Wednesday, April 9, 2003

We had a somewhat normal kind of practice today, which of course had been an abnormal occurrence up to now. It was a practice with pace and intensity, but at the same time it (I) was low-key. I personally had spent a great deal of energy during the game yesterday, saving nothing for later on. I daresay the team did the same. I did things today for only short periods. I was really pleased, however, with the attention to detail, and the overall level of execution at practice on the day after a game like that. I know they "celebrated" all together pretty good last night. I wasn’t all that demanding today. I did a lot of "individual" teaching stuff this afternoon. I like to trot over to players at particularly useful moments during drill or scrimmage, and say things to them that only they can hear. I feel as though I talked to the ones I needed or wanted to talk to today.

WE’RE # 4, WE’RE #4

Only a team of mine could beat a higher ranked team (#1), and fall farther behind that team in the polls the next day. We went to bed #3 after Beating Sonoma, and we woke up #4, while they stayed #1. Must have been that late west Coast starting time. Actually, it’s great that we dropped a notch. Michigan is now suddenly ranked above us, and they just happen to be next up, Saturday night at about 6:00 in the "Face-off at the Fort". It will be the last "home" game for seniors. I’ll cry for sure. I love this batch like I hatched them myself or something.

I’M BACK IN THE SADDLE (I think)

I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t afraid of getting spanked yesterday. It all didn’t look that good on paper. We were the "dog" as they say. The opponent (SSU) was on a major roll, coming in with lots of confidence. They hadn’t lost in over a year or maybe almost two. They had just beaten CU on the first game of their spring roadie. We, on the other hand, had just lost the other day to a team that previously hadn’t even been ranked in the USLIA top 25, ever. Since that loss in Utah, even now just 4 days ago, the team has had an endless bus ride in a blizzard, and then we had but one practice to prepare for the "Big Game" with SSU. It was not much of an opportunity to toss in the hand grenade of changes I had in mind. Oh well, I threw it in the pile anyway.

Even though I was not in Utah last Friday and Saturday, I think I have a real good idea what Saturday looked like and it was not pretty, at least in my mind’s eye. Change was all I thought about after I heard the final outcome. It did not matter to me that it had been the third game in one day or whatever. We needed some shake-up… as if we hadn’t had enough lately……..

Watching how all these changes did or did not work in the game yesterday really kept me on my toes. It also reminded me that I am liable to try almost anything, and I like it when I think that way (at least between the coaching lines).

TANGLED UP IN BLUE

There was a tremendous immediacy in my mind when I was preparing my thoughts for the Sonoma State game, especially after the Utah melt down. I was once again flying in foggy conditions instead of waiting to see a patch of safe blue before taking off. However, once the actual game started all I cared about was for us to dictate somewhat how the pace of the game would go. I wanted us to set the pace of play, not them. I watched for a while to see if it would happen on its own.

What I wanted was to not chase Sonoma all day long from two or three goals down as we had in the two losses to them last year. Even though we got behind, and I think it was 2 or 3 to zero after the first quarter, I liked the way the game was going right from the start. We played hard and we played pretty smart for as rusty as we might have been. We were fighting for and getting loose balls. We got back in the game relatively quickly once we got to it in the second. We ain’t all that shiny, but we absolutely did not suck. For the record, from where I sat (in my living room 500 miles to the east) I thought we did (suck) against BYU last Friday night. We did, however, win. That doesn’t make it all right to suck. Against Sonoma, however, we played a nice and consistent game.

It felt so good to be back "patrolling" the sidelines in a big game yesterday. It was easy to focus on the immediate task again, finally. However, at one point during the game I turned around in the coaching box and all I saw were really good players out of uniform, standing around me and all were leaning on the crutches that were on either side of them. I couldn’t even see the players in uniform behind all these crutches with a face. I felt like I was lost somewhere in the last scene from "The Charge of the Light Brigade". . It frightened me. I had to get some of them out of my vision. It was like the dream where you go to school with no pants. In order to coach there must be players or that lack can become somewhat of a distraction. It won’t snow that much more this year, but it can conceivably rain injuries all year round. Most who are injured now should be healthy for Vail in July. Great, that helps my current movie not at all.

Not only do we have alumni coming to games, but we have alumni parents as well. One mother of two graduates was at the game, cell phoning updates to her sons who had played here at CSU. These boys would have been here for the game, but they now have graduated and have actual jobs. Who knew? It was a pretty good crowd out there for a Tuesday afternoon.

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