Background:

Coach Jackson Kibler is the Head Coach of both the JV and Varsity Lacrosse teams. He played lacrosse throughout high school, winning two State Championships, and college, at Christopher Newport University. He coaches the teams six days a week, at Varsity practices Monday through Saturday and JV practices Monday through Friday, holding captains practices on Saturdays. Many players enjoy being coached by Coach Kibler, because according to Johnathan Huynh, a JV freshman goalie, “he always knows that we can improve and he knows when we’re having a bad day and he can recognize what we definitely need to work on. He actually does demonstrations [to help us improve]. For example, he would use my stick and just show us basic moves, so he would move around, throw the ball, sprint, everything like that.”

Q & A with Coach Kibler:

Have you played LAX and if so, for how long?

Yes, I started playing lacrosse my freshman year of high school at Oakton High School and I played throughout college.

How long have you coached, and have you coached for teams other than Jefferson’s?

My entire coaching career has been at TJ. I’ve coached for the last four years and the last two I’ve been the head coach.

What are the best parts of coaching?

The best parts of coaching are just staying into the game that I’ve always loved. I mean, after college you kind of get into your work career and you kind of lose touch of those things you used to love, and so it makes my day go by faster. I love being with the kids, this is a great group of guys, and they definitely make my day better everyday, so I would say just the players themselves and the sport.

What do you tell the team if they win? What do you tell them if they lose?

It’s actually usually a similar story because the focus is less on the outcome of the game and more on how we played the game. If we lose but we played the game giving it everything we had, we didn’t back down and we kept it really tough, then that’s the story I want to emphasize, and conversely, if we end up winning, but we were lazy, we took plays for granted, then that’s the story I like to say. So it’s more on how we played the game, less on whether we won or lost.