Wizard Or The Wand?

There are endless possibilities to stringing sticks as long as a stringer keeps it within the legal regulations in lacrosse. A question that is heavily debated by stringers and athletes everywhere,  is does the stick make the player or vise versa? Some if not most of the top athletes in the MLL or in the NCAA don’t even string their own sticks. By stringing a your own sticks in lacrosse a player knows exactly how it will throw and  are able to pinpoint where the ball goes every time. However that  does not change how athletic a person is. Having a lacrosse stick strung appropriate to a players liking will give a player a higher chance in succeeding and becoming an overall better lacrosse player.

Lacrosse requires agility, power, and endurance. These athletic skills can be trained for outside of the season to make someone “faster stronger, prepared to last longer”. In doing this so an athlete can move their body more efficiently around the field, but that does not matter if a player cannot catch throw and cradle the ball. Stringing lacrosse sticks to me is an art and can impact the way people play the game.  When thinking  of main factors in stringing, 4 pop into my head. Depth, Position, Whip, Hold. Each factor corresponds to the other directly. Say a player is going to catch a pass from another teammate, it is easier to have a deeper pocket to absorb the pass and keep it in a players stick versus having a “tennis racket”/ shallow pocket. With depth comes whip and hold, the more whip and hold the better the ball will stay in the stick when running if cradling properly.  This can highly affect someones game in dodging players and transitioning the ball. Along with whip comes the position of the pocket. The higher your pocket in the head the more whip, giving you a lower release point. The lower the pocket the less the whip in the stick. Having too much or too little whip in your stick can cause your passes to be unreliable. The pocket in a players stick does matter.

Using these principles in stringing someones own stick can dramatically increase a player’s level of play and abilities. Stringing is a great stress reliever and an art that is waiting to be mastered. It also gets players in touch with the game to really value the sport.