Tuesday, January 21, 2003

GET YOUR MOTOR RUNNIN’

I feel like I am a "rusty" writer (and maybe coach, too), but you gotta start somewhere, so here goes:

Tomorrow we will have our first practice if everything (weather-wise) goes well. We play in Tucson in just over three weeks. Holy cow! The players have barely landed back in Fort Collins, and in fact, some of them did not come back at all. It was an off-season with a casualty list, one that includes our two main team officers and one elected captain. All three will not be with the team. I am almost afraid to go to practice tomorrow for fear that a whole other shoe I don’t yet know about might drop. Note to self: Next year we elect captains for the spring in the spring.

We need to hit the ground running, as they say, tomorrow afternoon. Can you say 440? I can and will. It looks like it won’t take nearly as long to shake hands with other teams after the games now. We could easily be in the mid to low 30’s for roster total. I’ll see tomorrow.

I know our whole make-up will change in many ways, from fall ball fantasies to spring realities. At the same time it is my greatest hope that, as a true team we can find a way to overcome or even embrace the imposed changes. Change in make-up is just part of the on-going series of challenges, and it is always our greatest aspiration to reflect team work and team resolve at all times. I never want to depend on any specific individual to bring us team success. In my mind that concept is always a bad plan.

Change tests the strength of the team as a whole. I never look at one player to simply take the place of one no longer here. We all must take his place. Everything, everyone must evolve some, not just one person or one thing.

The way a team responds to all the things it has no control over is also one way it can measure its inner strength. HEAD OUT ON THE HIGHWAY…………

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UP WITH CHUCKIE BOWL

I know that everyone in the world who may remotely give a hoot about the almighty SUPER BOWL has already commented on the fact that John Grudin is coaching his new team, the Tampa Bays in the big game against his old team, the Raiduuhz. How validating must that be for him as a coach. His old team doesn’t even have the motivation of having been abandoned by him. He was traded for Pete’s sake, and from a team easily good enough to have won the Super Bowl last year, to a team that was not. Now they are both playing in the game this year. Sounds like a fun match. On paper you have to like the Raiders with all their "aging" hall-of-famers and dominating offensive machine, but how can you not like Chuckie’s chances of getting the Oakland Raiders to self-destruct?

What I like best about Grudin is how he didn’t come from a big time college program. He knew early on that he wanted to coach and I’ll bet he was a volunteer assistant when he started. He knows football I am sure, but what he really seems to know is people, particularly the football types.

I heard that Raider fans will not be allowed to wear all their medieval garb with pointy stuff all over it to the game on Sunday in San Diego. This is due to security issues and all the anti-terrorism do’s and don’ts. Their (Raider faithful) response to that ban should be fascinating.

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