Tuesday, May 18, 2004

10 REASONS WE LOST or BOO! SCARED YA’

1 - During our absolute last practice I went down on a knee and leaned on my two year-old stick head and it snapped. I had not broken a stick in more years than I can remember. It could not have waited until next week.

2 - When we got to the airport and got to our plane, who was there, but UCSB. This was a hugely bad sign. Sonoma did it two years ago. I hated it then and I hated it this time. We could not get away from them all week. Everywhere we went, there they were. I hate the "Olympic Village" concept. I do not wish to chum with my rivals during the championship tournament.

3 - I told too many secrets about us in here (journal), leaving us in a situation where we were always perceived as the perpetrator on the field. I had created a situation that made us have to live up to a higher standard of behavior than others. I was told as much. I am conflicted on this issue (journal revelations), because telling things without limiting myself (too much) is what makes it fun as a coach, too.

4 - Of course it was an even year, and I have kept the even year jinx thing going.

5 - When we played SB in Michigan in April they scored a goal (#9?) that made me know we were in trouble (we lost 10-8) and I looked up at the clock which read exactly 4:44 left in the game. This was like God telling me that the 4th championship would not come easily and that I was looking at the Gaucho roadblock right there in front of me. I dismissed it at the time as a cosmic riddle that I would be able to solve.

6 - My wife had a bad dream and didn’t tell me. All information from the Beyond comes from her. It is kind of like Nancy Reagan was for Ronnie. She was withholding to protect me. Last year she dreamt that we would be champions before it was so, so I do not dismiss her dreams.

7 - HEHATEME no more. I will find a new, more acceptable way to rage against the machine. We never had a true identity as a team. We had lots of little identities.

8 - SAM (Flip) YOU MADE THE SEASON TOO LONG. I built us too demanding of a schedule. There was almost no way to save or build our best game for the last one. I won’t do that again. I knew it, too, but I did it anyway.

9 - Some people didn’t do enough of the "extra" work that is so necessary within my structure or lack thereof. I believe that the personal time that you spend with your inner athlete is about equal to the importance of family harmony. These things need to have an impact on one another constantly for the engine to hit on all cylinders, at least that is what I believe. You have to constantly renew or reinvent yourself as a player or as a coach. This is crucial to the growth of a team. For example, I would never say at halftime, "Let’s just keep doing what we are doing", unless we were to play an absolutely perfect half. There is little likelihood of that, so no matter how well we do or do not do, I continually try to "fix". If I don’t want business as usual in the second half, I certainly don’t want that out of the next season either.

10 - There was this time out I might have called, or that call they didn’t make, or if I would have said this or not called that, but that isn’t the truth. It all just somehow seemed like it wasn’t meant to be this year, almost the same way that last year WAS meant to be, in spite of it all.

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