How It Started
& Core Values
Coach Casertano is a mentor, player development consultant, and offensive coach who has extensively studied lacrosse, athletic performance, biomechanics, mentorship, and sports psychology. He is devoted to helping offensive players unlock their highest potential.
Coached by legends of the game like the late Mike Fuller and Bobby Wynne, Will cut his teeth under PLL Hall of Famers Ryan Boyle and Matt Streible. Now, as a player development consultant, mentor, and coach, Will passes on the knowledge he has gained through his own experiences and deep study of the game.
In 2023, Will founded C7 Lacrosse after fully committing to offensive player development and mentoring athletes on their journey to be their best. Our approach is rooted in personal experience as players, coaches, teachers, and humans. Will has spent his life as a student of the game, and in his adulthood, he has continued to study lacrosse, player development, biomechanics, psychology, mental performance, mentorship, nutrition, health & wellness, neuroscience, somatics, and mindfulness. As a lifelong learner, Will continues to refine and develop his methods, approach, and understanding to drive athlete development forward and unlock their highest potential.
Truly, this journey started when Will was a boy. His curiosity led him to obsess over his craft in many sports (hockey, soccer, lacrosse, tennis, squash, skiing, baseball). He sought to understand how to perform precisely, why, when, and where to execute, and what he observed on the field, court, and ice. Hailing from New York, Will was raised on a boarding school campus with the ultimate athletic playground in his backyard. With access to fields, courts, a rink, brick walls everywhere, and high schoolers to train and play with, Will spent countless hours playing, observing others, watching games live and on TV, emulating what he saw the best do, mastering his game, and reflecting. His drive wasn’t solely to be the best to play in college—though that was a vision he saw for himself—but came from a subconscious place of self-discovery, joy, and love. His curiosity, self-awareness, intrinsic drive, love of learning, and deep emotional connection to lacrosse propelled him to seek environments that challenged him to be his best, like Salisbury School and Villanova.
At Salisbury, Will played 4 years of varsity lacrosse, captained his team to a Western New England Championship, and was 1st Team All-League. He also won the Richard Flood Athletic Award for the best athlete in the school. At Villanova, Will started for 4 years at attack, tallied 114 career points, ranks 12th all-time in program history in career points, and was named to the Big East All-Tournament Team in 2013, and played in the NCAA tournament in 2011.
Non-Negotiables
While the five core values are central to us, we are also grounded in hard work, discipline, consistency, and perseverance. These qualities are more obvious to us and yet they are essential to the process. One cannot develop their game, skill set, mindset, or athleticism, or be on the path to discovering their best, without them.
Devotion
Love, loyalty, or enthusiasm for an activity or cause. We’re on this journey because we love it, and from that love, we continuously devote ourselves to the game, our craft, our understanding of ourselves, and our process. Our devotion is what keeps us on the path of continuously discovering our highest potential, and it’s a character trait that will help you reach your vision.
Resilience
(1) The capacity to withstand or recover quickly from difficulties. (2) The ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape. The process of being our best and discovering our highest potential is full of difficulties and challenges. It’s not a matter of if they happen—they will happen every day.
Awareness
We help players develop their awareness through tools like meditation, breathwork, body scans, self-reflection exercises, and by asking them to read situations, feel and read defenders, and ultimately make the right decisions in the ever-changing moment. Through awareness, we learn to see ourselves and situations on the field clearly, and then respond by trusting our instincts and skill set based on the necessary read and decision in that moment.
Joy
We play this game and embark on the journey to be the best because we enjoy it. The game is our happy place. We take joy in continuously learning about ourselves and developing. We enjoy grinding, getting after it, and working hard toward our vision. We express ourselves creatively on the field, and the journey and process are fun for us. Burnout is not a natural outcome—players lose their connection to the joy of the game, they aren’t having fun, and thus they burn out. We’re here to help players maintain their joy while working hard.
Our Vision
Our vision is what we see for ourselves. A vision—whether short, medium, or long-term—provides us with direction and a path to align our behaviors with. Do your actions and behaviors align with your vision for yourself?
C7 Lacrosse’s vision is aligned with our purpose: we see players mastering themselves through the mastery of lacrosse. We envision a community of players and people on this path together. We see players who are self-aware and aware of others, present, embodied, and equipped with the tools to emotionally self-regulate in the moment. We see players expressing themselves authentically and creatively on the field. We see players who are deeply connected to the game, who respect and honor its history. We see players who are intrinsically motivated by the process, not solely by results (winning, scoring goals, playing college lacrosse). We see players who apply what they’ve learned through lacrosse to their lives beyond the field. We see players who work hard because that’s what they do, regardless of the situation, who understand their emotions and mental state and can speak openly about them. We see players who are resilient and able to work through the natural challenges of the human experience because they’ve developed resources and a mindset they can trust. We see players who care more about how they did things than what they achieved. We envision a player development and mentorship program, culture, and organization that embodies these values in community. Our vision is more expansive than simply being the best at lacrosse.
