By 4 PM today, every NFL team needs to make cuts.

So every roster will be trimmed from 90 to 53 players.

Multiple that out across the 32 teams and that’s 1,184 cuts…

I LOVE the HBO show Hard Knocks…

...been watching it for 13 years now (every season it’s been on).

The final episode of this season (with the Cleveland Browns) will be Tuesday.  

... so we’ll see all the cuts take place (for only that team...

Simona Halep was the #1 seed for the women’s tennis U.S. Open.

She played her first round match yesterday against Kaia Kanepi (the 44th ranked player in the world).

Halep lost… becoming the first No. 1 women’s seed to lose in first round.

She slammed her racket a couple times...

But Halep didn’t blame fatigue or crowd noise for the defeat…

... instead she mentioned it was more the voices in her head.

And those “negative...

I watched the championship game earlier this week on my faithful Watch ESPN account.  (I love that service!)...

Team USA and Team Canada were matched up in the title game.  Pretty much a forgone conclusion. The US team was tryin’ to avenge their loss to Canada back in 2014.

I didn’t watch any games leading up to title game - all games were televised ridiculously early due to the Israel time change (the games were played over there).  

Lots of drama at the end of...

(Coach Starsia is a contributor writer for BTB LAX)

It is about to be that time of the year in our sport when a little mental toughness is required of all participants. As the start of the lacrosse season has slowly migrated into January, players, coaches, managers, trainers and fans find themselves in a survival mode as they force themselves through practice and games. What are the characteristics of those who will endure the early season, thrive in the daily battles and flourish in...

Early last week the Red Sox visited D.C. to play the Nats.

The Nats got swept putting them below .500 for the first time all year.

A “Players Only” meeting ensued...

Trea Turner, the Nat’s gritty shortstop, was very vocal.

...Yelling “It’s Do or Die!!!”

And it really was… no exaggeration.

The next night the Nats hosted the Marlins.

Couldn’t have started worse...

Nats go down 9-0 midway through the 4th.

Dire straits.

The season was in peril......

Safe assumption that lots of calories will be consumed today.

And that’s totally fine…

For tomorrow.

But it got me thinking about diet from that 30,000 ft view…

And over the last 7 years I fundamentally changed the way I eat.

And I can confidently say that my fitness level is better now then when I played lacrosse at Tufts.

My body fat percentage is definitely lower… and my strength is close to what it was.  I can’t bench 225 lb as many times,...

It is hard not to consider the intensity of Dave Pietramala or Bill Tierney, the scholarly, “iPad-using” temperament of John Tillman, or the studied, calming visage of John Danowski, John Desko or Charlie Toomey as a required approach to championship success at the Division I level.  The truth is, however, that things are hardly ever quite as well organized as they might appear or as the coaches might like.  More often than not, circumstances and luck play as big a role...

(Coach Starsia is a contributor writer for BTB LAX.)

Between thinking about the agony that accompanied the ending of coach Tony Bennett’s UVA basketball season and spending a day with Mikey Thompson and the Christopher Newport team recently, it brought to mind a theme I have addressed in multiple settings.

If I had to boil down to a sentence what it has been that I have been doing these past 42 years, it would be trying every method to convince young men that “it is worth it...

(Coach Starsia is a contributor writer for BTB LAX.)

One of the coaching questions I am asked most frequently is establishing the ability to achieve and maintain a consistent level of performance.  We would all like our teams to play their best every game and are desperate to avoid those sub-par performances. 

One of the great joys of our sport at the college level is that most of the best teams play each other during the regular season.  It is a feast for fans but is a...

(This article was first posted in US Lacrosse Magazine on 8/8/17.  Coach Starsia's articles will regularly appear on the BTB Lax site going foward...)

After 10 years coaching college lacrosse and with two kids (Lil’ Dom and Luigi) in tow, my 34-year-old son is about to start law school at the University of Texas in September. His bold career choice reminds me that it seems like just yesterday when he began his undergraduate career at Lynchburg College. I would like to share...