OSWEGO – After several years of documenting his experiences in the lacrosse world in a blog, Dan Witmer has published a selection of those blog posts regarding coaching lacrosse in his latest book – “The Best of Road Trip Dad – A Lacrosse Coach’s Handbook.”
Witmer was a D-III head men’s lacrosse coach for 28 years. When that campaign ended, he volunteered as a high school varsity assistant for two years, was head JV coach for two years, and then served as a paid varsity assistant for four more years, a run that only came to an end due to COVID-19.
He coached his sons’ winter and summer league teams, wrote recruiting profiles for 3d Lacrosse for three years, volunteered at World Games in Denver, Syracuse, and Netanya, Israel, handled various roles at the Lake Placid Summit Classic and other Summit Lacrosse Ventures events, and became a certified lacrosse official.
“I’m not going to say I’ve seen it all, but I think I can say I’ve seen a lot,” Witmer said.
And he’s written about it. For the past nine years, he’s written a weekly blog for www.justlacrosse.com he calls Road Trip Dad. He recently published his 460th article.
“When I stopped coaching at Oswego State in 2010, I needed something to fill the void. I went down to the high school and offered my services, and I started working for 3d a bit, but I was still restless,” Witmer said.
In February of 2012, he started writing his Road Trip Dad blogs.
“My sons were both playing college ball at SUNY Brockport, one a sophomore and the other a senior, and I was getting to see every game. I decided to chronicle my adventures and experiences, and JustLacrosse agreed to sponsor my writing,” Witmer said.
In 2018, at the encouragement of JustLacrosse owner and editor Dennis Pettit, Witmer published his first book, “The Best of Road Trip Dad – The Laker Lacrosse Collection.”
“Over six years, I had written about a lot of different topics, but I picked out about 35 pieces that were about my years coaching at Oswego State – the people, the history and traditions, and my favorite stories,” Witmer said. “The appeal was limited, but it was a very rewarding and fulfilling experience.”
Now, three years and another 150+ RTD blogs later, Witmer put together another “Best of” collection. The Best of RTD – A Lacrosse Coach’s Handbook includes 58 articles that are written for and about coaches and coaching.
Within its 422 pages, there are some pieces about strategy – successful and otherwise – and others about indoor and parking lot drills. There are ‘letters of advice’ to freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors, and there are memories and takeaways from some 20 summers of working ‘old-school’ lacrosse camps.
“I wrote about Jack Emmer’s ‘Armadillo’ and some of the less-brilliant things I came up with. There are pieces in there about sideline celebrations, the importance of community service, and advice to first-time coaches. There are analytics, some maxims, and pages and pages of observations,” Witmer said. “This book should appeal to a wider audience. Whether you’re a young junior high coach or a veteran college coach at the top of his game, I’m confident that this book will entertain, instruct, reinforce, and/or validate what you’re doing. I never won any national championships, but I’ve experienced highs and lows, thrills and frustrations, and I’ve told my stories honestly and candidly. Everyone will find something to take away from this collection.”
The RTD blogs are broken up into five sections – Lacrosse Coaching 101, Drills and Practice Organization – In and Out of Season, Coach to Players, Coach to Coach, and Story Time! Within each grouping, the blogs appear chronologically. The Epilogue – “Now’s the Time to be a Good Teammate” was written in March of 2020 as lacrosse came to an end due to the pandemic.
Road Trip Dad blogs then took a 23-week hiatus, until September of 2020.
“I repeat a 9/11-themed article every year, and though I hadn’t published an RTD blog in six months, I figured that would be a good time to make a return. Other topics started to surface after that, and I’ve posted RTD pieces every week since then,” Witmer said.
Presently, one of his sons lives in Denver; the other lives in Prague – but Road Trip Dad continues.
“I’ve had to expand my range of topics since they stopped playing college lacrosse, but I have been to Colorado and the Czech Republic. They’re both still playing – field and box – but they’re also coaching, refereeing, running tournaments – you name it. Between their experiences and my own, I’ve never really struggled for something to write about each week,” Witmer said.
With 37 blogs in his first book and another 58 in this latest one, what does he have in mind for the remaining 350+ archived RTD articles?
“We’ll see, but I’m guessing there will be another Best of RTD compilation sometime down the road; it’s just a matter of finding the right thread,” Witmer said.
The Best of Road Trip Dad – A Lacrosse Coach’s Handbook is available at Amazon.com and is also available at the River’s End Bookstore in Oswego.
His Road Trip Dad blogs can be found most every Monday at www.justlacrosse.com.
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