Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal

Saturday, June 5, 2004

The Japanese National team soundly beat us, 9-2, but at least the game took place on a grass field inside a stadium.

They (Japanese National Team) have much more speed and a little more skill than we do. On top of that we didn't play very well. It was an eye opener for the team, and it put us in touch with our biggest weaknesses, which were a lack of experience, our inability to clear the ball, and our lack of team speed.

DUELING COACHES

Our other main problem was that we had dueling coaches. Both Scott DeMonte and I are head coach types with large tendencies to try to control all that we survey. This is in spite of the fact that I could sit or maybe even stand on Scott's shoulders and we would still appear small next to Shaquille (?) O'Neal. We were tripping all over one another. I knew that what I needed to do was to change that. We need to work together at making a better team, and not fight over who will make the more motivational speech. We talked, I changed my focus a little, and things began to feel more right. The truth is that we should be able to work together well, because he (Scott) loves the X's and O's, and as for me, I can let go of all that, because for the most part I don't give a damn about them unless they have something to do with the way we are playing defense.

We bounced back in the second game of the day and beat a fairly good Club team by a few goals. It is hard for me to tell, and I don't mean to make it sound like, "They all look alike", but it seemed like we were somewhat playing many of the same guys in different uniforms for some of these games. We were now 4-1 for the trip.

THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE

Mark Plonkey (CSU) is the only player I can think of who could come over here and get an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty called on him for something he said to a referee who doesn't speak English. He got one today and even made it look easy.

OH, BILL!

I had to give a speech Saturday night at a reception held by the City of Edogawa for us (USA West men and women) as well as for the Princeton University Tiger lacrosse team that is also over here. The mayor of the city and other Chamber of Commerce type dignitaries were there. We all dressed up in coats and ties (no board shorts whatsoever). I got to rub elbows with my coaching mentor, Bill Tierney (Princeton) and I tried to act somehow other than the way a star struck schoolgirl might. He may or may not know he is my mentor, but everyone who has ever played for me at CSU knows that he is. It's not like we hang out together or anything, but I've watched a lot of Princeton tape.

He (Bill) gave a speech, too. I surprised myself by actually enjoying my speech making moment. They laid out a buffet for us that was so American in its style that while everyone else was focusing on their alcoholic consumption and the fourteen or so women who were there amongst the many, many boys to men that were there, I was going back to the feed over and over, stuffing myself with canapé's and tiny egg salad sandwiches with no crust like there would be no food available tomorrow, and I was reveling in these things that seemed like food I only used to eat, way back before these last 5 days of Miso soup and wet rice, etc.

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