Podcast: First Class founder Deemer Class on making events better

First Class Lacrosse founder Deemer Class joins Kyle Devitte on the "Chasing the Goal" podcast.

On this episode of New England Lacrosse Journal’s “Chasing The Goal” podcast, host Kyle Devitte talks with former Duke midfielder and founder of First Class Lacrosse, Deemer Class.

Class won two NCAA championships with Duke, where he was a two-time All-American and finished with 201 career points. As a professional, he played seven seasons for the Atlanta Blaze and Charlotte Hounds in Major League Lacrosse, and went on to play for Chaos LC and Cannons LC in the Premier Lacrosse League.

His coaching career began at McDonogh, where he worked with more than 30 current and future Division 1 and Division 3 players.

He went on to become the offensive coordinator with the women’s program at Southern Cal, where he was part of a Pac-12 championship team that was ranked as high as No. 7 in the nation. From there, Class built First Class Lacrosse into an elite training organization, and has developed multiple events and showcases.

Watch the full podcast below on YouTube. It’s also available on all major podcast platforms. If you enjoy it, please leave a rating and a review. Watch more episodes on the Chasing the Goal podcast channel.

Kyle Devitte: I want to preface what I’m going to say before I say it. Events are difficult, they’re hard to put on, they’re hard to organize. Being the admin of an event is a nightmare, right? I go to a lot of events. I’ve worked a lot of events. I think the thing that makes yours different is that your instructional portions are not add-ons. They’re kind of the point of going. And I think it’s interesting because you have college coaches at your event, obviously watching, as well as media.

And they get to see the kids interact with those small-sided things and different drills that you run before they play a full game. How did you come to have the idea to flip that on its head? Because I think a lot of events could learn from that instead of just being like, “Let’s get the assistants over here to run this.”

Deemer Class: Well, I think one of the big things that goes into an event is, to your point, a lot of organization. I do feel proud when I look back on everything we’re doing and we’ll continue to do that. I think about player experience — what players are thinking and how many touches they’re getting. That’s very top of mind for Matt (Dunn) and I.

I’m sure some of my early-year drills had too many guys standing in lines. You’re just not getting as much out of that time. Now, that stuff starts to make my skin crawl. I’ve shown up to events before and people are like, “Hey run a drill.” And all the kids are staring at me because I’m ripping open the box of balls because nothing’s set up. Which goes back to the player experience.

What are the drills? Can you develop concepts?  Can you evaluate it? Teasing out some of those skills helps (coaches) evaluate through the fall, but also moves guys up or down the depth chart.

Kyle Devitte: Why is everything elite in lacrosse? Super-teams and rankings and five stars and things like that. Is that just our sport us catching up to other sports? Or do you think that’s a uniquely culture-bound thing? 

Deemer Class: I think it’s really, really fascinating that you asked that. And I don’t think it’s lacrosse catching up. It’s lacrosse doing more of where these other sports have gone — and where these other sports have gone isn’t necessarily a better place to be.

Think about the sacrifices that lacrosse families are making now. I wonder what some of the sacrifices are like for some of these tennis stars who have been homeschooled, and traveled from across the world to live in an academy in Florida just to play a sport where you’re by yourself. You can think of all those examples and other sports, and sports that are more global, and kids coming from farther places than Canada, or the reservation to play NCAA college lacrosse. So, I think it’s moving in that direction and I don’t believe it’s better.

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