Friday, September 19, 2003

TANGLED UP IN GREEN and GOLD

I came in "unsettled" this past Monday, convinced that we needed something new and different to stimulate practice. Whatever the reason might have been, we were not improving. Our on-field bonding was less than impressive. It was bothering the compulsive me. This week needed to be better.

I split the team into two parts for the week. I wanted to get some "clean action" going with our "A" Team if you will. I wanted certain people working as a unit..

I also feel right now that many of the younger players need to learn more about our basics from the assistant coaches for a while so they don’t come in and "screw up my drills".

We have not looked like a team hungry to improve and to get closer from day to day. This always bothers me, and right now the days are starting to get relentlessly shorter, so it bothers me all the more. I was not a happy Robin Hood. I had to take action.

I always have mixed emotions about dividing the one team into two, because when I split them, many people see their name on the Green team, for example, and they know that this is not the one they really want to be on. So, I have created grumpy people where there had been none. My chosen Gold team was obviously stacked, the appearance being that it was the varsity or "A" Team. It also was a much smaller group. The "elite" team had just19 names on it.

Meanwhile the Green team had almost 40 players on the list. I knew it would be discouraging for some or perhaps many of them to see their name on the board printed in green. I’m after the truth, but it is way too early for me to really know very much about who fits where.

MOTHERLESS CHILDREN HAVE A HARD TIME

All this splitting up the team was a little hard on me too (family guy), because I didn’t want my search for one kind of continuity to discourage players who already aren’t at all sure about where they stand in the whole scheme of things. I don’t want them to feel they are second class citizens. This (playing) is a huge commitment. I don’t want to drive away a "Diamond in the rough" either. At the same time they need to figure out how to get to their own next level. I can guide and suggest, but I am incapable of spoon-feeding success to them. They have to want to go somewhere they have never been or it doesn't mean a thing. They have to do the work or the body will never know how to do the things it is asked to do..

I WANT TO ATTACK EVERYTHING

I approached this potential abandonment problem as serious. I never want a true "lover" of the game thinking he wouldn’t ever have a chance to show his stuff. That's not me. I began trying to confuse them a bit by moving a few people "up" from green to gold or vice versa as the week went on. Since Gold had been so much smaller, I mostly just added to that group. Many of these players have been getting at least a taste of what they had wished for, too, which is the chance to play in a situation where they were surrounded by better players. To the ones that didn't get the chance yet I say, "You will. Be ready."

A-B-C'S OF PROGRESS

The "A" and "B"Team thing is hard to do well anyway, because we never have EVERYONE at practice at the same time in the fall, and it may be truer than ever this autumn It was time to do it (split up teams), though, and I knew it. There is always going to be a "C" factor to any change in team dynamics anyway. I wasn't sure what would happen, but it is early. However bad I may screw up now, I still have time to recover before it "counts".

Many guys understand that they are "on the bubble", and that many times little things can make the big difference. It is food for their thought. All in all the week gave me as coach some good evaluation opportunities, both in terms of looking at individuals and also in how we are coming along as a team machine.

So far, so good I guess. They are still coming to practice in droves.

I hear that arch in-state rival C.U. has 95 players out and will be stacked this year.

We have a scrimmage Sunday against a local Men’s Club Team. Finally, we get a chance to take it out on somebody else.

PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER

I have been preaching a lot lately that they (student-athletes) need to get their schoolwork and finances really in order this semester, and that remains a high priority for me right now. How well they can budget their time now will have plenty to do with how well they deal with later, which is much a more taxing time.

I always want to "look" at every player as much as I can, and right now, here in the fall. I want to see them in as many different situations as possible. I want players to have ample chance to "show me" what they can do. It can be harder to do this inside the two-class system, because, as in this case, one team becomes dominant. Next week we will go back to more of a free-form script, but this week has told me plenty about us and many of them, so I'm more than glad I did it. As it was I probably was the one who most needed to be stimulated anyway.

NO DRAWING BOARD IS OKAY NOW AND THEN

The combination of many things thus far has made it so that I have not even attempted to practice EMO vs. MDD (Penalty kill situations) as true specialty teams in practice, not once. It’s usually something I spend a lot of time on during the fall. We are doing random 6 vs. 5 drills, but that’s it. Every day finds a few key guys missing for one reason or another, making special team continuity even more difficult. I don’t really mind this right now. I like the juice that forces me to come up with more creative drills. Drills are definitely my way of teaching team concepts, and overcoming things I have no control over..

SPOOLING TO DISK

What I do mind is not seeing that little bit of "IT" that I’m looking for inside us as a team. Yesterday’s scrimmage had a few glimpses of control and domination eminating from the Gold team.. That’s what I’m looking for. The opponent has to become almost secondary. The mind set is our connection and the options that are always available inside the game's action.

DON’T SURROUND YOURSELF WITH YOURSELF
Yes

I have had a week of feeling alternately secure and insecure about the things that I know, or think I know as a coach. I get scared sometimes when I remember or just contemplate how much I don’t know. All I do know about me as a coach for sure is that I can never know enough. I am not as smart as I often think I am, and I must always remember that. I do know that I never want to pigeon-hole myself into thinking in only one way as a coach, and I don’t ever want to limit myself in the way I go about making decisions.

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