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Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal
Sunday, September 15, 2002
Our first practice on Friday drew about 50 people. I guess the best short description that I can give is that there was a very powerful vibe out there on the field, and it was more than just
the excitement that simply comes along with a season which is new. This buzz is a big buzz, and thankfully, it is not the buzz of arrogance. We don't know how good we are, but nobody seems to
care about that right now. It's more of a feeling that there is nowhere else you would rather be, and that this fall is a precious time.
In many ways I just think this (good vibe thing) will make it a little easier to keep our team from acting sometimes like they hate each other. Once we get that, it all becomes easier, better.
I have no idea how we will ultimately match up with all the other great teams around the USLIA, but the possibilities are getting stirred up for little old me. If good leadership becomes most
evident in how we play as a team, then I will feel like we are really getting somewhere.
The sense I get is that they are ready to work now at and for something that might seem far in the future. The whole process must be approached with passion or something will always be missing.
You can't just "turn it on" when you want (May). They might already know this. These ones might get that. This philosophy still sounds corny and old-fashioned, and I still don't care.
The whole thing must be a mission of love. Anyway, if the ends really did justify the means, then I would be feeling much more warm and fuzzy about last season.
What excites me now is that I can visualize this team coming together, hanging together, and relentlessly getting better together over time
I must teach well this year. I've said this before, too, but I feel it even more now. I want to start from maybe a more basic place, but I therefore want to develop at a more rapid pace than
ever. I will ask less of them, yet demand more. I need to tweak a few attack-the-goal drills I want us to get good at, and I always need to get better at keeping such a mob busy, but I feel
relatively comfortable with the practice planning process already, and it is just September.
A LITTLE BACKGROUND before we get started
Two years ago, in the fall of 2000, I had mile-high expectations. In September I asked my sister Judy to bring my mother to St. Louis the following May, 2001, because I was so sure of what I
knew we could do at the USLIA Championships there. I said to her that if ever we had the ingredients to win, this was the year. I knew from the start, and in my heart that we had a good chance
to win that 2001 championship. I'm sure Judy was thinking that I had certainly jinxed myself by simply uttering those kinds of thoughts aloud. At the very least her little brother must be delusional
(again). I had no fear, though, because guys like Mike Roth were here. We had a good team that understood the task at hand. They had been together for a while by then. I also felt I knew where
the competition was. In my mind we needed to prepare to beat one team, BYU. If we could do that, everything else would take care of itself. We did, and it did.
In 2001-2002 we were starting out as the dreaded "Defending Champs". During the summer I had already began worrying about "leadership" issues that were sure to come, and
the potential for family dysfunction. I worried that we were thinking that we were better than we were. "We don't rebuild, we reload," and "We can go undefeated" were phrases
that I had heard and I hated both. I always have concern about the fact that many teams out there would rather beat us than any other team on their schedule, but now I was worrying about it
more. I hated our spring schedule to come, and of course, I am the one that made it. As it turned out, we did eventually have a pretty good year. It was not, however, the most fun I had ever
had coaching, and that is for sure. There were times that "tried our souls", especially mine, because they are all much younger.
St. Louis last May, and 2002 in general made brought to light that our "enemies" were now spread from coast to coast. It is no longer as simple as looking only to Provo Utah to find
the measuring stick in the USLIA. It has expanded. It is now visible in Rhonert Park and Santa Barbara California. It has been spotted in Ann Arbor Michigan, and the desert of Arizona, too.
Even South Alabama cannot be ignored, with the emergence of Auburn in 2001.
It will always be a good idea to keep a telescope pointed at Provo, however, and I fear I will never be afforded the luxury of being able to take my eye off the Cougars of Mormonia. They (BYU)
remain for us (CSU), the Evil Empire to wage war upon.
When looking at the performance of the companies owned by the Church of Latter Day Saints these days, however, I would actually buy some Marriott Hotel stock if I had some extra cash.
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