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Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal
Friday, October 11, 2002
HOMECOMING AT CSU, AND BY THE WAY, A LITTLE FALL LAX
It hasn’t been the greatest week of practice, but this fall at its worst beats the heck out of 2001, and the approach I took for fall ball last year. We did, however, have a great Vegas
tournament to finish up last October, so who knows what the best approach is?, but this autumn feels pretty good to me right now, all in all.
The defense and offense seem to be taking turns beating up on one another lately, but the defense certainly had a better week this week. I have only a hunch as to what it all means.
We have our fall CSU tournament tomorrow. I have not given it a catchy name like the "Fall Brawl" or anything, because it's just supposed to be a nice little tournament, an opportunity
to play a few lacrosse games. Since it is homecoming as well, I’m sure the event will lose some steam by the time the football game gets going at 1:00, but we should have some pretty good
lax action in the morning. There is a parade nearby. It should be an interesting day.
CHRISMAS CAME EARLY THIS YEAR
I am so glad to have Gemp (Chris Gemperline) as an assistant, and working daily with the "Green" team. I decided this past summer that I was going to spend almost all of my time focusing
on the "Gold" one. I didn’t know what would become of the "other" 25 players on this team that always tries so hard to have 50 names on the roster. Like Christine the
car, this team regains its original garish size no matter what you do to it (Stephen King reference). However grumpy or "brutally honest" that I get, we still retain a player number
count that is 50ish.
Chris has come in as a coach and nurtured them (Green) as if they were his first team (I think they are). I am lucky. Especially since I know that all the stuff he is teaching is the stuff that
I either taught him or that we learned together over his 4 years (defense).
Sometimes I feel blessed because so often when we have need for things, they are filled. I did not worry about an assistant after my two left last year. I trusted that someone would come. Boy,
did he ever.
CH-CH-CH-CHANGES
A team and a program do indeed encompass circles of life. As time passes and people come and go, the color of the program only gets richer, a patina.
How can so many guys that can really play slip through all the recruiting cracks and fall in my lap?
When someone graduates I wonder where we will get those things that he had given us, and so many times I just look up and someone new is there giving us something we never had before. Sometimes
change is a struggle, but more often with this program transition is a gift, or it brings new toys for me and for our team to play with. How else could I explain, for example, having a player
like Tim Farquhar show up last January with no fanfare whatsoever, and just as I am right in the middle of going through Mike Roth withdrawal. We could easily have been on the outside looking
in as far as our seed in St. Louis went last May if it weren’t for "Timeout Timmy" scoring 5 goals against CU in Provo last April, as we pulled one out of our you know what.
He (Tim) literally called me just weeks between leaving Hobart, and his actual arrival on the CSU campus. He’s from Virginia. It’s not like he was coming home to Denver or whatever,
as others from other programs have in the past. I know he likes to snowboard, but this is hardly Western State. Besides, he has to stop snowboarding now, until he graduates (yeah, that will
happen).
It is not just about the talent or the skill of an individual, but rather that thing he gives your team, that thing you can only sometimes put your finger on. When you have many players that
bring different kinds of gifts, then your team cup can runneth over. It’s always a work in progress. We are half full right now, but trust me, we are far from spilling over the top rim.
I don’t know how well we will play tomorrow. My hope is that we can play solid lacrosse, Green and Gold. We have had too many injuries and distractions to hope for more. It’s all good.
After all, it is only fall ball.
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