
Everywhere you go, every venue, every place we go, whatever the PLL does, it’s all out. It feels special and that’s me as the coach. I know my guys feel like superstars and rock stars. When they walk into any facility anywhere we go that the PLL is doing it, they feel really special. That’s important for the players, the coaches, and more important, all these little youngins running around to see the game elevated like this. My son’s goal is to play in the PLL one day. It was the NFL and now it’s like, “I want to go play in the PLL one day.” It’s cool to see that dream shift to make this a realization that the PLL has done for those kids.
You spent thirteen years in the Army Reserve. We take a lot of lessons from leadership when we serve in the military. You served as an instructor. When we talk about having to become a coach, “What is a coach?” It’s a mentor. It’s somebody who has to get others to do things that they may not otherwise do at a level that they may never have even thought or dreamed of. Talk for a second about your military career and some of those lessons that you take as a coach now.
I think the very first thing for me, and bear with me here a little bit, but coming from a military family and growing up outside of Fort Drum, New York, my father, and brother served.
It’s not the only thing going on up there.
We played a good brand of lacrosse up there though, I will say that, but with that being said, 9/11 happened. I felt like I needed to do something. I went and joined. The first time you stand in a formation and you’ve got that American flag on your right shoulder, it hits you right between the eyes. That’s what hit me. Where being part of something bigger than yourself is almost indescribable. You have to teach that. You have to buy that. You have to believe in that. It becomes an honor.
I think that’s one of the things I always tell our guys you’re getting to put on a jersey that says the California Redwoods. You’re representing a sport way bigger than yourself and that’s powerful. I talked to the team in 2019 about you’re somebody’s why. When you’re a pro athlete, you know it’s bigger than you. Serving in the military and in a unit, was the very first lesson I learned right away. Along the way, when you get into the instructor’s piece like teaching how to throw hand grenades, you have to be very specific on all the little details because if you don’t, the army goes with the lowest bidder sometimes.
You have to be on point. You can’t make a mistake. You can’t make a mistake. If you do, it could cost your buddy their chance of going home to their family. When you put it in perspective that way, it’s a game changer. You have to pay close attention to those little details and that’s the difference between winning and losing on the game field. I tell our guys I don’t like comparing, playing our game to going to war or preparing soldiers to go into a battle because we get to come home every game.
You have to pay really close attention to the little details, and that’s the difference between winning and losing.
However, I understand that correlation, and it is extremely important to do those little things right. Also, to do it with a purpose that’s bigger than yourself. You hear those clichés all the time. We feel those. We know what that means when you’re getting ready to go into theater or getting guys ready and trained up to go to theater. You have to be on point. Those are some of the biggest lessons that I’ve learned that I bring into coaching quite a bit.
I want to ask you about player development because when we look at the PLL player, you have this awesome combination of someone who has a tremendous amount of skill. I say they’ve got the skill of a hockey player with their reaction time and their stick handling. They’ve got the endurance of a soccer player. They got the physicality of a football player and you have put them out there. They’re competing at such a high level and it’s so fast. How do you approach player development and as you’ve seen the evolution of the player over the last couple of decades, what have you seen?
The first thing that you approach in player development at this level is you have to be on your game. I coach at the college level and it’s a bigger margin bearer. You can take your time. There’s a learning curve there. Here, you don’t get a lot of time. You get a TV time-out during the game. You talk to them during the week. You might get a couple of seconds here and there. It’s a quick point.
I think one thing that these young people need to realize and people in general are, yes, these are the best in the game, the best in the world, and the best to do it. They want that feedback. They relish that. They want to be held accountable. They want to know what they have to do to be better. Here, the margin is so small. It literally could just be a little thing of turning the right way when you pick up a ground ball or understanding the read, like, “They’re on your hands. You can throw the skip through,” or it’s, “Just keep this thing simple. Move the ball forward and stay in the fight.”
These are the best in the game, the best in the world, and the best to do it and they still want that feedback. They relish that. They want to know and want to be held accountable.
With those little details and coaching these guys up, there’s not a lot of form-checking you have to do at this level. It’s more of valuing the ball. When they can take a chance, when you want them to go be a player, go make a play, or when it’s, “Let’s jab here. We don’t need to throw a haymaker right now. Just get in the middle of the ring and let’s throw some jabs here and make the simple play.” That’s the development piece because they all are alphas. They’re all the best.
Also, they all think whenever the game gets tight, “I can make this play. I’m going to make this play,” and that’s when it’s harping on that first lesson I learned in the military. It’s bigger than you and none of these guys are selfish. They just are the best. They’re going to make plays. They’ve hit so many game-winning shots and made so many game-winning saves, defensive stops, and face-offs that you almost have to contain that a little bit and have them trust in the system that you’re running. I think those player developments, the end game development, you have to be on point and there’s not a lot of it. You have to make sure it’s a quick point and you don’t beat it to death.
The PLL has done some unique things with the league and with the play of the game. One of the most unique that they’ve done is the two-point shot.
What’s the deal with the two-point shot and how has it changed the game?
My face lights up because it’s such a game-changer. I remember coaching pro lacrosse at one point and then getting to this league. This game goes so fast. Twelve-minute quarters running time. There was one game in 2019, we were up four. I’m like, “Let’s get a couple of possessions here,” and within 30 seconds, they hit a two and a goal. I’m like, “It’s a one-goal game,” all because of this two-pointer.
There have been instances when you’re down 4, 5, or 6 goals. I think in year one in the championship, we might’ve been down 8-3 in the third quarter, and with the two-point shot, we were right back in this thing. In fact, we took the lead with 90 seconds to go in the game. It is an absolute game-changer. It’s so fun. Every time a shot’s taken in the game, you hold your breath. You’re like, “They’re shooting a two. Bail us out, Jack, or hit this. We need this,” and it is.
It’s so exciting and it’s something I’d like to see in the college game one day too, but the evolution has been like a basketball. When they put the three-point shot in, it changed the game. That’s what the PLL is doing. The PLL is changing the game with the two-pointer. It’s fun. It’s scary when you’re winning, but when you hit a couple of those, it’s pretty awesome.
Over the last couple of years, 2024 is year six for you in the league. Your team’s had ups and downs. As you said, you’ve been in the championship and then you’ve had some good years and some decent years in the middle. This year has been a challenging year. From your position as a coach, where you’ve got to keep guys focused. You’ve got to keep your head in it because it’s not a long season, but it’s not a short season. You have a lot of games. There are a lot of areas where you can continuously improve. Talk about the mindset that you approach this year and this season and what you’re telling the guys.
This year, it’s been unique. A couple of things have happened within the league as it evolved. There’s free agency now. There are salary caps. They’ve evolved this league and because of that, all of those little things have impacted our rosters. One of the things we keep telling our guys is we have the locker room right. The men in the room are the right group. We have to figure out a way to get better and limit the things that we were doing wrong in the previous game, it’ll come together.
For us, I don’t think anybody has more games in the second half of the season than us because we’ve already had our bi-week. We’ve got six games left. We’re two games away from winning the Western Conference Championship. Our mindset every game is 1-0. We can’t do anything about the results from previous games. We can do something with how we handle the off week. We can do things about what we do during the week to get our mind and our body right in the film but this week, we have to go 1-0.
Also, if we don’t, then we better get better at going out to California and then be ready to go 1-0 even though we’ve got two games. Every game day is 1-0, and I think that was the mindset we started putting in a little bit. It helped us and this year, we’re back to that now. We got that one win in Boston. That was a huge win in front of a home crowd. It was special.
That’s a Boston crowd. Being from Boston, that’s a tough crowd.
They are some of the toughest fans around, I’ll tell you that. Now, we got the opportunity and we’re excited to go out to California with our home fans and get two of those games on our side for once. It’s a 1-0 mentality. Every week is a new game and opportunity. Take advantage of it. Make the most of it. Be where your feet are most importantly and go get it.
Every week is a new opportunity. Take advantage of it. Make the most of it. Be where your feet are. Most importantly, go get it.
There’s still a lot of the season left. You talked about it, but I’m going to tell you that the main event, at least from my perspective is on September 2nd because on September 2nd, Gillette Stadium is where the Battle Royale is going to happen where we got the Stars & Stripes Classic. Green Berets versus Navy SEALs in support of two great organizations.
I’m biased as a Green Beret and as a part of the Green Beret Foundation but between us and the Navy SEAL Foundation, the PLL has done a phenomenal job of putting this game together. It’s going to be on ESPN Plus and we’re going to get to go head-to-head against the Navy SEALs in lacrosse. What are you looking forward to there?
First and foremost, I’m hoping I’m there to watch that thing live because it is going to be incredibly special. I hope everybody understands the magnitude of that game. Two great organizations, but the people competing on that field, the sacrifices they’ve made for our country, the things that they’ve done for all of us to be able to act the way that we do, to enjoy the life that we live, and to be in a country that is great.
Yes, it’s struggling right now and it needs a little bit of help, but the people on that field gave us this opportunity to be where they are. For me, it’s way bigger than a game and then when you boil it down to the pride factor of two of the elite forces going at it, I can’t wait to see this. They’re not going to be able to turn over their competitive level. You guys are trained a certain way. You’re made a certain way and you believe in things in a way that most people don’t understand.
To be able to see that on one field, you have to tip your cap to the PLL for bringing that together and putting it out there so we can watch this. As a veteran who has a sliver of experienc
e that the guys in that field will have, my heart will be full of pride in our country. I’ll wear the American flag very proudly that day and to be able to be in that arena in that event is going to be incredible.
I told Coach Seth Tierney, who was here before you. I said, “People do not understand the rivalry between these two organizations and it is going to manifest itself fully on national TV on that it’s field because there’s going to be nothing held back from either one of those teams.
You guys don’t know how to hold anything back. It’s all in all the time, which is a lot like these guys that are going to compete. There’s no way to turn that competition level off and you guys are very much the same way. It’s going to be a spectacular opportunity and I’m excited. I’m pumped.
Coach, you have a big day ahead of you. You got to get the team ready. The first game’s going off here real soon. I appreciate you taking the time to sit down with me. Thank you for your service. What we do as leaders, as coaches, even off the field is the development of the next generation and you’re doing that with these players. It’s because when our careers are over, whether it be as an athlete or whether it be in the military, we have to put great people back into society and that comes down to leadership and to coaches. You’re doing that every single day.
We’re blessed to be around some of the best in the world here playing this sport, and like our soldiers, we ask them to be someone special and make the world a better place. I believe that our players at PLL are going to do that. Thanks for having me.
Good luck.
I appreciate you. Thanks.
