Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal

Sunday, July 25, 2004

 LEADERSHIP STARTS IN THE MIDDLE

Along with hopefully putting in a largely rebuilt team engine powered by internal combustion, one using alternative "fuels", I also want many other things for 2005 CSU lacrosse.  In 2004 we missed the quiet leadership of a graduated Jared Katz, AKA the Rabbit, and I don't mean the Volkswagen kind.  Jared didn't make speeches.  His playing demeanor and body language said everything about him, and having him on the team would make any coach utter the words, "I could coach a million guys like him".  Jared made a point of searching for his best role, and consistently demonstrating his value to the TEAM thing.  He did it day after day and play after play. 

My hope is that Kellin Bershinsky will help us fill more of the role of "lead by deed".  There can never be enough of those guys. Kellin is one of our 3 pre-elected captains.  The others are Harper for the second time (#2 and already proven as a great captain), and senior Defenseman Ryan Price (#33). When the captains and I go out to dinner it will look like I have 3 huge, young bodyguards.

Anyway, Kellin (#29) has not only reinvented his personal body type, now faster, and wth added explosiveness, but he has been highly motivated to improve and elevate his overall game.  Over the past little more than one year this junior-to-be has turned himself into our "silent assassin" on close defense.  We build our match-ups against the other team's attack based on where we want the big K. 

JOAN BENOIT SAMUELSON – NOT EXACTLY KRYSTAL CARRINGTON        

I watch too much TV, but not as much as I once did when prime time actually meant something to me (Dynasty, baby. Sammy Joe was so hot).  I haven't seen much of that nonsense in a couple decades, and what was I thinking then anyway?  I do still manage some David Letterman viewing (I love Will it Float?) before night night here in the new millennium, and of course, I change channels to ESPN and all its little siblings a lot as well. 

I was watching a documentary (Bud Greenspan) on the 1984 Olympic games held in Los Angeles on ESPN Classic the other day.  They had features (with interviews then and now) on Mary Lou Retton, Jackie Joyner, Mary Decker, and Carl Lewis (how can he now be 40 something?).  They also peeked in on Joan Benoit Samuelson.  This lady won the first Olympic marathon for women ever held in that year of 1984. She totally fascinated me.

Two things struck me about Joan, and that is not counting the fact that she plans to qualify for the Olympic marathon in 2008 when she will be fifty.  She didn't say she wanted to enter necessarily, just to still be fast enough. 

The first thing that I liked was hearing her talk about the fact that she never looks at the courses she runs before she runs them.  I think whatever makes her do that is somehow similar to what in me makes me not want to look at too much video tape of our opponents before we play them.  I don't want to muddle my mind with too many preconceived notions about people I don't know nearly as well (theoretically) as I know my own team. I want to base things we do in games on what we do or do well rather than on what the other team does, has, or thinks about.

Late in her first Boston Marathon in the late 70's, Joan asked a male runner (the only ones still around her at that point were men) where (the infamous) Heartbreak Hill was.  She didn't realize that she had already run up it a little earlier in the race.  It must have been empowering at the moment she discovered that.  It also seems like the extreme edge of naivety for a world-class, albeit young marathoner.  That struck me as kind of cool.  

She ran the Olympic event in L.A., but trained only near her home in Maine.  That takes more than just confidence. Either she knows something about herself or she is a female Forest Gump.

The other thing that I admired was her ability to completely trust her instincts as a competitor. In the first place, Joan was not your typical high-strung, over managed, pampered athlete.  When she started to run that first Olympic Marathon she sensed something that made her toss out all her planned strategy, say screw it, and just go with her gut feeling, which was to sprint away from the pack of runners and hide.  She got impatient and she fled the scene.  She ran her fastest on the hottest, loneliest part of the course, and she did other things that runners aren't supposed to do.  The field never caught her. Joan wore the gold and heard her anthem played on that day.

As a coach I feel more confidence when we have a good plan for a game, but I do not fear running away from the "map" to success when it doesn't work. I don't fear sticking with it when it does work.  Each game has a life and a feel of its own.  I would do my team a disservice by not flying by the seat of my pants from time to time.  That's where the really exciting stuff comes from anyway.

I like being part of a team dynamic.  The best ideas can come from almost anywhere or anyone.

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